June 2008
Monthly Archive
Marriage: Learning to Love
My daughter was recently in her school’s performance of Fiddler On The Roof. She was one of the daughters. If you don’t know the story, it focuses on the changing culture of marriage, from one where the marriage is arrainged by family and community to one based on mutual attraction.
In one of the songs, the main character asks his wife if she loves him. She replies that for 25 years, she has shared his bed, made his meals, tended his house, raised his children — so what kind of question is that? The point is that in their relationship, love wasn’t even a question or consideration. But after some back-and-forth, they decide that, indeed, they love each other.
This led me to think about what I know about marriage. And here is what I think about the question of love and marriage: we fall in love to get together, then spend the rest of our lives learning to love the other.
You see, the initial attraction is really about “I.” “I” feel a certain way, so I know I am “in love.” But that part of the relationship is driven by my need to feel that way, my need to be with the other person, my need to have my needs met. My needs are fueled by my desire to feel the intense emotion of “being in love.”
But in reality, love is a verb, something I do for the other. So, it takes the rest of my life to learn how to attend to my spouse’s needs. From my desire to be with my spouse comes my desire to meet my spouse’s love needs.
We are “fooled” into commitment by the overwhelming feeling of attraction, and then we have to put forth effort to create a sustained relationship. I say “fooled” because our culture has us believing that this love is the foundation of a relationship. It is not. It is merely a temporary starting point. It is not the destination. It is just a part of the journey to a lifetime relationship.
Those intense feelings will calm over time. The overwhelming need to be with someone that marks the infatuation portion of a relationship is not sustainable on its own. It’s like placing a flame in a bottle. Eventually, the flame will burn all the oxygen in the bottle and be extinguished.
So, there has to be some “fueling of the fire.” This is “love,” the verb. When I act in loving ways, I fuel the fire and keep it burning. If I stop tending to the other’s needs because I don’t feel that infatuation, the relationship will slowly (or not so slowly) die away.
When we continue to believe that “love” (infatuation) is the heart of a relationship, when that feeling is gone, we believe we are no longer in love. That is not the case; we have just failed to fuel the fire.
Reality TV has proven that any two people, given the right circumstances and settings, can fall into love (chemistry of infatuation). But story after story shows that it is harder to make the switch to “true love” that comes from action. Choose action, and don’t be fooled by chemistry.
By acting on love, by making love a verb and not an emotion, we keep the emotional fire stoked. And that is the great irony: if we depend on the feeling of being in love to keep us together, it will fail. But if we set that aside and focus on being loving, the feeling of being in love is sustained. Mature love is a verb, not an emotion.
Discover the secrets of creating a great marriage, even from a crumbling marriage, by visiting www.savethemarriage.com. The author’s excellent blog can be found at www.savethemarriage.com/blog/blog.html.
Intro to Online Sport Wagers
Relate both of everybody’s greatest interests and you’ll uncover a trend we commonly call a sportsbook betting Web location. Really now - what could be more inventive… If you visualize a convocation of fanatics rooting for any preferred local team, and constantly antes are certain to be arranged going with the rumpus. So keen to get a bit of the exhilaration, spectators will normally seek to divine who is most likely to win the approaching meet. Put together, this all turns to become a cute little meet known as sportsbook betting Web location.
Learn to play olympic sports bet now!
Granted that it might easily appear to be addicting instead sports wagering is really purely entertaining and to bond with one’s fellow sports fans. You can risk a any minute budget of boodle and yet enjoy yourself. See below for a select number of basic tips to help everyone get started sports wagering.
To wager, you’d be well advised to search out a sportsbook betting Web location, i.e. a setup which admits sportsbook betting Web location. In the U.S.A., you can find four states to do sports wagering in a lawful manner, but if legality is no concern, you can go for it anyplace provided you can hunt out a bookie AND happen to be legally of age. Included sports activities you can choose to bet on are professional in conjunction with college football plus college basketball, professional baseball, professional hockey, in conjunction with betting on both horse and dog racing. You’ll be able to bet on the total combined score of a game, at which point the contestant will go under, and even whether a tossed coin in a game will come out either heads or tails.
The bookie outfit put their face in statistical methods to help you out determine which team you sense is most likely to win. Primarily, there’s chances, that is to say point lead given to a the disadvantaged lineup that is assumed to go under by a set number points. Self-Evidently, this comprises the bookmaker’s modality of making objective wagers possible for a Sports Book. For example you could bet money on a contestor that is assumed to go under and and yet profit from the wager provided the lineup does actually get beaten by a set number of points.
So why not do some test runs and entertain yourself all at once… Simply be on the guard so that you won’t get ripped away and exhaust your entire social security checks on a conceit! After all chances are you’ll end up feeling sorry about it till the end of your days!
Video Stuff26 Jun 2008 05:32 pm
Near Earth Objects; Asteroids, Comets, Meteors and Fragments Hitting the Earth?
One thing that science has become completely obsessed with is the potential eventuality of Earth being hit by a Near Earth Object such as an Asteroid, Comet or Meteors. Since May 12 some broken fragments have been whizzing by Earth from the Schwassmann Wachmann Comet 73P and one former NASA Space Trainer has stated he believes that on or about May 25 that a large fragment will hit the Mid Atlantic Ridge causing a huge Tsunami. NASA of course says that is simply not possible at all.
Nevertheless we should consider such an eventual potential eventuality and we should have a disaster plan in place and host a fire drill scenario, because 2036 is approaching and we do expect some very close proximity objects to also whiz on by and too close for comfort. Currently we do not have the technology right now to stop such an event if it were to occur you see? Worse off; the Moon if hit would be more vulnerable than Earth and what if it has debris knocked clear which entered our atmosphere?
All these things we need to study and I am thankful that NASA indeed is studying these things along with so many other nations, as it unites us all in a common cause void of war and still allows our economic flows to the defense industry to work on the problem. Perhaps we might consider all this in 2006.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
5 External Climatic Factors That Affect an Interior Design Project
Dear friends, the emergence of architecture in human society
has taken a wide and distinct role in itself. Starting from
early eras where man used to live in caves, we have seen a
remarkable growth in architecture and allied fields, which
includes landscape and interior design
The recent being the use of computers and “Computer Aided Design”
in architecture, which allows a kind of perfection in design
and execution process of any building and its interiors.
In spite of all the technological advances, the primary function
of any building structure remains the same, protection from
outside environment and natural calamities.
Starting from a place to “protect yourself’ from nature, interior
design has become a “status symbol”. Today’s interior spaces have
a two way channel, first and the obvious one is the function and
second one is aesthetical, which is a little complex one.
It is quite obvious that the interior design of a space is directly
related to the function of the space. This means that two spaces
like a home and an office have two well defined functions, hence
it will reflect in every aspect of the interior design solution.
But apart from the there is one more important factor that
will affect each and every aspect of the final design solution,
and that’s the geographical location of the architectural structure.
A hotel building at seashore and the other one at a hill station
will have a completely different sets of problems to deal with.
Lets see in a short way what are the external factors that can
affect an interior design solution
1) Amount of direct sunlight.
Locations on the far northern or southern hemisphere receive less
amount of sunlight than those at the equator. That’s why here the
building with more use of plane glass are used. Also artificial
lighting is given much importance.
2) External temperature.
External temperature directly affects the comfort level of internal
spaces. Since external walls act as a “buffer” between internal
and external climate, it is necessary to use the right construction
material for walls. Depending upon the wall material the internal
finishes also have limitations. This is especially true for
structure that face extreme climatic ups and downs, such as
locations in the gulf countries.
Hence selecting materials that can sustain heavy climatic changes
on a daily scale is challenging.
3) Humidity and Rainfall.
Because of the salty nature of air around coastal areas extra care
is taken for building construction materials, which can directly
affect the entire budget of the project.
4)Wind Direction.
Wind direction and wind speed also has direct affect on the interiors.
Heavy winds exert a load on the external walls of the structure,
thus affecting the construction technology.
5)Land Structure and Topography.
Land structure is the nature of land on which the structure stands.
Various types of land structures include rock solid, marshy land,
etc…Topography of land is classified as plane or a site with slope.
If the site of the structure is on a hill slope, extra precautions
are taken to allow the natural flow of rainwater that the structure
might block. Depending upon the quality of land surface the construction
technology will change.
As far as interiors are concerned a well planned structure with
properly thought spaces is a must because internally the spaces
get divided into various floors.
From the above short discussion it can be said that external factors
and environment greatly affect the way structures are built and thus
directly affecting the interior qualities of the structure.
Technological advancements have allowed us to artificially control
the internal environment of a building irrespective of what’s
happening outside. But a carefully studied and well planned
architectural space can easily cut the extra cost of air conditioning
and other ventilation services.
I hope this article was informative to everyone.
Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya
Shrinivas Vaidya is the webmaster of Bedroom-Design-And-Decorating-Ideas.com .Here you will find some great concept level design tips for bedroom design, bedroom sets and bedroom decorating ideas.
Tech Specs23 Jun 2008 08:38 pm
The Current Notebook Trends
Notebook computer shipments are approximately estimated to be in the region of 127million units this year, which is immense! So high demand but short supply according to what manufacturers are anticipating. Its actually suprising that economic predicaments and all haven’t hindered this demand for laptop computers either. Whatever you do you’re dealing with technology that is progressing all the time so its tough to keep up with the latest trends.
A lot of brands have been coming out with gaming notebooks lately. With prices falling and new technology being released rather rapidly it means that consumers are getting more roi. Laptop computers can now naturally be used for gaming by gamers due to the increased performance of new systems. Even more impressive these days In my opinion is how sleek the designs are getting especially when you think about much performance is in them. Gaming speed between notebook computers and desktops should forever be in favour of desktops though, simply because desktops are always going to be bigger and more powerful. It seems as if everybody is obsessed with designing sleeker, lightweight notebook computers and I’m sure we’ll see gaming notebooks like that soon.
Talking of gaming notebooks, the greater alternatives are attainable when they are custom built. The notion of aquiring third party parts appeals to some customers in my view. It just gives the purchaser added options at the end of the day. Mass market notebooks are not manufactured with specialist consumers in mind and this could raise a predicament. You can get a far suitable laptop by buying one custom built. There are plenty of resellers selling custom notebooks, with exceptional customer care. A number of niche sectors recognise they are catered for better because of this.
We are seeing some fairly awesome things at the moment and I question what will be released next. Simple ultra mobiles are the popular thing. Clearly this will be something massive in 3rd world markets. I think the market would prefer to see larger notebooks that weigh a lot less than todays technology. I reckon you could say these notebooks are already obtainable if you are ready to pay the money. I’m certain we’ll see ultra portable gaming notebooks soon. Despite the fact that laptop technology follows roadmaps theres forever going to be a product that changes all that.
For cheap gaming laptops check http://www.rizeon.com/gaming_laptops/page.php
Online Networks23 Jun 2008 05:56 am
The Reliability of Spam Filters
The only way to keep up with the latest about The Reliability Spam Filters is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about The Reliability Spam Filters, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority.
Spam filters supposedly stop spam ,ails, phishing mails, which are another type of spam that comes through the mailbox, but pose more of a risk than other types of spam email.
Thus, if a phishing email comes to your in inbox and you provide the sender with your information, you have put yourself at a high risk of having your identity stolen. This means that you must avoid these emails at all costs.
Internet service providers today claim to place high-security on their services. However, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and other services probably have less security than you might believe especially with their default settings.
If you don’t have accurate details regarding The Reliability Spam Filters, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading.
The fact is that spam emails and phishing emails especially put the account holder at risk. The phishing mails are worse because they appear to come from account providers, such as banks, internet service providers and businesses. Thus, avoiding these mails at all cost is part of filtering your mail. While AOL has a spam filter integrated into its server, it still does not have the power to stop the perpetrators completely if you fail to do so yourself, you could end up at high-risk of having your identity stolen.
If you think you have problems now just sorting through and deleting those emails, just think of how much more trouble you will have if you ever accidently answer one. You will have to contact credit bureaus, cancel credit cards, and withdraw money from your bank accounts.
Thus, the ultimate filter for reducing and getting rid of spam or phishing emails is either to not answer them at all or to remit a blank email to the sender.
Spam email filters may seem highly reliable, but do not misunderstand that to mean that you now have the freedom to open anything in your inbox without any scrutiny. Always take the time to sort and separate your mail.
Is there really any information about The Reliability Spam Filters that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.
Management Stuff20 Jun 2008 11:09 pm
The Impact of Price Popularity on Profits
The goal of almost every business owner is to generate a profit either for themselves or their shareholders. This can be challenging at best. So much thought and effort go into running a business, accounts payable, accounts receivable, dealing with vendors, customers, etc. Because of this people sometimes do not focus on one of the most important factors- pricing. Knowing how much you can charge for your product or service is invaluable information. Businesses typically want to increase volume and prices at the same time. In a perfect world that would be easy to accomplish, yet we do not live in a perfect world. So just how do businesses go about deciding how much to charge for a product or service?
One way that businesses do this is through trial and error, by seeing how much they can charge before volume starts to drop off. This is a very ineffective method, but is practiced by more businesses than you may realize. Another method is determining what percentage of profit over cost that you want. Perhaps you sell automobiles and decide that you require a profit of 5% on every car that is sold, and then you price accordingly. While this method is good for determining if you are going to cover overhead and other expenses, it may not be the best way to increase sales. A person can spend weeks trying to determine the correct price for their products and services. Economists have many formulas to determine price elasticity, market demand, and cost shifting. All of these economic formulas can be helpful, but are very time consuming and sometimes require hiring a consultant.
There are some easier ways to go about setting prices. Once you have determined a ‘ballpark’ price that covers your costs, you can begin adjusting it up or down to maximize profits. A relatively new concept that is garnering a great deal of attention from businesses big and small is the concept of price popularity. Price popularity is just what the name implies, looking at how popular, or how frequently a price is used. For example, surely you have noticed how many commercials on television sell items for $19.95. This is a very popular price when compared to $19.77. Do you see many products priced at $19.77? The frequency in which consumers see a price has a strong effect on their purchasing decisions.
Knowing about price popularity, and how to apply it, can help turn a slow selling item or service into a highly demanded item or service. Should a business set a price at $19.99 or $19.95? Does a price read differently to a consumer if it appears as $72.00 or $72? Research shows that it does in fact affect a consumer’s decision making. Gaining access to the research that shows the most popular prices, the ones that consumers feel most comfortable with, is a precious resource to a business. This is much easier than spending the numerous hours of financial analysis to make an educated guess at what volume business will drop off if you raise or lower the price by a mere few cents.
The more a business owner knows about pricing strategies the more successful they will be in generating profits. Incorrect pricing can have devastating effects on a business. While many spend time trying to determine a break-even analysis and price elasticity, how many have really considered the psychological appearance of a price and the popularity of that price.
In today’s extremely competitive business world a business owner needs every advantage they can get to outwit their competition. Researching the information available on price popularity simply puts a business one step ahead of their competitors.
About The Author
Konstantin Goudkov studies the psychology of pricing, ways to manipulate prices for maximum profit, and tactics to control consumer price perception.
You can find his latest report at: http://www.PricePointReport.com
The Prospering Transnational Real Property Space — Expedited by The PropertyIndex.com Company
Overseas property specialists Property Index sell a range of properties such as apartments and villas.
In spite of the fact that the Property Index service is only a new kid on the block enterprise, (they were founded only in March of 2007), they were very swift to gain in reputation. On closer scrutiny, they are a pretty artless enterprise specializing in proposing guidance to anyone dedicated to sell, buy, rent or let real estate in a globalized world. Their affirmation is to offer you assistance to locate smack what’s looked for swiftly and, obviously, unproblematically. Real estate can easily be purchased in many parts of the world today, one of the choicest areas being real estate available for sale in Spain. It should really be easy to write up the wonderful properties available in Spain, the motivation for investigating estate here is the houses and apartments available and the fabulous opportunity of spending your life together with such a bubbly and welcoming population.
It is one of the most well-liked regions of the world today, and with the scenic beauty and wonderful weather surrounding you all year, how could you be wrong… Real estate in Spain is steeped in history, art and culture, this geographical region has always been home to more than a few indigenous civilizations. Around 30 years ago you’d find very few of British people keen on properties in Spain. Ask any person who has chosen to remove to Spain and they are certain to back it up. Many would describe it as a fad and others describe it as a that’s more or less a fetish… People who are intent on moving here may extend from yuppies keen on an exciting challenge to the retired looking to have fun.
Do bear in mind, though, that there could be complications when attempting to acquire properties overseas — you’ll learn that there are 100s of heterogeneous, sometimes conflicting, actions when budgeting, visiting or buying and completing. If you only miss a single minute action it is liable to easily bring about large complications not to forget, more important, a financial trouncing. As you would presume with this popular location, properties can be fairly dear in this destination and this, of course, is solely a result of the expanding demand. In spite of this customers are somewhat spoilt in terms of choice in such a region characterized by marvelous countryside. It doubtlessly has everything any of us may fall for etc.
Do You Need Weight Control Help For The Holidays?
For over 4000 years ephedra (Ma huang) has been used in Chinese medicine to treat several disorders. Ephedra comes from a plant that has a few powerful active compounds, of which ephedrine is the most useful. Research has shown that ephedra increases metabolism and helps promote weight loss, relaxes the air passages in the lungs to help treat asthma and cough, promotes perspiration to help a person recover from a minor cold and helps promote urination to help relieve edema. Ephedra has been widely researched for its thermogenic (fat burning) properties. Research has shown that ephedra helps promote the loss of fat while helping spare lean muscle tissue, a highly sought-after property that prescription diet medications still have not been able to reproduce.
Because of its stimulating effect on the nervous system, ephedra can be found in some popular weight loss and energy products. For dieters it suppresses the appetite and stimulates the thyroid gland, which stimulates metabolism. Recently ma huang has been the subject of scientific research for obesity because of its thermogenic fat-burning effect on dietary intake. Ma huang is also found in “energy” products that may give athletes extra energy without draining their reserves. People also indicate an increase in alertness and perception. Similar to the diet formulas, it is often combined with ingredients such as kola nut or guarana, which contain caffeine.
Everyone agrees that the way we lose weight is to burn more calories than we consume. Ephedra helps in that process by producing a thermogenic effect, which causes one to burn more calories. Further, it appears that by taking Ephedra people seem to eat less and have more energy and thus are more active. Whether one also needs to consciously lower their caloric intake and/or exercise depends on a variety of circumstances, which is best discussed with your health care professional. Ephedra had been banned for the last year because of possible health risks. Thursday, April 14 2005 (Health Day News) — Saying that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not met the burden of proof that any specific dosage of the controversial weight-loss drug ephedra was dangerous, a U.S. District Court judge in Salt Lake City has lifted the year-old FDA ban and sent the matter back to the agency for further evaluation.
From the Ephedra Educational Council web site “More than 15 million consumers a year benefit from Ephedra, with only a minute fraction reporting problems to the FDA. Any risk of inappropriate use must be balanced against the health benefits accruing to millions of Americans. The nation’s obesity epidemic creates a personal and public imperative for weight control, and 98 million Americans must not be denied an option for improving their health without conclusive scientific evidence.” Investigate
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House Of Insurance20 Jun 2008 01:01 am
Cheap Car Insurance
Finding good car insurance can be very difficult. Here are a few tips:
- Try a few different insurance companies. Companies are different. So are their prices. You may find that one company wants to charge you $1000/month for insurance and another will only charge you $400/month. You might be one of the lucky ones who only gets charged $30/month. Regardless of who you are, call multiple carriers even if the first quote you get appears to be low. You may find another company with a lower rate for you.
- Talk to friends and family. Other people are just like you, they want cheap insurance too. Chances are, you know someone who has already called all over the place and can give you some good pointers on which car insurance companies were the cheapest for them. Remember, nobody likes to spend money on auto insurance.
- Use the internet. The internet is a great place to find auto insurance. You can find out information about insurance companies, compare rates, get quotes, and shop around without leaving your house. There are also websites out there like 1carinsurance.org who have organized insurance company data and user data and will tell you which companies people are having success with in finding the best car insurance for them.
- Get auto insurance quotes. Don’t just trust them. Get a quote. They’re free (or, if the quote isn’t free you know you don’t want to use that company). If you can get quotes from 6 or 7 different companies, you then have hard data to compare the companies against each other. You’re also pretty sure you’re going to get the lowest rate.
- Try local companies. Often times people only think about the big auto insurance companies like Geico or Progressive. They don’t even look around their local communities for auto insurance companies that might exist. Often local companies can offer cheaper rates because they don’t have the large buracracy that larger companies have.
Just remember to shop around as you look for cheaper car insurance. The first company isn’t always the best.
John Jonas is an entepreneur and a family man with interests in real estate, marketing, and financial products. You can find out more info at John Jonas Blog.
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