How to Stop a Runny Nose with Over-the-Counter Medications

The quickest way to alleviate allergies is to take an over-the-counter antihistamine. This is a medication that blocks the substance causing the allergic reaction. Though antihistamines are effective, they can also make you sleepy and cause side effects. Many people prefer natural methods for relieving their runny noses and other allergy symptoms.

If your runny nose is caused by a head cold, an over-the-counter cold remedy might help. The medications usually dry up mucus and alleviate other symptoms of the cold. Medication cannot cure your cold and you will have to take additional doses as the symptoms return. They can make the period of your illness more comfortable and allow you to attend work or school when sick. Remember though, cold medications do not affect how contagious you are, so respect co-workers and classmates when determining whether to go about your usual activities.

How to Stop a Runny Nose with Natural Remedies

Saline solutions are sometimes effective for clearing a stuffy nose and stopping a runny nose. Saline reduces the swelling in your nasal passages and increases the body’s natural ability to ward off foreign invaders. Saline nasal sprays are different than chemical sprays and are not addictive. You can purchase saline nasal sprays pre-made or make your own using water, table salt, and an eyedropper.

The discomfort associated with head colds and allergies is alleviated when you learn how to stop a runny nose.

One of the most popular ways to use a saline solution is with a Neti pot. A Neti pot is similar to a teapot and is a popular treatment used by Ayurvedic practitioners. The pot flushes out the nasal passages and makes it easier for the cilia, which are the tiny hairs inside of the nose, to remove the allergens and irritants that cause sinus problems.

Sometimes a runny nose is caused by an environment that is too dry. You can add moisture to a room with a humidifier. The moistures thins mucus inside of the nose, so you can blow your nose easily and clear your nasal passages from congestion.

How to Stop a Runny Nose with Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a potent-smelling herb that is very effective for clearing nasal passages. Add eucalyptus oil to a warm bath or boil a pot of water with a few drops of the oil and inhale deeply. You can also inhale the vapors directly from a bottle of the oil or add a few drops to a light bulb in your home. Eucalyptus is very effective for relieving the groggy, spaced-out feeling of a head cold and it also helps to clear chest congestion during the bronchial phase of an illness.

Learning how to stop a runny nose makes head colds and allergies much easier to deal with. The next time your nose is clogged or runny, try one of these methods to ease the discomfort.

Heat rash is rarely serious, but there are situations when it might be a concern. When babies and young children develop heat rash, parents should determine the cause and use gentle remedies to calm the rash. People who are bedridden should also find ways to alleviate the discomfort as soon as possible. Heat rash is a common problem for soldiers fighting in warm climates, overweight people, and those suffering from decreased sweating.

Medicinal Heat Rash Treatment

Allopathic medical treatments for heat rash are usually only necessary in very severe cases or when a person’s immune system or pain tolerance is otherwise decreased. Topical cortisone creams are one of the most common methods of dealing with heat rash. It is commonly used for itching skin, but also helps when skin is sore or inflamed. Steroid creams are also effective, but a prescription is needed and people who prefer to use natural remedies will want to avoid products containing steroids. Doctors might also prescribe oral or topical antibiotics, or oral antihistamines. These remedies are often a solution for the side effects of heat rash including bacterial infections, itching, or eczema.

Sometimes treating the rash itself is unnecessary. There are things you can do to ease the inflammation and reduce the discomfort instead of targeting the rash with medication. Drink plenty of water and eat foods high in water content during an outbreak. Wear loose fitting clothes made of breathable, natural fabrics such as cotton. Spend time in air conditioning and avoid unnecessary activity.

Natural Heat Rash Treatment

Make sure the affected area gets as much air as possible and keep the rash cool and dry. As soon as you notice reddening or discomfort, wash the area with a gentle cleanser free of soap and fragrance. After showering, allow skin to air dry and consider applying cornstarch or fragrance-free baby powder to the area. Do not apply creams or lotions because the added moisture and chemicals in the lotion aggravate the problem. Showering and repeating these steps several times each day might be necessary until the rash has cleared.

Skin to skin contact often triggers heat rash. Common outbreak areas include beneath the breast, under the armpits, between the thighs, and under the belly. Protecting skin from contact helps avoid a breakout and reduces the length of an outbreak. A washcloth offers a barrier of terry cloth or cotton, and provides relief from irritation and discomfort.

Chamomile is an effective natural heat rash treatment.

Essential oils are another effective option for treating heat rash. The oils have anti-inflammatory properties and help relieve the itching associated with skin irritation. Adding oil to bath water or applying a small amount to the skin and letting it air dry are two effective methods for using essential oils as heat rash treatment. The best oils to use include peppermint, eucalyptus, chamomile, and lavender.

In rare instances, heat rash develops into a condition serious enough to seek emergency medical attention. This is usually the result of an infection associated with an untreated rash. If your heat rash is accompanied by nausea, fever, headaches, dizziness, or vomiting, contact your doctor immediately.

When an outbreak occurs, it is important to rest, elevate the affected area, and monitor your diet. Though you might be tempted to take an over-the-counter pain relief medication, it is important to speak with your doctor first. Products containing aspirin can change the uric acid levels in your system and worsen the problem. Other medications might lead to increased uric acid, too.

People who are at risk for stroke and heart attack sometimes face issues with gout because they take niacin and low-dose aspirin. Diuretics might also cause uric acid build-up.

Sometimes lifestyle changes are all that is needed to prevent outbreaks from ever occurring. Overweight people are at a higher risk for developing gout. A balanced diet that helps maintain a healthy weight is best for preventing gout outbreaks. Avoiding alcoholic beverages, especially beer, as well as seafood and meat, also reduces risk. These foods and beverages are high in purines, which many believe worsen the effects of gout.

Fruits and Vegetables as Gout Treatment

Food is one of the most common ways to treat gout naturally. A variety of fruits and vegetables alleviate symptoms and prevent outbreaks. Eating about 20 sweet or sour cherries each day reduces your risk for gout. Cherries are rich in antioxidants and relieve inflammation. Over time, you will be able to eat fewer and fewer fresh cherries without worrying about a flare-up.

Apples, bananas, and limes are also fruits that can be used for gout treatment. Apples contain malic acid, which is believed to neutralize uric acid. Eating an apple after each meal might help eliminate your symptoms.

Fruits and vegetables are an effective gout treatment.

Some people who suffer from gout have found banana fasts eliminate their symptoms. For a period of no more than four days, sufferers can eat a diet of nine bananas each day. The banana fast helps get symptoms under control and prevents future outbreaks

In limes, the combination of citric acid and vitamin C ease the pain and inflammation of gout. This is one of the easiest options for treating gout and requires only the intake of the juice from half a lime in a glass of water, twice each day.

In addition to fruit, gout sufferers can also use vegetables to ease their symptoms. Raw vegetable juice featuring carrot, cucumber, and beetroot consumed daily lessens the effects of gout.

Other Natural Remedies for Gout Treatment

In addition to foods, there are also topical remedies for gout. Combine charcoal and water to make a paste for soaking. Do this for up to an hour to relieve the pain associated with gout. Other paste recipes that offer pain relief for gout include mustard powder, wheat powder, and water, as well as ground ginger and water.

Herbs are another effective option for treating gout. Herbs such as white willow bark, meadowsweet, and devil’s claw root contain anti-inflammatory properties and relieve pain. Other herbal remedies for gout include feverfew, cayenne, and licorice. Remember, herbs might be natural, but they are still potent. Work with a certified herbalist or naturopathic doctor, especially if you are taking other medications.

The pain from a cold sore typically lasts about a week. Natural cold sore remedies ease the intensity of the overall pain and shorten the duration of an outbreak.

Essential Oils

Essential oils with antiviral properties are an effective way to deal with cold sores. Lemon balm is believed to reduce the length of a cold sore outbreak by up to 50 percent. Applying lemon balm to the lips and other areas affected by sores decreases the frequency of outbreaks.

Peppermint oil has been shown to combat certain strains of the herpes virus. Direct contact with peppermint oil can be dangerous and the pure form of the oil is dangerous if eaten, so use it carefully when using it as a cold sore remedy. Peppermint tea is a safe, pleasant way to utilize peppermint oil as a remedy.

Lysine                  

Lysine is an amino acid and is considered one of the most effective natural cold sore remedies. It is found in food and various supplements such as red meat, dairy, wheat germ, fish, and brewers years. Researchers believe lysine plays a role in how much arginine (another amino acid) is absorbed into the intestines. Arginine is believed to be a trigger and an irritant for cold sores. Foods such as nuts and chocolate are high in arginine and should be avoided just before and during a cold sore outbreak. If you prefer not to include red meat, dairy or fish in your diet, lysine is available in supplement and ointment form.

Cold sore remedies ease the severity of painful mouth blisters.

Lysine is not the only chemical in food that helps alleviate the discomfort of a cold sore. Resveratrol is a compound found in red grapes and it is believed by researchers to suppress cold sore development. The chemical is used to make a high-potency cream that is a natural alternative for the prescription medications sometimes given for herpes simplex infections.

Other foods and herbal supplements containing chemicals that suppress cold sore development include Reishi mushrooms, self-heal, echinacea, black currant, rhubarb-sage cream, and propolis. Bees collect propolis from certain plants and use it to build and protect their hives.

Oral Health and Cold Sore Remedies

Each time you develop a cold sore, you should replace your toothbrush. This prevents the virus from re-infecting your mouth with remnants left on the brush. You might also want to store your brush outside of the bathroom. The moisture in the room helps the virus live longer, increasing the chance of infection. Your goal should be to keep your toothbrush as dry and clean as possible.

Sometimes preventing a cold sore is as simple as maintaining good health. Get plenty of rest and take supplements that boost your immune system. Keep stress under control because it can trigger an outbreak. Exercise on a regular basis and eat a balanced diet. Finally, recognize what triggers your outbreaks and do what you can to reduce your risk.

OptionsHouse, doing business as OptionsHouse LLC since 2005, is a market maker owned by PEAK6 Investments. PEAK6 has been in business since 1997 in both the stock options and derivatives market.

The big draw to OptionsHouse is based on their promotions. At one time, OptionsHouse offered 100 free trades and $2.95 trades after those first 100 expired. Unfortunately for traders, the $2.95 price has inflated slightly to $3.95 for stock trades. $3.95 per trade is still a great deal, considering that most brokers are changing in the range of $7 to $12, with some high profile brokers charging closer to $30 per. OptionsHouse is also well-known in the options trading market, having won the “Best for Options Traders” award from Barron’s for three years in a row.

To open an account at OptionsHouse, you’ll need to deposit a minimum of $1,000 for a cash account or $2,000 for a margin account.

OptionsHouse Fees

Even though the $2.95 OptionsHouse fees per trade deal ended in January of 2011, you can still sign up for 100 free trades. Getting 100 free trades on OptionsHouse’ new trading platform is a great deal. OptionsHouse released their new platform in March of this year, and it more than justifies the change in OptionsHouse fees. Remember that the $3.95 per trade fee is only good for stock trades. If you participate in options trading, spreads, or other financial trades you’ll have to pay a different fee.

As of this writing, the fee structure for trades other than stocks is as follows.

Fee plans for options trading come in two forms:

• Up to five contracts for $5 with each additional contract costing just $1 OR
• $8.50 flat fee plus a charge of 0.15/contract

Fee plans for spreads include two plans as well:

• Up to 10 contracts for $10 with a $1 charge for each additional contract OR
• $12.50 flat fee plus a charge of 0.15/contract

Mutual fund trades are $9.95 apiece.

OptionsHouse Trading Platform

The focus on trading at OptionsHouse is options trading, naturally. OptionsHouse offers free online seminars (called “webinars”) that take advantage of PEAK6’s experience in options trading.

OptionsHouse’ new platform offers real time quotes, a risk calculator for various trading situations, industry-standard charting and graphing tools, and a handful of useful watch lists you can tailor to your needs.

I find the Maxit tax-management tool particularly useful. Too many times I’ve made a foolhardy trade through another broker and found myself facing pretty serious tax consequences. With Maxit, I can look at those consequences before I make a hasty trade.

There are other features as part of the OptionsHouse trading platform that are pretty much available at any trading platform–conditional orders, streaming-options chains, and standard portfolio performance reports. You basically get everything you would with a more expensive broker site for much less money.

OptionsHouse also offers their clients an iPhone app for trading on the go, as well as options trading education and classes, the option to get one-on-one coaching at just $150 a month, and the best promotions package of any brokerage online as of this writing.

Is OptionsHouse a Scam?

Because of a large number of OptionsHouse complaints found all over the Internet and the low price per trade, some people think OptionsHouse is a scam.

Most of the OptionsHouse complaints online follow a pattern: “poor execution, clunky platform sceens, mishandling of funds, extremely limited customer service, not much extended hour trading” and the like. There is very little about any actual scams or criminal activity. Complaints about OptionsHouse seem to be from people who expected a service like ScottTrade or TD at a deeply discounted price. The fact is, you’re never going to get the kind of service and tools you’d get at those sites for just $3.95 per trade.

The key to avoiding these common OptionsHouse complaints is to do your research before you join the site. For example–most stocks and trading options valued under $1 are not compatible with OptionsHouse. There are other restrictions as well, like the fact that OptionsHouse’ extended hours trading is extremely limited.

Since OptionsHouse offers “virtual trading,” there’s no reason not to test the service out before you decide to join and start trading. If you play around with the virtual trading service and find you don’t like the interface or the speed at which the trades happen, don’t join the site.

OptionsHouse Promotion Code

There are currently three OptionsHouse promotion code deals available online. Enter these promo codes when you setup your account to take advantage of the deals.

1. ACAT100REFUND–Use this code and have your transfer fees reimbursed, up to $125.
2. DELL24–If you deposit $5,000 or more into your OptionsHouse account, you get a free Dell Full HD 24″ Monitor. There are additional monitor giveaways when you deposit larger amounts. Check for the latest Dell monitor giveaway codes.
3. WIRE25REFUND–You can have your wire transfer fees refunded if you use this code when you make your initial deposit.

Using an OptionsHouse promotion code is a quick way to save a little cash or get a free HD monitor. Check for new promo codes regularly, as OptionsHouse tends to offers lot of different promotions.

OptionsHouse Pros and Cons

The best things about OptionsHouse are the access to PEAK6 market tools and the fact that their commissions are the absolute lowest of any trading site. The worst aspects of OptionsHouse are the lack of futures and international trading, the limited mutual fund investment opportunities, the lack of automated trading, and the difficulty OptionsHouse’ trading platform has with extended hours trading.

OptionsHouse has been dealing with complaints about their service and their financial policies since the site opened, mostly because people expect a top-notch trading service even when they pay OptionsHouse’ rock-bottom prices.

Respect from Barron’s annual list, placing them 4th overall among online trading sites in 2011, means more traffic and respect for OptionsHouse and PEAK6. For options traders, who do battle with spreads and fees on a daily basis, a service like OptionsHouse that offers such low fees for options trading is the best way to lower your trading costs without giving up a quality trading service.

Medifast is a five-step meal replacement diet plan recommended by doctors and nutritionists for a wide range of health concerns. Because Medifast Meals are low in fat content and are created to meet low glycemic index requirements, they are not just safe for people with type 2 diabetes, they are often used by physicians to help treat diabetic patients. Medifast Meals come in gluten-free varieties and a few other special meal plans to meet patient’s weight loss and health needs. Special Medifast Meal plans exist for vegetarians, diabetics, Medifast Meals for teens, seniors, nursing mothers, even people suffering from gout and those losing weight in preparation for weight-loss surgery.

Medifast Food Reviews

Replacement meal programs can be difficult to follow because the food isn’t satisfying. If

you can’t stand the taste of the food or if the meal plans aren’t filling enough, you’re less likely to follow the diet plan.

Online Medifast food reviews are helpful if you’re trying to figure out whether or not to start the Medifast plan. I started researching Medifast when it came time to lose thirty pounds I’d gained “sympathetically” after my wife’s pregnancy. I actually gained more weight than my wife did, and she had a baby. I knew it was time to take some action, but I was suspicious of the quality of Medifast food.

What I found was that the Medifast food gets its share of cheers and jeers. As a person who tries to eat as little meat as possible, I was mostly interested in the quality of the vegetarian meals and entrees with little or no meat. Luckily, there are tons of people sharing their Medifast experience online on blogs and personal websites. The first blog that caught my eye was called Escape from Obesity. Though I’m far from obese, I was interested in seeing what someone working on long-term weight loss thought of the Medifast food.

The Medifast food reviews I found at this blog were honest and extremely detailed. I learned how this particular dieter would make small changes to the food to make them more edible without really throwing off the nutritional value, like adding torn spinach leaves to the powdered scrambled eggs. She also talked about how to properly prepare Medifast’s powdered foods: simply mixing them with water and letting them sit in the fridge for twenty minutes made a huge difference in the texture of the meals.

If you’re unsure about starting a meal replacement plan, look around for Medifast food reviews. You may be surprised at people’s honesty and the quality of the diet food available through Medifast.

Negative Medifast Reviews

I don’t want to make it sound like everyone loves Medifast food. I have run into my share of real stinkers, especially the oatmeal that Medifast offers. Negative Medifast reviews make up about 50% of the total food and diet plan reviews online. The key for me was to find what food I liked, what foods I hated, and tailor my Medifast orders to those conditions.

Negative Medifast reviews all sound very similar. Many people complain about the overly sugary taste of Medifast’s shakes. Since the shakes are a major part of many Medifast dieter’s plans, not enjoying the experience puts a big dent in your Medifast plans. I personally found the shakes far too sweet-tasting to drink, and found myself heading more towards the crunch bars in between meals or as meal replacements.

When you read negative Medifast reviews, remember that what’s nasty to one person may be palatable or even delicious to another. Even though I try to avoid meaty meals, I really love the Medifast version of Beef Vegetable Stew. What other reviewers found to be little more than “gravy with chunks” I liked as a hot soup for cold winter lunches. As long as I put the soup in a thermos and didn’t look at it too much, it reminded me of the beef broth I used to drink when I had a sore throat.

Medifast Reviews 2011

Since Medifast is constantly changing their meal plans and tweaking their food, it is important to read Medifast reviews 2011. Reading outdated reviews will get you nothing but an outdated idea of how the Medifast plan works. It’s easy to read updated reviews–just type “Medifast reviews 2011″ into Google and click away.

2011 Medifast reviews differ from older reviews of the plan in that there’s a ton of new Medifast food and slightly altered Medifast food to choose from. People love the new Medifast pancakes, a menu item that Medifast didn’t even carry until this past year. There are even chocolate chip pancakes on the Medifast plan.

2011 Medifast reviews also mention that the recipe for the popular Medifast 55 shakes has changed slightly. It may be time for this dieter to try these shakes again, since reviewers claim that the overly sweet recipe has been altered to be more palatable.

2011 Medifast reviews keep you up-to-date with the latest in Medifast food and Medifast diet support. Reading old information will give you the wrong idea about the Medifast plan and menu items.

My Medifast Results

The results I’ve seen from the Medifast plan are encouraging. I’m not going to go overboard and say that I’ve had Medifast results worth writing home about–the plan is difficult to get used to, especially in the first couple of weeks, and I’ve had trouble finding meals that I don’t get burned out on or just plain hate.

Medifast claims some outstanding results are possible if you follow the five-step plan and eat a proper diet based on their Medifast Meals. With food items ranging from 90 to 100 calories, Medifast says that dieters stand to lose about 2 pounds a week. This is a realistic goal for weight loss–where other diet plans claim ridiculous weight loss goals as high as 9 or 10 pounds a week, which is physically impossible, Medifast promises nothing. Losing 2 pounds of week is a healthy way to shed unwanted pounds.

My personal Medifast results fell right in line with this promise. I stumbled a lot in my first two weeks, probably due to the difference in my caloric intake and the little bit of gas that the Medifast eggs gave me, but as my body got used to the food and the reduced calories, I found myself losing first four pounds, then three pounds, then a stead two pounds a week up to this point. I’m on week eleven and I’ve lost 23 total pounds, just a few shy of my goal of 30 pounds of weight loss.

TheHipChick prides itself on offering clothes worn by celebrities and fashion icons at discounted prices. When you shop around at THeHipChick, you’ll notice photos of celebrities wearing the clothing items in place of anonymous models. Not every item for sale at TheHipChick was worn by a celeb, but the ones that were are easy to pick out.

The discounted prices allow you to dress like a celeb without an A-list budget, though prices are still pretty steep. That’s where THeHipChick coupon codes and promos come into play.

2011 TheHipChick Coupon Codes

Most of the savings and deals you’ll find at TheHipChick are site-wide and don’t require coupon codes. As of this writing, you get free shipping on all orders over $150 as well as sale prices up to 70% off on different items. Just shopping around at TheHipChick and spending more than $150 will save money on your clothes and on shipping cost.

TheHipChick releases a ton of coupon codes, and not just generic site-wide discounts. For example, the code “ChanLuu10″ gets you 10 percent off all Chan Luu bracelets. It is common to find 2011 coupon codes for specific brands at TheHipChick.

You can use social media to save cash on your next shopping spree at TheHipChick. Right now, if you “like” their Facebook page and leave a comment, you’ll get a coupon offer good for $50 off your next order of $250 or more. Similar deals are available for their Twitter page and other media pages.

There are traditional coupon codes as well. In 2011, enter coupon code “20OFF” and get twenty percent off your next order, minimum purchase requirements subject to change. You can also get ten percent off select items by entering “10OFF” at checkout, though you have to look for specifically labelled sale items while shopping.

TheHipChick Brands

Well-known bigname fashion brands True Religion, Anna Sui, Christian Dior, and ZoeNYC are thrown in with more boutique names like Young, Fabulous, and Broke and Torn. When you shop by brand, you can further refine your search by price, color, and category. Pretty much every big name in their catalog has a fashion icon, famous model, or celebrity showing off the clothes. For example, if you search under “Anna Sui,” you’ll see a photo of model Keri Hilson wearing the Anna Sui Diamon dress, on sale at TheHipChick for just under $500. On sale at other retailers for twice as much, you can pick up this A-list dress for less than the price of a plane ticket to Fashion Week.

TheHipChick Celebrity Picks

Instead of crawling around the site looking randomly for photos of TheHipChick items worn by celebrity bodies, you can click the “Celebrity Picks” link at the top of the page to browse through all items they’re currently offering “as worn by” a famous person. Names like Paris Hilton, Kate Moss, Kourtney Kardashian, and Sarah Jessica Parker are thrown about, as are less-known (B-List) types like Nicole Richie and Ashley Benson. The prices on these items currently runs from $45 (for a plain white T-shirt as worn by Mary-Kate Olsen) to well over $500 for an Alice + Olivia dress worn by the aforementioned B-Lister Ashley Benson.

My TheHipChick Shopping Experience

I’m not what you’d call a fashionista, but my girlfriend is. When I wanted to get her something special for Christmas, I dug around for designer clothes at reduced prices and came across a slew of coupon codes and promos for TheHipChick. I don’t know Donna Karan from Donna Reed, but the shopping interface at TheHipChick made it easy for me to find something my girlfriend would go nuts for–a Ben Amun Gold-Plated Brass French Coin necklace worn by none other than Kate Moss. Compared to other retailers, the $298 pricetag for this item (minus 10% off with coupon and shipped for free) seems to have saved me at least a hundred bucks.

TheHipChick sells a huge line of clothes and accessories, with the focus apparently on bags, jewelry, and other accessories to turn an otherwise normal outfit into something special. Their emphasis on presenting famous people in the clothing items they sell as well as offering tons of coupons and deals shows that they’re trying to put high fashion into the hands of the regular Joe . . . or should I say Jane?

Discover Card appeared in 1985 as a financial service of Sears. Since then, Discover has become its own entity, breaking away from MorganStanleyDeanWitter in 2007. The Discover Card competed with the two credit giants in America (VISA and MasterCard) where other credit card programs failed.

The Discover Card Difference

Discover Card was popular for a variety of reasons: for starters, unlike VISA and MasterCard, the Discover Card had no annual fee, the first national credit card to offer that feature. Discover Cards had slightly higher credit limits than its two main competitors, and Discover customers were the first in the nation to be offered a “Cashback Bonus.” Retailers were quick to accept the Discover Card because it offered much lower fees than VISA or MasterCard, meaning that people could use their Discover Card pretty much anywhere they could use their other credit cards.

Discover Card Application

To fill out a Discover Card application, head to the Discover website. Choose one of ten different Discover products, ranging from student cards and “miles cards” to their flagship Discover products, and fill out the application. You’ll need a few pieces of information to fill out your Discover Card application:

• Personal details (name, address, telephone number)
• Employment details (name, address, and phone number of employer)
• Social security number
• Date of birth
• Mother’s maiden name

Applying for a Discover Card is even easier now that they have a large number of pre-approved offers you can look up with your name, social security number, and credit score. Plug the information in and cards for which you are pre-approved pop up. Select your card design and start using your Discover card right away.

Discover Card Benefits

Depending on which Discover credit product you choose, your benefits can be anything from free travel, cash rewards, and even discounts on retail goods through the Discover Shop. There’s a huge array of Discover Card benefits available depending on your credit situation, the kind of credit card user you are, and how much you use your Discover Card.

The flagship Discover Card has a 0% introductory APR on all balance transfers. That means for the first fifteen months of your Discover membership, you pay no interest on transferred credit balances. That makes it easy to transfer from a high-interest card and save cash. Be aware that after those fifteen months, the interest jumps to between 11.99% and 20.99%, depending on your credit.

I used this option of the flagship Discover Card to pay off a store credit card that had just inexplicably jumped from 12% APR to 19.99%. I wasn’t about to pay off a high dollar credit card at that interest rate, so I transferred the balance to my new Discover product and paid the card off in fourteen months, just enough time to avoid paying interest on the total altogether.

That 0% introductory APR also works on all purchases made with your Discover Card for the first 15 months of membership. After that time period expires, the traditional APR of between 11 and 20% kicks in. This is one of the longest 0% introductory offers of any credit card in America. This makes Discover the perfect card for making a single large purchase, like a big-screen TV, and paying it off within 15 months.

As a victim of identity theft, I was pleased to find out about Discover’s $0 Fraud Liability Guarantee. Discover promises that if there are any unauthorized transactions on your card, you aren’t liable for those expenses. This service comes with Fraud Alerts–sign up for Fraud Alerts and get phone calls, emails, or text messages whenever there is suspicious activity with your credit card.

Other Discover Card benefits include Business Card benefits like spending tracking and expense management, the ability to create employee cards with set spending limits and monthly reporting, and quarterly and annual financial statements from Discover to help with your business bookkeeping.

Discover Card Rewards

The Discover Card Rewards program is built on a number of different special offers for Discover members.

Earn Cashback Bonus rewards with every purchase–be sure to read the fine print, as lots of special restrictions apply to this reward. The main Discover Card offers 5% cashback on certain purchases; you can take the cash or you can redeem your cashback bonus for retail goods or gift cards from partner businesses, like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, the Apple store, and other big name retailers.

The special ShopDiscover section of Discover’s website offers 5% to 20% cashback rewards when you shop at select online retailers that have a partnership with Discover.

Discover also offers their customers a cash bonus when they pay on time for a few months in a row, a bonus that can be exchanged for gifts or other rewards. These cash rewards are also available for customers who demonstrate “good credit management” (as determined by the customer service department).

Be sure to pay attention to the categories of goods that are valid for the cashback rewards. Check out the latest Discover Card rewards cashback schedule so you can make purchases in the right categories and earn money back. Cashback is available in categories like gas, travel, restaurants, and grocery stores. Cashback is only paid on amounts spent over $3,000, so if you’re not a big credit spender, you may not be able to take advantage of this deal.

Discover Card is sometimes seen as the redheaded stepchild of credit card companies, mostly because it doesn’t carry the exclusivity of American Express or the name recognition of MasterCard and VISA. Now that Discover card is offering branded bank cards through their acquisition of Pulse and with their excellent rewards and bonuses, expect Discover Card to become a bigger player in the American credit scene. If you’re looking to transfer a high balance or spend more than $3-4,000 a year on your credit card, opening a Discover Card can be a very lucrative credit decision.

See also:

1. How to Book a Hotel without a Credit Card
2. How Does Bill Consolidation Work?
3. How to Prevent Identity Theft
4. How to Contact Equifax
5. How to Improve Your FICO Score

eBags.com was founded in 1998 as a web-only retailer of handbags, backpacks, and bags and accessories of all kinds. Employing nearly 100 people at their headquarters in Colorado, eBags now sells more than 600 brands of bags and accessories with a focus on purses and designer bags more than luggage, as was the company’s initial focus.

Coupon Code for eBags.com 2011

Right now, the most common coupon code for eBags.com 2011 is “EMSSCM70.” This code is good for 20% off your entire order and free shipping. This over is good no matter the size of your order. Another active code for eBags.com in 2011 is “COMJRMN,” this one good for 15% off and free shipping on orders over $50.

Both of these codes can save you a substantial amount of cash on your next eBags.com order. Just enter the codes in the appropriate box at checkout and enjoy the savings.

eBags Coupons

Besides coupon codes, eBags offers coupon-style savings at their site all the time. Depending on when you shop there, you can find deals ranging from free shipping on all orders to percent off your total order. These sales are focused mainly around high retail shopping times like Christmas and “back to school,” but there’s always some kind of eBags coupon style deal available.

As for traditional coupons–since eBags.com is a web-only store, physical coupons are rare if there are any at all. Stick to coupon codes and sales for savings at eBags.com.

eBags Shopping Experience

I’ve been an eBags shopper for almost twelve years now, going back to the days when they mainly sold luggage. I graduated high school and headed off to college the first time I shopped at eBags.com, looking for a fancy backpack for tromping back and forth to classes, but got upsold on a nice pair of luggage. eBags.com’s founders were employees at Samsonite before jumping off to join the .com boom of the late 90s.

eBags.com’s luggage set sales drew me in. I got a beautiful and functional set of Lightweight Mobility luggage by Samsonite for 70% off the retail price. Those three bags accompanied me to Europe and Africa as well as on countless trips across the country, and I still use them ever time I travel.

Coupon codes for eBags.com are easy to find, easy to use, and often come with free shipping. On heavy items like purses, bags, and luggage, I find the free shipping reason enough to keep shopping at eBags.com.

eBags Backpacks

eBags has their backpack selection broken up into a dozen or so different categories, like “Kids,” “Backpacking,” “Hydration,” and “Waist and Fanny Packs.” eBags.com sells twenty different brands of backpacks, including their own eBags line consisting of convertible, school bags, and even wheeled laptop and computer storage bags.

You can also shop for eBags backpacks by color, style, and price. The wide selection of backpacks at deep discounts makes shopping for backpacks at eBags even better than hitting your local school supply or big box retail store, and using a coupon or sale promotion for free shipping makes the experience pretty pain-free.

eBags Lifetime Guarantee

I’m always surprised by the lifetime guarantee on eBags brand products, but when I broke a zipper on my eBags convertible backpack I put the “lifetime” part of the guarantee to the test. I bought the bag in 1999, pretty early in the lifespan of the eBags guarantee. A few minutes on the phone with customer service later, a replacement bag was in the mail, which I received six days later.

The guarantee is good for eBags brand products, and all I needed to get my replacement bag was the email address I used for the order and a few details about the break itself. It didn’t matter that the break was due to regular wear and tear, and the customer service rep I talked to didn’t ask any details about how I used the bag–just offered me a new model of the same bag or a gift card for the bag’s original value.

eBags Catalog

If you prefer to shop with a catalog rather than online, eBags is happy to send you a free catalog via US Mail. It’ll take a little over a week to get to your door, but the catalog is attractive, containing all the items you can find at the online store plus a handful of catalog-exclusive bags. My copy of the catalog came with two “coupons” in the form of codes to enter at the time of ordering, for “catalog customers only.”

To get your copy of the eBags catalog, just complete the Request a Catalog form at their website.

eBags Designer Purses

If you’re a designer purse or handbag fanatic, eBags now has a huge line of designer bags to choose from. Brands like BCBG, Michael Kors, Cole Haan, and kate spade are represented, with prices ranging from $39 (for an attractive silver Elaine Turner mini wallet) to $850 for a large Helen Kaminski purse.

Not all of the designer handbags are available at the usual eBags sale prices or with certain coupons, since the site makes deals with the designers and can’t always offer the same discounts as other brands, but as of this writing, designer bags from BODHI and Treesje can be purchased with your eBags coupon code or discount.

America in the 1950s is thought of as a time of conservative dress and behavior, the “golden age” of American commerce. We had a huge middle class, a vibrant pop culture scene, and the beginnings of both the Cold War and the conflict in Vietnam.

1950s’ Halloween costumes are popular because they’re relatively easy to put together, they’re easy to recognize, and something about the 50s makes us go nuts. Nostalgia for the 50s spiked in the 70s and 80s but is still going strong, judging by the popularity of Halloween costumes based on life in the 50s.

The most common 1950s stereotypes are of the “greaser” with his leather jacket and slicked back hair and his rockabilly girl companion. One version of this classic 50s costume is the two main characters from the 70s movie Grease–Danny and Sandy. Though Sandy wasn’t exactly a greaser girl, you could get away with a pair of high-waisted jeans, a leather jacket, and a scarf alongside Danny’s leather jacket and tattoos.

The 1950s’ “Pinup Girl” look is also popular, especially for adults who don’t mind getting a little risque. Pinup Girls were big in the 50s, a time before the Internet and 24 hour television programming. Posters of attractive young women in skimpy clothing could be found everywhere from garages to teenage boys bedrooms. Bikinis, big hair, and lots of skin were their trademark.

If you don’t mind spending a little cash, there are lots of prefabricated 1950s’ Halloween costumes based on celebrities of the time: Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Ginger Rogers, and Cary Grant are four popular costume choices because they’re so famous. Costume sets for these celebrities are based on famous roles they played and can be found at Halloween shops and online costume shops.

The Poodle Skirt is probably the most popular example of 1950s fashion. Invented in the early 1950s, the Poodle Skirt was originally called a “circle skirt” for the fact that it is essentially one big circle of fabric with an applique or two. Not all Poodle Skirts were embossed with poodles–drag racers, music notes, and even celebrity’s faces were common additions to the Poodle Skirt. Simple to make with basic fabric and an iron-on logo, a Poodle Skirt is an easy go-to 1950s’ Halloween costume for women.

The 1950s gave us plenty of great costume ideas, from celebrities and TV characters to stereotypes like the greaser. For more ideas on 1950s’ Halloween costumes, check out 50scostumes.net.

Most of the Kindle reviews written in 2011 mention that eBook sales are spiking. (If you don’t know what a Kindle is, see this page: What Is a Kindle?) Reviewers are quick to point out that Amazon is now selling more eBooks than actual books, and though that number is not yet true for the book market in general (paper books still outsell eBooks 5 to 1) it is seen as a trend that book publishers and book sellers should keep an eye on.

In 2011, there are two basic versions of the Kindle for sale–Kindle 3 and Kindle DX. The DX model is larger, has a larger screen, better resolution, and has support for more media types than the Kindle 3. Reviews of Kindle devices in 2011 make it a point to describe the many ways that Kindle 3 is better than the original version, which has been discontinued. Seems a little obvious, right?

CNET Kindle Review 2011

CNET is one of the most trusted sources for tech reviews. They give the latest version of the Kindle four stars out of five and have named it an editor’s choice. CNET praises the new Kindle’s “slimmer” and “more compact” design, as well as its improved screen and faster page-turning features. As for the downside, CNET complains that there’s no expansion slot for adding memory and no support for the popular EPUB book file format. I agree with CNET, and suggest also that AMazon should consider throwing in a carrying case with Kindle purchases and figure out a way around the fact that the Kindle’s battery is permanently sealed into the device, making repairs impossible.

I’m constantly amazed that CNET likes the Kindle so much, in the face of all of its flaws. For a device that’s sold millions of units, I’m fairly disappointed by my own Kindle DX. The screen is not “glare-free” as Amazon advertises, and is especially hard on my eyes on long flights with those bright overhead airplane lamps.

Blog Kindle Reviews 2011

I’ve been surprised by the blog response to Kindles in 2011–they seem to be as into the Kindle as the major tech review sites. A blogger at oddstocktrader.com gives the 2011 version of the device a “9.3 out of 10″ thanks to its light weight and easy to read screen. This blogger repeats the old lie about the screen being free of glare–not true by any stretch of the imagination.

A blogger at Zatznotfunny.com suggests that the new Nook Touch might finally be a better device than the Kindle 3, mostly because of its ease of use, saying that the UI touch interface is far superior to Kindle’s 5 button interface. Still, this blogger shows his Kindle fanboy true colors by wondering ” . . . how far away is the Kindle 4?”

It’s clear from reviews of the Kindle in 2011 that most people are really into their Amazon eBook readers, even in the face of new versions of Barnes and Noble’s well-reviewed Nook and much-cheaper eReaders from Borders and other retailers. The Kindle was the first giant of the eBook world, and probably maintains a lot of customer loyalty simply because it came out before its competition.

See also:

1. Kindle for Mac
2. How Do You Make the Kindle Read Aloud Function Work?
3. Kindle Alternatives
4. Kindle Cases and Covers
5. Kindle Deals and Discounts

Since the Kindle’s release in 2007, industry analysts estimate that Amazon has sold over 5 million units, though the actual numbers haven’t been released. For a long time, you could only purchase the Kindle directly from Amazon, but in recent months, major American retailers have gotten into the Kindle game, selling the device as part of a deal with Amazon.

eBooks now make up 15 percent of the American book sales market, and this move to introduce Amazon’s popular eReader into the bricks and mortar retail store market should push that number even higher. Here’s a look at three stores where you can buy Amazon’s Kindle device right now.

Buy Kindle at Target

There are 1,203 Target stores in America, including 230 of the behemoth “Super Target” locations in 22 different states. Amazon’s deal to put Kindles in Target stores exposes millions of people to the device in a familiar retail setting. Assuming that some people have resisted purchasing the Kindle because of their lack of familiarity with buying products online, moving into retail giants like Target could really boost their sales figures.

Target is selling the Kindle as low as $114, but this deal is only available in-store. Amazon’s deal with Target requires that they don’t compete with Amazon’s online Kindle sales, a tactic Amazon would repeat with other Kindle retail deals.

Buy Kindle at Best Buy

With 1,070 stores in the United States, the sale of Kindles at Best Buy was another big victory for Amazon.  The cheapest Kindle device at Best Buy is only slightly more expensive than at Target–$114.99, less than a dollar higher than the deal offered by Target.

I bought my Kindle through Best Buy, mostly because I got a nice-sized Best Buy gift card as a gift and had been wanting to upgrade to a top-of-the-line Kindle for a few months now. Since the Kindle prices are essentially the same no matter what retailer you shop, choosing a retail store was more about which stores were closest to my home and the fact that I had a gift card.

Buy Kindle at Staples

There are over 2,000 Staples stores worldwide, though right now only their US locations are selling Kindles. Prices on Staples’ Kindle devices are identical to those found at Target and Best Buy. One annoying thing I found out about purchasing a Kindle at Staples is that the store doesn’t stock the item–you will most likely have to “special order” your Kindle device.

Like the other retailers on this list, expect Staples to use interest in their sale of Kindles to pimp their other brands of eReaders, usually cheaper and less-known devices like Staples’ Aluratek LIBRA. Staples advertises this device (priced at $99) directly below their Kindle devices when you do a generic site search for “Kindle,” and for good reason. People are likely to go for the cheaper device, even if they’re only saving $15, especially if they don’t care about the brand name.

It is no longer true that you have to shop at Amazon.com to buy the Kindle. Major retailers are making deals with Amazon to sell the mega-popular Kindle eBook reader in their retail stores . . . just don’t expect to buy a Kindle online from anyone but Amazon in the near future.

The buzz about the iPad was that the device would (eventually) replace netbooks for everyday functions. When I bought my iPad, my expectations were pretty low. As a tech junkie and Apple fanboy, I pretty much had to pick up an iPad even though I had major doubts about its abilities. No Flash? No HDMI? Still, I stood in line and paid for what I thought may be little more than a fancy paperweight.

Now that Google offers GoDocs for iPad and iPhone, my paperweight’s value has skyrocketed. For example–at this very moment, I’m typing this article on my iPad in a cab on the way to the airport. After my flight lands, I’ll plug my laptop in at the hotel and finish editing it, post it, and sit back and have a glass of wine. Pretty cool, right?

GoDocs is by no means the first attempt at convering Google Docs to work with iPads and iPhones, but it is the first official release by Google, and probably the best.

GoDocs Review

GoDocs popped up in November of 2010 and has undergone a few changes since then. This is a true mobile version of Google Docs that lets you create, edit, and delete documents on the go. If you travel a lot or work from a few different places, like me, you’ll find GoDocs increases the value of your iPad or iPhone tenfold. I can work with Google Docs on all my different devices from pretty much any location.

The biggest difference between GoDocs and regular old Google Docs is that lack of a “save” button. Have no fear–your document auto-saves every few seconds automatically.

What about losing your connection? iPad users (especially those that move around often) know how much of a headache keeping a connection can be. If you lose your data or WiFi connection, GoDocs uses the HTML5 “offline storage” feature so you can still use the app. You just can’t “save” your document. Lose your connection? Keep working, and GoDocs will automatically save your document the next time your iPad is online.

The biggest knock on GoDocs is that you can’t do very much. You can’t format text (fonts, size, etc.), you can’t add links, and you can’t even align your paragraphs. There’s also nothing in the way of  document-sharing available. GoDocs is for typing and editing text, and that’s all.

Hopefully, Apple and Google will work together to better utilize the iPad’s features and create a richer Google Docs experience for those of us that like to do our typing on the go. Using GoDocs on the iPad, I get the feeling that there’s so much more that this machine could do with an app like this. I’d like to be able to add images, draw, put together presentations, and even create web forms on the go, like I can on non-mobile versions of GoDocs, and I feel like the iPad would be the device to get it done.

Popular book and entertainment retailer Borders was not going to get left in the dust by Barnes and Noble and Amazon–Borders has finally entered the eBook world with the Kobo.

Kobo’s biggest appeal when it debuted was its price–just $149, at the time about $50 less than the cheapest of the other big name eReaders. With the release of the new $149 Wi-Fi version of the Nook and the $139 Wi-Fi Kindle, that price advantage has disappeared.

As a Kindle owner, I am really attached to my Amazon device. I have my issues with the Kindle (no ability to read in the dark, screen’s still a little too small, etc.) but nothing that would keep me from recommending the device to my friends and family. When it came time to shop for an eBook reader for my grandmother, an avid reader in her 80s, I decided to shop around. I wasn’t so sure she’d be able to navigate a Kindle or a Nook.

Kobo Pros and Cons

The first device I looked at was the new Borders Kobo. I noticed in the ads I saw that the Kobo seemed to use a push-button interface rather than a touchscreen. I have enough trouble with touchscreens (if anyone ever invents something to keep my ear from dialing Pizza Hut I’ll be first in line to buy it) and I figured my grandma would have trouble with them too.

Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about the Kobo:

The Kobo is easy to hold and navigate with one hand. I sometimes find the ergonomics of my Kindle frustrating to say the least. I liked the way the Kobo felt in my hand and found it easy to use one-handed–the “quilted rubber” backing of the device is a smart addition, and makes the Kobo easy to hold on a lap.

The Kobo is pre-loaded with 100 classic books. Sure, you can get lots of classic titles free on the Kindle, but when I hand the Kobo to my grandma, she’ll see a huge list of titles ready to go and can learn how to use it without first having to learn how to download books.

The Kobo doesn’t handle PDF files well. I don’t think my grandmother will be doing much PDF viewing on her device, but if I were buying the Kobo for me, this would be a big problem.

The Kobo is not as easy to read as the Kindle. The Kobo’s display hurt my eyes a little, though I got used to it after a while. The background color is more “gray” than other eReaders I’ve used, making the text more difficult to distinguish from the background.

Overall, I think the Kobo is a decent device, one that my grandma loves to use (she’s learned to download books like a pro) but one that I couldn’t stand to have around. I need PDF files and other features native to the Kindle. If you’re looking for an old-fashioned eReader with few frills at a decent price, the Kobo isn’t a bad investment.

When the iPad rolled out in early 2010, the consensus was that the device was a huge disappointment. Jokes about the device being nothing more than a “big iPhone” notwithstanding, users of the first-gen iPad had plenty to complain about: the screen size was a let-down, with as much as 20% of the surface of the device made up of bezel. iPhone apps displayed poorly (usually a tiny screen with a lot of black space around the edges) and those apps that were “translated” for the iPad were simply doubled in pixel size, making text-based apps practically unreadable.

Now that the iPad 2 is set to pop up at your local coffeeshops and college dorms, has the iPad really been as big a disappointment as it first seemed? Unfortunately for Apple, I have to say yes.

No Multitasking

We were led to believe that the iPad was more than just a really big iPhone–that it would replace our netbooks altogether. Unfortunately, you can’t multitask. No listening to Pandora while you play Angry Birds. No reading a scathing Pitchfork review of your favorite indie band’s new record while you look up your ex-girlfriend’s new apartment on Maps. No multitasking at all.

Keyboard Woes

When Apple chose to use the same old touchscreen keyboard, they really let us geeky Apple fanboys down. The darn thing is just too big to “thumb-type” on. We all expected something revolutionary, a new style of keyboard or input method, but instead we found ourselves standing in line at Best Buy an hour after we got our iPads picking up keyboard docks. Lame.

HDMI? What’s HDMI?

Apple has sorta fixed this problem, but it still stands that when the iPad first appeared, it had no HDMI-out capability. It seemed like Apple was trying to force us all to buy AppleTV rather than use our fancy new iPad to play those beautiful HD videos we just got from The Pirate Bay downloaded legally.

No Flash

Not allowing Flash on your devices in this day and age is just ridiculous. I understand that Steve Jobs has some kind of weird beef against Flash, but we’re living in 2011, not 2111. Flash is still a big part of the Internet experience, and if you’re going to try to invent something to take the place of my beloved Netbook, it darn well better be Flash-capable.

The list could go on and on–and while some of these issues can be fixed or improved with after-market add-ons, hacks, and user generated repairs, I want my expensive Apple technology to arrive at my home ready to go. Call me old-fashioned, call me a Luddite, call me whatever you want–the fact remains, when I buy a netbook and get it going for the first time, I don’t have to tweak it to get it to do what I want.

There have apparently been some improvements to the iPad 2. My first iPad experience was such a disappointment, I”m not sure I’ll be standing in line, eager to buy another overly-bezelled, over-hyped paperweight.

Frosted Flakes coupons help the discount shopper save on their grocery bill by taking money off your grocery bill with a printable coupon.

Searching online turns up multiple Frosted Flakes discount sites with their own sales offers. Many of these are going to copy each other, since shoppers take the codes and post them on other sites, but with a little patience, you’ll find hidden sales gems amongst the host of savings.

Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes Promotions

Go to the official Kellogg Company promotions and coupon sign-up pages for the latest special offers from the company itself. Kellogg’s has a good coupon program, so start at the source for coupon offers. Here’s two pages to visit periodically.

• Frosted Flakes Promotions
• Kellogg’s Coupon Registration

If these don’t provide the bargains you’re looking for, there are alternate places online you might be able to find good deals, including grocery store chains that give bargain bin pricing and have their own local sales.

Frosted Flakes Coupon Sites

Besides the Kellogg’s official sale, coupons, and discount page, you’ll find a series of websites on the Internet where shoppers can post sales items and coupon codes they find. You can rate the effectiveness of these coupon items, depending on whether they worked in your area or not, giving others feedback so they don’t waste their time printing off useless coupons. You can use the same information when shopping online for printable coupons.

• Coupons Cabin Discounts
• Coupon Network Printable Coupons
• Red Plum Coupons
• Save.com Sales and Promo Codes
• Coupons Dotcom Coupons

Most of these websites de-list a promotion or coupon code as soon as it goes out-of-date, so you don’t print a bunch of dated coupon offers. Right now, you should be able to print 2011 free coupons.

Frosted Flakes Cereal

Frosted Flakes was one of the first in a new generation of sugary breakfast cereals when it appeared in 1952. Known by names like Frosties in the United Kingdom, Corn Frosties in Japan, Corn Frost in South Korean, and Zucaritas in Latin America, Frosted Flakes first were marketed by Kellogg’s.

Because the name is descriptive, “Frosted Flakes” cannot be trademarked, and is therefore the name of a number of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes knock-offs. The most version remains the Kellogg Corporation flakes with Tony the Tiger on the front of the box. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes of Corn has had many slogans over the years, but the enduring one is the classic, yet somewhat uninspired, “They’re Gr-r-eat!”

Free Fruit Loops coupons are available from more online sources than you would imagine. Buyers can search for up-to-date 2011 promotions at the official Kellogg Company website or find printable coupons and promo codes at independent web addresses across the Internet.

Kellogg Company Coupons

This Kellogg’s Promotions and Coupons page is a good place to acquire Fruit Loops savings, along with discounts and promotions on other brands of cereal from Kellogg’s. Search promotions with the internal search engine using the brand names you buy.

Shoppers also can shop for savings on this Kelloggs Coupon Registration page, which presents special offers on Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Fruit Loops, Special K, Pop-Tarts, Eggo, Fiber-Plus products, and other Kellogg breakfast products.

Coupons.com Kellogg Sales

Coupons.com coupons (currently is running prominent ads for free Kellogg coupons, so you should be able to find promotions and free codes at this site. Fruit Loops sales won’t always be on, but this is another site you should search for discounts every week or so. Beside the “Retail Me Not” site I’ve pointed out numerous times, below are several other coupon sites to consider.

• CouponsDotcom Coupons
• Red Plum Coupons
• Coupons Cabin Discounts
• Coupon Network Printable Coupons
• Save.com Sales and Promo Codes

Fruit Loops Background

Fruit Loops first appeared in grocery stores in 1963. Featuring sweetened and colored tori of cereal, Fruit Loops has been a consistent seller for the Kellogg Company.

From the beginning, Toucan Sam has been the Fruit Loops mascot. Toucan Sam originally was voiced by Mel Blanc of Looney Tunes fame, though toucan with the pink and orange striped beak has also been voiced by Paul Frees and Maurice LeMarche. Toucan Sam has had a number of adventures, friends, and adversaries over the years. Puey, Sooey, and Louis have been Sam’s buddies since the mid-1990s, while the rogues gallery includes Dr. Peacock, Greedy Froot Pharaoh, and Selfish Froot Master.

Since Fruit Loops are marketed to kids and children can eat a lot of cereal in one sitting, you’ll want to print off Fruit Loops coupons to help with savings. There is no reason anyone with a home computer and printer should buy cereal without using coupon codes and promotions. It means instant reductions to your grocery bill, and takes a few moments, once you know where to find free printable coupons.

Printable Special K Coupons are available on a number of coupon websites on the Internet, but if you’ve been reading this week, you already know that. I wanted to discuss some alternative places to find print-off savings for Kellogg and Special K foods. Here in 2011, parent companies and specialty websites are each getting into the game. Let me explain.

Special K Coupons on Kellogg Site

The first place to find Special K coupons is to go to the Kellogg website, where you can sign up to learn about special offers and discounts on Special K cereal from Kellogg’s. Signing up carries with it no obligation, though you’ll have special offers sent to your email address every once in a while (you can hit the spam filter if it’s a nuisance).

You can also access Special K recipes if you are considering the Special K Challenge, a diet designed to help you lose six pounds in 2 weeks (not necessarily a healthy weight loss rate). You can also read about the health benefits of fiber, along with other nutrition and fitness tips.

High Value Special K Coupons

Click on the following site to find four different valuable Special K coupons for free. All you have to do is copy these printable coupons, which include $1 off a package of chocolate caramel protein bars from Special K, $1-off any two packages of Special K product (mix and match if you wish), $2-off when you purchase any 3 packages, or $3 off when you purchase any 5 packages of Special K brand items (over 3.3 ounces).

These might not sound like huge savings, but if you make Special K a common part of your diet for a year, the discounts you can print off become substantial.

What Does “Special K” Mean?

Special K simply refers to the name “Kellogg”, which markets the breakfast cereal. I suppose the cereal is considered special by the Kellogg Company because the wheat and rice combo food is eaten for diet, health, and fitness purposes.

The product has been around since 1956 and is considered a healthy option, if you eat it with fruit and skim milk, instead of sugar and whole milk. Since whole generations of people have found enjoyment and nourishment eating Special K, it’s an option for adding to your daily diet.

Cereal Coupons

Getting free coupons for cereal items is a good way to save money while you watch your weight. I often talk about Retail Me Not, Coupon Junction, and Coupon Mountain, and printing off coupon codes and sale discounts is so easy these days, everyone should make online print-off coupons a part of their year-round shopping experience.

Raisin Bran coupons can be found online, if you search long enough through the online coupons sites that offer promo codes and free printable coupons.

Most of the time, you’ll probably want to search through grocery coupon pages and supermarket retail chain websites.

Raisin Bran Discounts at Retail-Me-Not

Retail Me Not actually has a small coupons page specifically for Raisin Bran cereal items, which I actually didn’t expect to find. As you’ll read in greater detail about below, Raisin Bran is a generic food item these days, so you’ll find the product sold by many different company. This page gives you 5 specific Raisin Bran coupon codes that can be printed off, including a print-friendly $28 off Raisin Bran shopping saver.

Check back regularly at this General Mills Coupons page and this Kellogg’s Coupons page for deals on Raisin Bran. Neither has savings on Raisin Bran at the moment, but both are likely to offer discounts in the future.

Raisin Bran Coupons at Retail Me Not

If that’s not enough for you, below is a list of the major supermarket chains that offer coupons on RetailMeNot. While you might not always find specific Raisin Bran discounts and sales items, you might find coupons for cereal, for Kellog’s or General Mills, or generic coupons for any groceries. Don’t overlook the savings you’ll get directly from the grocery store in your town or neighborhood.

• Raisin Bran Coupons at Costco
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Whole Foods Market
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Wal-Mart
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Sams Club
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Aldi
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Supervalu
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Super-Target
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Albertsons
• Raisin Bran Coupons at Kroger

Raisin Bran Background

Raisin Bran was first marketed by the U.S. Mills company in 1926. U.S. Mills was founded in 1908, and was most famous back in the day for selling Uncle Sam Cereal. When Erewhon Natural Food Market purchased U.S. Mills in 1986, that company changed its name to U.S. Mills.

Meanwhile, Raisin Bran had evolved in other directions. While the name had been trademarked, Raisin Bran had been marketed by so many different cereal companies that the trademark lost its power and “Raisin Bran” became a generic name. Companies like Kelloggs and General Mills had their own brand of Raisen Bran, though the latter of those two companies called their product General Mills Total Raisin Bran, because it was part of its “Total” line of wheat bran cereals.

So when you’re searching for Raisin Bran coupons in 2011, there are actually several types of bran cereals with raisins (sugared or not, but probably so) whose coupons you might be searching for: maybe U.S. Mills Raisin Bran, but probably General Mills Total Raisin Bran or Kellogg’s Raisin Bran.

Lucky Charms coupons are no longer just available off the back of cereal boxes or inserts to the Sunday newspaper. You can download and print cereal coupons off the Internet these days. Just log onto one of a number of online coupon websites, find a coupon code or free printable coupon, and use your printer to produce a ready-made coupon for use in stores.

If you do your shopping online, you don’t even have to do that. All you have to do is copy down the coupon code and get your discount when you check out at the online retail vendor. While online cereal purchases aren’t as common as, say, buying items like perfume, cologne, books, CDs, DVDs, blu-ray discs, or even clothes online, the more efficient state of online delivery in the last few years and the growth of grocery shopping services is making this more common all the time.

Finding Lucky Charms Coupons – Retail Me Not

Shoppers searching for Lucky Charms coupons may not have a lot of luck, if they’re searching specifically for 2011 coupon codes for that brand name. Remember to type in “General Mills coupons” if you’re having trouble finding the Lucky Charms. Another option is to get open-ended coupons from any of the larger supermarket chains that are likely to carry Lucky Charms products.

Here’s a list of some of the larger grocery chains you’ll find at one of the big electronic coupon exchanges like “Retail Me Not”. Each of these links takes you to the Retail Me Not site page for each retailer.

• Albertsons Coupons
• Kroger Coupons
• Whole Foods Market Coupons
• Wal-Mart Coupons
• Sams Club Coupons
• Aldi Coupons
• Supervalu Coupons
• Super-Target Coupons
• Costco Coupons

While you won’t find Lucky Charms coupons on each page, you’ll find coupons ranging from $2-off purchases to “free shopping for a year” contests, so you can get discounts on your cereal purchases a number of different ways.

Lucky Charms Cereal

Lucky Charms were first marketed by General Mills in the early 1960s, when the company had a contest based around designing a new and novel cereal using the industrial assets General Mills’ already used to make Cheerios and Wheaties. John Holahan decides to combine Cheerios with the marshmallows in Circus Peanuts and won the contest. A marketing executive convinced the company to market the product with an idea popular in 1962–charm bracelets–and Lucky Charms came together.

Over the years, there have been changes. The original cereal was not sugar-coated, but sales weren’t where General Mills hoped they would be, so sugar was added. Also, the sales people figured out that sales were better when the marshmallow lineup was changed periodically, so there have been many changes to the marshmallows over the years: including hearts, moons, stars, clovers, diamonds, horseshoes, balloons, rainbows, pots of gold, hats, and hourglasses.

For kids of my generation, it’s the Lucky Charms advertisements which stick with me. What kid who grew up in the Seventies or Eighties (and probably Sixties) doesn’t remember Arthur Anderson, who voiced the leprechaun for 30 years, crying out, “They stole me lucky charms!” Ah, the good ole days.

Until you’ve been in business for a few years and gone through a couple of redesigns on your business card, don’t leave it up to your own ideas of what a business card should look like. Leaving a crucial piece of information off your business card is akin to taking money out of your own pocket. You never know when a simple mistake or slip of the memory will hurt your business prospects.

Here’s a quick and easy guide to what sort of information you should put on your business card.

Your Name

It seems like a no-brainer to put your name on your business card, but in reality, deciding whether or not your Christian name should be displayed on your card is a bit tricky. Not every business warrants the use of your actual name on your business card.

People who don’t outright own a business should think twice before slapping their name on their card. If you are part of a team of employees working for a business, you may not want to put your name on your card. Having said that, some businesses would prefer their team members put their names on their business card. Leaving your name off your card could look lazy, or even discourage a new customer from contacting your business if the card looks too impersonal.

The Name of Your Business

The logo of your business and the design of the business card are important, but don’t get so hung up on the business card logo that you forget to put your company’s name on your card. The name of your business or the business you work for should be the focal point of the card. A good card balances the textual name of your business with the logo of the company itself, making sure that one element doesn’t overpower the next.

A Short Description of Your Business

The whole idea behind a business card is to specify your exact role in the company. If you’re the owner, make it clear. If you’re a customer service rep, make that clear. Business card design is hardly rocket science—a card tells your customer, friend, or relative exactly when they would want to contact you or your business for services.

You can take this too far, printing out a detailed list of your business services. The ideal “description of your business” here is more like a tagline or a single sentence. The best cards say something like: “Call [your name] whenever you need _____.” Be clever here, but not too clever.

Your Place of Business

Even if your business is based online, you should have a physical address attached to it so that your business card appears more official. We’re not quite at the point where online-exclusive businesses are as trustworthy as land-based businesses, so if you must, use your home address on the business card.

Putting your complete physical address is a polite nod to customers who may have concerns about the legitimacy of an online business. Of course, if your business isn’t based online, putting your physical address is a must, but a feature that some people (believe it or not) accidentally leave off their cards.

Your Contact Information

Detailed contact information can be a struggle in terms of creating a business card. With limited space and without drawing attention away from the other features of the card, put enough contact information so that your potential customers can reach you in as many was as possible.

You may have a pager, a cell phone number, and hopefully two or more landline or other cell phone numbers where you or someone at your company can be reached.

Having said that, most people prefer to put just one really solid contact phone number instead of junking up the card with all sorts of random phone number contacts. Select the phone number where you can be reached most often, a “preferred” contact number. This is a number where you or your company can be reached during normal business hours. This is a great tactic, because it clears up space on your business card while still allowing your customers access to you and your services.

Your Online Contact Info

Your business most likely has some sort of online contact information, even if most of your contacts and transactions happen “offline.” Your business card should contain some sort of online contact info as well as more traditional contacts. This can be as simple as your business’ website URL and your personal or business email address.

The main reason why people would avoid putting their email (personal or otherwise) is if they’d rather customers educate themselves about the business by visiting the website first. In that case, leave off your email info but make sure and make your business URL a highlight of the card. And by all means, make sure you get the URL exactly right. A misprint in a website address can really sap the usefulness of a business website and can frustrate potential customers.

Putting together a good business card is as much about trial and error as it is about a pretty design. Go through several versions of your business card, taking care to double check all the contact info, business details, phone numbers, and other pieces of information you stick on the card. Remember that a good business card can be your ticket to future business success or a calling card that lets your customers know that you don’t run a tight ship.

Here’s a great article about how to use a business card in the business world more effectively.

Where to Play Dominion Online

Right now, my personal favorite card game to play is Dominion. It’s a deck-building game, like Magic the Gathering, only it’s not a collectible card game. It’s fun to play in person, but you can play Dominion online at BrettSpielWelt, which is a German boardgame site.  They offer several other card games AND board games too, like Carcassone, Puerto Rico, and Pandemic.

Where to Play Magic the Gathering Online

I played literally dozens of games of Magic the Gathering online before I got frustrated and gave up. I lost EVERY game I played. My win percentage at Dominion is close to 40%, which means that I’m not a complete dolt, but for some reason, I just don’t “get” Magic the Gathering. But anyway, it’s available to play online here: Magic Online.

Where to Play Poker Online

Until a few weeks ago, there were a lot of places where you could play poker online for real money–sites like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker. But they got in trouble for accepting real money players from the United States, and now, USA based players can’t play there. (Actually, I think they can still play there. They just can’t play in the real money games there.

My suggestion for free poker games online is a new site, Zodiac Holdem. You don’t have to download any software in order to play there, and the games are straightforward limit holdem games. It’s a multiplayer poker site, too, so you ARE playing poker with other people. You’re just not playing for real money.

Where to Play Spades Online

Spades is probably my favorite card game. I used to play two player Spades with my mom for countless hours when I was growing up. And when I went to college, we played Spades constantly in the lobbies of the dorms. (In fact, I even met one of my best-looking girlfriends playing Spades with her in the lobby of one particular dorm. It didn’t last long, but I hope she still thinks of me occasionally when the topic of card games comes up.)

My favorite place to play Spades online is at Pogo. World Winner offers a Spades variation too, but it doesn’t play like a regular game of Spades at all. It’s still plenty of fun though. I haven’t played there in a long time, but if you do like playing games with a cash element, World Winner’s Spades game is worth trying.

Where to Play Blackjack Online

Blackjack has the same problem that poker has–the legality of playing it for real money on the Internet is questionable. That being said, no one has ever been convicted (or even prosecuted) for playing blackjack on the Internet. We don’t recommend real money gambling sites on AskDeb, but if you just want to play for fun, there are plenty of play money blackjack options online.

Catch 21 from World Winner isn’t exactly a blackjack game, but you are trying to catch cards and wind up with a total of 21. It’s more of a solitaire type game than anything else. But it’s loads of fun.

Hit or Stand is probably the most famous free blackjack site on the Internet. Their game isn’t just a game to play though; it’s also a basic strategy trainer. In blackjack, if you play with the correct strategy, the house edge is much lower than if you just play by the seat of your pants. The house edge at blackjack is only about 0.5% if you’re using perfect basic strategy when you play, compared to a house edge of 2% to 4% if you have no clue about correct strategy.

Where to Play Solitaire Online

I played a LOT of solitaire as a kid, but I don’t know how to play most of the more popular online solitaire games that are now available. The solitaire game I grew up playing was Klondike, and before the Internet, I didn’t even know that there WERE other kinds of solitaire games to play. Most computers come with a basic solitaire game available, so you don’t even need the Internet to play solitaire. But if you DO want to try some of the online versions of solitaire available, then the best solitaire site on the Internet is World of Solitaire. The site offers over 50 different varieties of solitaire to choose from, all of which load fast and look great. I don’t know why you’d ever need another solitaire site.

Where to Play Rummy Online

I played a little rummy growing up, but I never really got into the whole “online rummy” thing. For a while, webmasters and affiliates were hoping that rummy would be the next poker, but I don’t think it’s ever going to catch on in the same way that poker has. Rummy’s just not as much fun, and the money’s not there. Rummy Royal is my pick for the best online version of rummy available.

Other Games You Can Play Online

I’m also a big fan of playing boardgames online when I can. My favorite is Scrabble at Facebook. Pogo offers a variety of boardgames you can play on the Internet. Traditional board games like chess, checkers, backgammon, and go are available at all kinds of sites. Since there’s no trademark claim on those older traditional boardgames, any developer can create his own version of a game like that and put it on the Internet for people to play.

Playing games online is fun, even if you’re an old guy like me who likes playing traditional board games and card games. (The younger generation seems to like all of these MMORPGs and video games.) So have fun and play what you want.

A structured settlement is a court-ordered set of periodic payments which stem from a lawsuit for damages or a legal agreement to settle damages in a tort case. The structured settlement calls for compensation payments for damages or workers’ compensation and is subject to the Internal Revenue Code Section 104.

Structured settlements have only been around for a generation or two, as the first structured payment plan occurred in a British court case in the 1970s. This type of payment replaced lump sum payment plans, which were the rule in damage claims before that time. The innovation came about because of the increasing amount of money changing hands in tort cases in the Seventies.

Since the Seventies, structured settlements have become the norm in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. These payments are often funded through the purchase of annuities, which acts as a guarantee of future payments. Structured settlements are considered asset-backed securities, and can result from either settlement out of court or due to a legal obligation incurred through a lost court case.

What Is Tort?

“Tort” is money compensation for injuries caused or wrong done by one party to another. Tort law has been evolving since before the 1970s, because of the increasing amount of damage claims in cases since that time. You’ve probably heard people talk about “tort reform” and tort cases all the time, but it’s a term that many people don’t immediately understand, since tort law isn’t taught in public schools.

What Is Tort Reform?

Tort reform is the name given to law which hope to limit the amount of compensation in tort cases. Supporters of tort reform claim that out-of-control damages clog up the civil court system, encourage ambulance chaser lawyers, and increase insurance costs for everyone else, as companies have to compensate for large damage settlements.

Opponents of tort reform claim that companies must face high penalties for cases where they cause irreparable damage to employees and private citizens, because they will view lesser settlements as the “price of doing business” and therefore have no motivation to limit danger to workers or individuals affected by cost-cutting decisions.

Therefore, tort reform becomes a matter of viewing individual welfare against public costs. Questions of whether to support tort reform often revolve around the question of whether private corporations will police themselves or need the threat of legal jeopardy to do the right thing in setting up their business practices.

You could say that tort reform is about whether “slimy” lawyers prey on private interests, whether crusading lawyers serve a public purpose in keeping those very same private interests honest. Whether you support tort reform tends to boil down to where you stand on that issue.

Proponents in tort reform have won a valuable public relations battle simply in having the issue termed “tort reform”, because opponents would say reforming the tort system is no sort of reform at all, but opening the door for corruption. In my personal view, the murky politics of personal injury law leaves room to blame both sides, though I suppose having a “curse on both your houses” attitude hardly solves any problems. Each case is different, so I tend to dislike laws that limit judgments.

Structured Settlement and Tort Reform

Structured settlements therefore have become a way for businesses and companies often targeted by personal injury claims to defer some of the costs of tort cases against them, but limiting the amount of up-front payments and forestall damages that would put them out of business.

You could say lawyers and corporations alike have found a third way, which avoids a lump sum damage claim that would close doors, while avoiding the kind of tort reform laws that would close the doors on the law practices of so-called ambulance chasers. The business paying structured settlements retain capital they can invest in their business, hoping either to collect interest or make profits that offset the costs of the annuities they’ll have to pay.

The corporation forestalls costs and pays out over many years, the lawyers still collect fees for years to come, and those harmed are paid out over the years, hopefully as its own kind of pension. It should be noted that Medicare and Medicaid sometimes affect the amount of money paid in a structured settlement.

Selling Structured Settlements

Believe it or not, there are companies that buy structured settlements from the people who’ve been awarded them or who bargained for them out of court. Imagine you have a structured settlement plan, but you need money up-front and fast. There are companies who’ll pay you a lump sum amount (at a lesser total cost), and who then have the right to collect the damages (making a long-term profit).

These companies do the same with life insurance policies, annuities, and lottery awards. You have to imagine that the amount paid to those selling their future payments is going to be at a significantly reduced amount, so they can eventually turn a profit on this transaction.

For the most part, I would urge people not to sell their structured settlement to one of these companies, but people mortgage their futures for quick cash today all the time, so I know that advice is going to fall on deaf ears in many cases. Understand that you’re selling a dime for $0.05 today, or more likely, you’re selling a quarter for five cents. If you can avoid selling out your annual payments, don’t sell.

Normal Cholesterol Levels

Below is a list of the normal cholesterol levels for your average person. Any number above the first number posted below tends to be getting into the danger area, often termed “borderline”. Any number above the second number posted in each column is considered “high” or “low” according to standard conditions and is therefore dangerous. I’ve posted a third number that is considered in the “very high” or “very low” range. I’ll also explain what each of the types of cholesterol are.

• LDL Cholesterol (bad) – 130 – 170 – 200
• HDL Cholesterol (good) - 65 – 40
• Total Cholesterol – 200 – 250 – 290
• Triglycerides – 150 – 225 – 525

Low Density Cholesterol – The Bad Cholesterol

“Bad cholesterol” is low-density cholesterol, because this form of litoprotein tends to collect on your arteries’ inner walls. When cholesterol starts to build up, your arteries begin to clog up and harden somewhat, a condition called artherosclerosis. The clogging and hardening makes it harder for your heart to pump blood through your body, in much the same way that a snag or pinching of a water hose slows the flow of water through the hose.

When your heart pumps harder than it’s supposed to, it begin to enlarge, like any other muscle does that’s worked hard. Unfortunately, unlike biceps, an enlarging heart has thinner walls and is therefore more likely to break down and create a heart attack. Meanwhile, the clogged arteries can eventually restrict to a point that blood no longer makes it to your heart at all. In either case, you have severe health problems on the way, because you’re more likely to have a stroke or heart attack.

It’s a good idea to keep the levels of your low density litoprotein low, which lowers your chances of having heart-related conditions. You do this by eating fruits and vegetables instead of fried foods and fast foods. When you quit smoking, this also helps your prospects, because smoking causes your arteries to harden, as well.

High Density Cholesterol – The Good Cholesterol

Roughly 1/4th of your cholesterol is high density litoprotein. There is evidence that the high density cholesterol carries away the cholersterol buildup and plaque that forms in your arteries, cleaning out your arterial system. When this happens, the excess cholesterol is carried off to your liver and eventually passed out of your body. Because HDL performs this role, it is called good cholesterol.

Combined Cholesterol Levels

When you add up the LDL and HDL measurements in your blood, this is your total or combined cholesterol level. Any total cholesterol above 200 is considered to be getting into the danger zone. Anything over 250 is high or very high, and puts you at an even higher threat of stroke or heart attack.

Triglycerides and Cholesterol Range

Your body produces a form of fat called tryglyceride or TAG. Studies link high levels of triglycerides with atherosclerosis, though the relationship has not been fully established. There appears to be an inverse relationship between triglycerides and the ratio between HDL and LDL in your body. The higher your triglyceride count, the lower your percentage of HDL, it would seem.

In any case, have a high “tag” count appears to increase your risk of having a stroke or a heart condition. You might find the addition of triglyceride number just confuses your understanding of the dilemma you face. If so, worry only about your cholesterol levels at the moment, but understand that this figure is out there and illuminates what you’re up against.

Cholesterol Scores in the Normal Range

Remember that having a normal cholesterol score is just one part of the full picture of your health. Know your blood pressure levels.

Keep track of your weight once a week, if not every day. (Some suggest measuring once a week, but I personally believe weighing yourself every day, while it contains a lot of fluctuation, helps with accountability.) Get thirty minutes of moderate exercise a day, no matter what your diet is. Do these things and visit your doctor regularly, and see whether you can lower your cholesterol levels.

How and when each of these occurs should be discussed separately, so I’ll discuss how painkillers works to stop the pain signals, and how the pain killers work to stop the source of the pain.

Painkillers and Headaches

Imagine you have a headache, whether it’s a headache caused from a migraine, a hangover, or simply eye strain. When you have a headache, it’s usually because a blood vessel in your brain is dilated (widened). When this happens, more blood rushes into your head.

This excess of blood rushing into your head is going to cause a headache, as the blood pounds at a high rate through your brain. If you take aspirin for a headache, this does several things for your body.

One, aspirin is an anti-inflammatory. This means that inflamed tissue becomes less swollen or distended, so the blood vessel becomes less dilated. Two, aspirin is a mild analgesic; that is, aspirin reduces pain without causing unconsciousness. So aspirin reduces pain in and around the blood vessel, though not necessarily curing your condition (in this case).

Three, aspirin is an anti-platelet drug. Platelets in your blood clump together, creating the process of coagulation or clotting. Therefore, platelets make your blood thicker. An anti-platelet drug like aspirin is sometimes called a “blood thinner” for this reason. The blood around your blood vessel becomes more viscous, so its rushing through your blood vessels becomes a less violent process.

<>Killing the Pain by Blocking Pain Signals

Most of the heavy-duty pain killers, such as hydrocodone and morphine, do their job by blocking pain signals before they get to your brain. Many prescription painkillers are going to do the same.

Your body has a central nervous system which transmits command signals from your brain to the muscles and vascular system throughout your body, allowing you to move and breathe and otherwise control your body functions. But the central nervous system also relays signals from your body’s muscles (and other parts) to your brain, giving the brain a status report on how you feel through sensations like sight, sound, taste, smell and, of course, touch.

Why We Feel Pain

Our sense of touch is such an innate part of the human experience that we sometimes take it for granted and diminish it’s role in our lives by focusing on the sights, sounds, and smells around us, but the sense of touch is in many ways the most important sense.

Not only does it tells us what feels good and what hurts (such as touching a hot stove), but it also signals to us when something in our body isn’t quite right. Pain receptors in the brain let us know when we’ve received damage or we feel sick. When the pain becomes too great, we take painkillers to shut off that signal.

That’s what powerful painkillers under names like hydrocodone, demerol, lorcet, vicodin, morphine, percocet, oxycontin (oxycodone), and celebrex do. They shut down the pain signals to your brain, so you don’t feel the pain and might not care about the pain if you did feel it. These drugs do not cure your condition or stop the cause of the pain itself. It might make you feel good, but it’s not really curing your condition. It does give you time and the ability to relax, so your body’s natural healing abilities can work its wonder.

Stopping Inflammation in Your Body

Often when someone is having trouble with severe pain in their body, a doctor prescribes pain killers along with some form of anti-inflammatory drug. So let’s look at what “inflammation” really is.

Inflammation is the body’s first response to an injury, irritation, or infection. Inflammation is what happens when your white blood cells, a vital part of your body’s blood, rushes to the scene of a perceived injury or infection and begins to try to heal your body. You probably remember from 5th grade science class the discussion of the white blood cells eating viruses and bacteria that enter your body. I personally remember a film where they were portrayed as the immune system’s foot soldiers.

That’s an apt image. When an injury occurs, an excess of blood rushes to that part of your body. This is done to get as many white blood cells as possible in the vicinity of the injury, to fight possible infection, stop the flow of blood from your body through the process of blood clotting, and get additional oxygen and nutrients to damaged parts of your body, in order to start the healing process. This excess blood in your body, especially the white blood cells which remain behind (which contain a chemical that signals for more blood flow), causes inflammation.

Too Much Inflammation

Much of the pain comes from this inflammation, though. Remember back to the discussion of the headache, where we discussed the dilation of blood vessels and too much blood flowing through your brain, causing a pounding headache. Inflammation also causes a throbbing or pounding in your body, too. While you might want your body fighting to heal you, there are cases where an inappropriate amount of inflammation occurs.

For instance, many people believe rheumatoid arthritis is caused by an inappropriate amount of inflammation. So taking anti-inflammatories helps relieve the inflamed parts of your body, giving you the pain relief to live a normal life. Like the taking of aspirin, anti-inflammatory meds actual stop the cause of the excess pain, because the inflamed parts of your body are no longer inflamed.

When you have a sports injury or a physical injury to your ankles, knees, and other joints, that’s why people apply ice to the injury. Ice tends to reduce the amount of swelling and inflammation around the injured body part, by limiting the amount of blood flow. Especially in the early stages of an injury, icing a joint can limit the amount of blood flow, so your vascular system doesn’t become dilated or stretched. Once dilated, these vessels are hard to reduce, so icing a joint immediately is a major assistance.

Painkillers and Medicine

In the end, killing the pain is important to healing your body. Your body does most of its healing when it’s at rest and asleep, so if you can make yourself relax and comfortable enough to get your proper rest and sleep, your body is going to heal quicker. That’s why prescribed pain killers that don’t treat a condition are still a legitimate form of medicine, beyond just being a relief to your peace of mind.

Just remember, whether you’re taking pain killers that treat the source of your problem or you are just narcotizing to relieve the stress and pain of your injury, to take the prescribed amount of painkiller. Just like the case of conditions caused by too much inflammation, there’s such as thing as too much medicine.

Vitamin K or Ketamine is a type of vitamin found most often in green leaves which helps human blood in the clotting process. There are three vitamins in the Vitamin K family: phylloquinon, menaquinone, and menadione. These three vitamins’ names usually are shorted to Vitamins K1, K2, and K3.

Taking Vitamin K helps those who have trouble with blood clotting. Ketamine modifies certain proteins which aid in coagulation, which helps in the synthesis of a blood clotting enzyme prothrombin, which is found in the liver. If you are taking blood thinners, you should consult a doctor before taking Vitamin K.

What Foods Contain Vitamin K?

Vitamin K is found in foods ranging from green leafy vegetables and green beans to dairy products and eggs. A variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, and cereals also contain vitamin K.

The main fruits and vegetables which contain ketamine are spinach, cabbage, brussel sprouts, broccoli, parsley, kale, cauliflower, Swiss chard, avocado, and kiwis.

Ketamine Products – K1, K2, K3

Here are the three versions of ketamine you’ll find in drug stores. I’ll discuss each of these vitamins, so you’ll know what each can do for you and your general health.

• Vitamin K1 – Phylloquinone
• Vitamin K2 – Menaquinone
• Vitamin K3 – Menadione

Phylloquinone – Vitamin K1

Phylloquinone is the vitamin you’re most likely to be equated with vitamin K. Phylloquinone is produced in the human intestine. If you drink cultured milk products like yogurt, this increasing the function of the intestines in producing phylloquinone. Phylloquinone is found in green plants, while the next vitamin k is created by bacteria.

Menaquinone – Vitamin K2

Vitamin K2 is synthesized by bacteria. This vitamin comes in many subtypes, usually menaquinone-4 (MK4) or menaquinone-7 (MK7). MK4 is created by the human body by conversion of vitamin K1, which is converted in the pancreas, arterial walls, and testes. MK7 is converted from phylloquinone in human intestines by gut bacteria.

MK4 helps prevent bone loss or bone fractures in patients who have suffered cirrhosis of the liver, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson diesease, anorexia nervosa, and the use of corticosteroids. MK7 has shown no such abilities in clinical trials.

Menadione – Vitamin K3

Menadione is a synthetic version of vitamin K. While natural vitamin K is fat soluble, menadione is water soluble, so taking this version of vitamin k bypasses the usual utilization process of the body.

Menadione is sometimes added to dogfood, instead of vitamin K1. There is some controversy about whether menadione is safe for this purpose, as there has been evidence that this version of vitamin k might build up, weakening the immune system and causing skin irritation and mucus membrane irritation, and sometime allergic reactions and eczcema. Instead of menadione, some dog foods contain natural green plant supplements like alfalfa, kelp, nettle leaf, spirulina, or blue-green algae.

For those who want to avoid pet foods with synthetic vitamin K, vitamin K-3, or menadione, here are various names synonymous with menadione on dog food package ingredients lists.

• Menadione sodium bisulfate
• Menadione sodium bisulfite
• Vitamin K supplement
• Dimethylprimidinol sulfate
• Dimethylprimidinol sulfite
• Dimethylprimidinol bisulfate
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol sulfate
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol sulfite
• Menadione dimethylprimidinol bisulfite

As you can see, there are specific significant differences between the three broad vitamin k types, especially the synthetic vitamin K-3. I wanted to include this selection for dog lovers who want to care for their pets. Now that the controversial section of our discussion is out of the way, let’s talk about the known benefits of natural vitamin-k.

More Health Benefits of Vitamin K

Plastic surgeons and other doctors sometimes use vitamin k to stop blood hemorrhages and excessive bleeding. The vitamin also helps soothe sensitive, damage skin. Vitamin K is sometimes used to calm down outbreaks of couperose, better known these days as rosacea.

Vitamin K may have benefits for the very old and the very young. Ketamine is thought to maintain strong bones in aged people. Also, babies usually have low levels of vitamin K. In either case, talk to your doctor before administering vitamin K.

Using Vitamin K

Phyllaquinone is an important suppliment if you have trouble with thin blood or you’re aging and want help keeping your bones strong. When taking new substances into your body, read as much about it to learn the benefits and side effects. Even beneficent vitamins can produce effects in your body, so read as much as possible and consult a doctor when taking vitamin-k if you have had a history of blood clotting. If you’re having problems with your blood coagulation, then taking ketamine might help increase the length and quality of your life.

You’re probably more familiar with fat replacement products than you think. Any time you drink low-fat milk (1%, 2%, etc.) you are consuming a fat replacement product of some kind. In low-fat milk, fat replacement products are inserted to take the place of the fat that is removed. Without something to replace the fat that is taken out, the milk would have a strange consistency, mouth-feel, and taste.

Fat replacement products, also known as fat replacers, can take the place of carbohydrates, proteins, or fat based, not just fat. The only requirement is that they provide fewer than 9 calories per gram–the amount of calories that dietary fat provides.

Fat replacement products work by replacing some or all of the functions of fat in a food product without providing the same “energy” that fat would provide. Remember that a calorie is a measure of a food’s energy potential. The idea behind using a fat replacement product is to allow a food to taste, look, smell, and feel the same as it would without the highly caloric fat. 

Fat Replacement Product Regulations

For something to be legally declared a “fat replacer,” it has to fulfill a few requirements.

1. Fat replacers should contribute little or no caloric energy to the food product it is added to.

2. Fat replacers must be non-toxic, easily digestible, and able to be excreted by the human body.

3. Fat replacers  must not rob the body of precious fat soluble vitamins, as some fat replacement products tend to do.

Fat Replacement Product Dangers

The body needs to absorb vitamins, and many vitamins are fat-soluble. Basically, this means that they require fat to be absorbed by the human body. If you are using lots of fat replacement products, your body may not be able to absorb as many vitamins. People who eat lots of food products that contain high levels of fat replacement products tend to be vitamin-deficient. That’s why it is not a good idea to eat a large number of foods that are 0% fat. Consider drinking whole milk one or two days a week instead of skim milk seven days a week, for instance.

Fat Replacement Flavor

All fat replacers should contribute some from of flavor or taste to a food product. This isn’t a legal requirement, but one imposed by food producers. Think about it this way–you could add styrofoam to a food and take away much of its fat content, but the food wouldn’t taste very good. Fat replacement products should still be palatable.

Fat Replacement Stability

When food producers use the word “stable,” they are referring an ingredient’s ability to maintain a constant temperature and moisture level. Many failed fat replacement products didn’t work because they weren’t stable and could impact the appearance, texture, or taste of a food after even a brief period of storage. The word “stable” when used to describe fat replacement products also refers to their ability to withstand high or low temperatures for foods that are meant to be baked, microwaved, frozen, or refrigerated.

Desserts were introduced to Peru by Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century. That isn’t to say that the native people of Peru never ate sweets or “after-dinner treats” . . . just that what we think of today as Peruvian desserts are heavily influenced by European sweet confections.

Here’s a list of awesome Peruvian desserts, along with a few short recipes.

Huevo Chimbo — a very rich dessert, something like an egg custard and something like traditional Spanish flan, usually served with local nuts and berries.

Encanelado — a light and fluffy egg-based cake loaded with cinnamon.

Bien me Sabe — originally made by nuns, this sweet treat’s recipe is too

complex for most of us to reproduce at home. A coconut-based cake with layers of cream and meringue.

Alfajores — a sweet custard pressed between two light pieces of pastry.

• 1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla rum
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 1 (11.5 ounce) jar dulce de leche
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks one at a time. Beat in vanilla rum, vanilla extract, lemon extract, and lemon zest. Gently fold in the flour mixture with a spoon, making a crumbly dough. Press the dough into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough about 1/4 inch thick. Cut with a small round cookie cutter. Continue pressing the dough together, rolling it out, and cutting until you have used it all. Place cookies 1/2 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake in the preheated oven until set, 7 to 10 minutes. Remove the cookies immediately to cool on a wire rack.

Spread the underside of a cooled cookie with a teaspoon of dulce de leche, then sandwich together with another cookie until the caramel oozes out the sides. Roll the sides in the shredded coconut.

Tejas — these sweet treats are usually wrapped in decorative paper and given away at festivals.

• 2 cups dulce de leche
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups white chocolate chips, or chopped white chocolate
• 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
• 12-15 pitted prunes, cut into halves
• 1 cup macademia nuts

Place the dulce de leche and butter in a very heavy pot. Heat on low.

Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and let cool overnight in the refrigerator.

Use a melon baller to scoop small balls of the candy, then shape them with your hands into a cylinder. Press a couple of macademia nuts and half of a prune into the top of each. Place candies in the freezer while you prepare the chocolate.

Bring an inch of water to a boil in a saucepan. Place the white chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl that fits over the top of the saucepan without touching the water. Place the bowl over the water and turn off the heat.

Stir the chips until they are melted.

Dip the candies with the nuts and prune in the chocolate, and place in the refrigerator to harden. Keep melted chocolate warm by leaving the bowl over the pot of hot water.

Once chocolate has set, dip the candies a second time. Chill until firm.

Bubble and Squeak is an Irish recipe beloved all over the UK. Though dishes like Spotted Dick, Bubble and Squeak, and Colcanon are fast disappearing from UK tables, they are still popular both in England and Ireland and abroad, especially as “pub food” or among foodie populations.

Bubble and Squeak was traditionally made with leftover bits from a roasting pan. Old-school Bubble and Squeak was usually a “meatless” dish, though the juices and drippings from the roast were still very much all over the leftover roast veggies and other tasty bits, so it can’t be called truly “vegetarian.”

Since most people these days make Bubble and Squeak on its own, without the need for a roast, it can quite easily be made as a vegetarian meal, simply by removing any animal products from the below recipe or the recipe you have at home.

The name Bubble and Squeak comes from the sound the ingredients make in the pan as they cook. Traditionally, this meal was served around Samhain or Halloween, and the bubbly squeaky noises were said to be the sounds of the ghosts, goblins, and ghouls escaping into the air.

Here is how to make traditional Irish Bubble and Squeak, along with some ideas for how to “dress it up.”

Ingredients

1 sm. onion, finely chopped

2 c. shredded cabbage, boiled for 15 minutes

2 c. mashed potatoes

Ideally, these ingredients would be pre-cooked as part of a pot roast or pork roast–you don’t have to use leftovers. Just substitute fresh veggies in place of pre-roasted ones.

Instructions

1. If you want to make a more traditional Bubble and Squeak, gather the drippings from roasted meat. Alternatively, you could render bacon and start with bacon fat. If you want to avoid meat drippings, you can also start with butter. Either way, heat your fat of choice in a large skillet.

2. Fry onion over low heat for 5 minutes until softened and slightly clear.

3. Add the cabbage and stir this mixture over low heat for another 2 minutes.

4. Fold in mashed potatoes until they are well blended with cabbage. Press this mixture lightly onto the surface of the skillet–the idea is to form a large “pancake.”

5. Cook this mixture for 5 more minutes until the underside has browned lightly. Turn the “pancake” over and brown on the second side for at least five minutes.

6. Serve with a little bit of ham, or the rendered bacon if you so desire. You can also serve Bubble and Squeak with a little bit of applesauce, or sour cream if you want to turn the recipe a bit more Polish or Russian style.

You’ve got a big date on Saturday–it’s Friday night and you’ve got a giant volcano of a pimple on your face. What to do?

Thankfully, you’re not the first person in the world to have to deal with a problem pimple in less than twenty-four hours. Follow this simple plan to get rid of your pimples while you snooze.

1. Wash your face with an acne soap. Use the soap of your choice, something like Clearasil. For people with really oily skin, two washes may work better. Be careful when it is time to dry your face–you want to dab the water off, not rub it. The rubbing can irritate your skin.

2. Use an ice pack on your face. You should prepare this ice pack as much in advance as you can. In fact, it is a good idea to keep one in your freezer at all times for just such an

occasion. To make your zit-zapping ice pack, you need a “zip lock” style plastic bag, a thin towel, a thin sheet of aluminum foil, and some ice cubes. Crushed ice works best because of the increased surface area, but any ice will do.

Building Your Ice Pack

Place crushed ice inside the aluminum foil and seal it very well. You “seal” the foil by pinching the edges together. This keeps the ice cold so it doesn’t all melt away. Now place this foil contraption inside the zip lock bag. You want this ice pack to be as cold as possible.

Wrap your zip lock bag/foil ice pack inside a thin hand towel. This protects your face from the ultra-cold ice pack. Place this whole thing in the freezer for a few hours before you plan on applying it for even more healing.

3. After you wash your face, place the ice pack on the specific area where the pimple is. This is a targeted attack–the foil should allow you to form the ice pack into a “mold” that can be shaped and fitted to the part of your face that is affected. Some people make a giant foil ice pack and place it on their whole face as a preventative measure against acne, but you don’t have to do this for a single problem pimple.

4. No matter how cold it feels, you need to hold the ice pack on the pimple for at least 10 minutes. There’s science behind this–your pores “freeze” and shut, forcing out oil and dirt that led to the pimple.

5. After you freeze the pimple, use a medicated cleanser like Noxzema on your entire face–this is done in case any oil from the pimple leaked out and is already forming another. Your pimple should already appear smaller.

6. Be sure to dab with a towel instead of rub your face dry.

7. Use more of your medicated acne cream of choice–the cream will absorb any excess oil that leaked out when your pores closed. It will also medicate and help your skin to heal.

8. For best results, perform this whole treatment again in four hours. Ideally, you should do this two or three times. If you want, you can keep your medicated acne cream on your face overnight to prevent the oil from building up again.

Most of us aren’t comfortable with the idea of describing ourselves in any context. There’s lots of different reasons why you may need to be good at this. Online dating profiles are little more than self-descriptions with a few optional pictures and some emoticons. Even more serious–lots of job applications these days require you to describe yourself in a certain number of words. And what about meeting someone in public that you’ve never seen before? How would you tell them who to look for if you’re shy about describing yourself?

Here’s a guide to describing yourself. If you lack confidence or don’t really like yourself all that much, you may struggle with this at first, but I say “Fake it ’til you make it.”

1. Tailor Your Description to the Venue

The way you describe yourself to a prospective employer and the way you describe yourself to potential dates are two very different things. If you are describing yourself as part of a job application, you’ll want to tailor the adjectives to show off your compatibility with the company. Words like “hard-working”, “goal-oriented”, and “independent” are not words you’d want to use in an online dating profile, but they’d probably work great on a job app. Same goes for good adjectives to use for a dating profile–you wouldn’t want to tell an employer that you’re “looking for love” or that you have “a charming personality.”

2. Enlist the Help of Friends and Family

You may struggle with describing yourself, but you’d probably have no trouble at all describing your brother or your best friend. That’s why getting someone close to you to help you describe yourself is a great way to flesh out your description. Someone outside of yourself will help you see yourself from another person’s perspective. Don’t feel bad about getting help from someone else . . . the “describe yourself” box on your job application isn’t an essay question or a term paper. There’s nothing saying you can’t get a little assistance.

3. Tell the Truth

If describing yourself didn’t mean anything, you could fill your past with degrees from Ivy League schools, contracts with worldwide modeling companies, and daring adventures on the peak of Mt. Everest. Since your description is going to be read by someone, be it a future employer or your future wife, you want to tell the truth, rigorously. For a dating profile, you should admit to being fat (if you’re fat) or nerdy (if you’re nerdy) the same way you should admit to getting an online MBA from University of Phoenix if you’re applying for a job. The truth is always best, especially when it comes time to describe ourselves.

At some point in your life, you’re going to be asked to describe yourself. If you shy away from it, or don’t prepare for the possibility, you’ll probably flub it and look like a jerk. Take a long look in the mirror, read over your resume, and put together a brief self-description, leaving it as a mental note at the back of your mind. You never know when you might need it.

I know what you’re thinking–who has the time to make donuts when Krispy Kreme is right down the street? Look up the nutritional facts on commercially-produced donuts. Go ahead, we’ll wait.

Making donuts on your own at home is a great way to control the ingredients that go into the fried, fluffy treats that everyone loves. Maybe there’s a cop that lives in your neighborhood and you want to get on his good side? Whatever your reason for wanting to make donuts on your own, we’ve got you covered.

Ingredients

Vegetable oil, for frying

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 tablespoons shortening

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

OPTIONAL: jimmies, chocolate sprinkles, or other traditional donut topping

This recipe makes about 24 donuts.

Instructions

1. Heat two to three inches of  oil in either a deep fryer or a very heavy kettle. You want the oil to reach about 375 F–check the temperature of the oil before you begin frying. If your oil is too hot, you’ll burn the donuts. Too cool, and they won’t cook properly all the way through.

2. Beat 1 1/2 cups of flour and all the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl at low speed. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl for the 30 seconds it should take to mix the ingredients, otherwise you’ll have lump, uncooked donuts. After the first 30 seconds on low speed, continue to beat the ingredients at medium speed, scraping the bowl only occasionally. Do this for 2 minutes. Afterwards, stir in the remaining flour by hand.

3. Cover a cutting board or sheet of parchment paper with lots of flour. Turn your donut dough around and around in the flour, rolling it gently around so that it is fully coated. Then, roll your dough out to a thickness of 3/8 inch–a half inch actually is just too thick, so measure precisely.

4. Cut the dough into donut shapes with a floured donut cutter. If you don’t have a donut cutter, you can use two ring-shaped cutters, one smaller (for the interior hole) and one larger for the donut itself. The key is to flour the device you use to cut so the dough doesn’t stick.

5. Here’s the tricky part–frying the donuts. You want to gently slide the donuts into your preheated oil using a wide spatula or (if you have good coordination) a long wooden dowel. You want to put the donut into the oil the way you’d put your foot into a hot bath . . . gently, and a little bit at a time. Once the donuts rise to the surface of the oil, they’re ready to be turned and cooked on the other side.

6. Fry your donuts until they are golden brown. It should take no more than a minute and a half on each side at the proper oil temperature.

7. Remove the donuts from the oil, making sure not to poke or break their surface. Let the donuts drain on paper towels or a baking rack.

8. You can serve them plain, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon sugar, glazed with icing, or dipped in chocolate. You can also sprinkle them with jimmies, coconut, chopped nuts, or any topping you like, just be sure to do it while the donuts are still slightly moist.

If a marriage proposal were just a matter of buying a ring, dropping to one knee, and asking the girl of your dreams to marry you, making a proposal would be easy. Unfortunately for you, buddy, you live in the year 2011. That means you have to make a special proposal of marriage–something unique that will knock your girlfriend’s socks off.

Asking a woman for her hand in marriage is one of the most stressful events in a man’s life. You feel pressure to buy the perfect ring, to make the perfect reservation, to look your best, and of course you have to worry about the woman’s answer.

AskDeb has your back. Here’s a quick guide to how to propose.

1. Be Creative

If you think that the perfect proposal or the perfect engagement has to cost you a ton of  money, you’re way off the mark. Unless you’re dating a princess or the daughter of a

captain of industry, you don’t have to spend a ton of cash. The best proposals and engagements don’t cost a ton of money . . . they’re creative.

First and foremost, keep your planned proposal to yourself. The more people you let in on the big secret, the more likely someone is to spill the beans. Surprise proposals are the best, especially if you have something creative in mind.

Creative proposals involve more than eating at a nice restaurant and dropping to one knee at the table. If you and your future fiancee are sports fans, consider asking for her hand at a baseball game. Get the crowd involved, or (better yet) talk to the park employees ahead of time and get your proposal on the Jumbotron.

2. Buy the Right Ring

Again, we’re not talking about the expense of the ring here. Just take care that the ring you buy meets two criteria:

• She will love it (meaning it fits her style).
• You love it.

If you are having trouble finding the perfect engagement ring, there’s no shame in purchasing a “placeholder” just so you can pop the question. Trust us–she won’t really be worried about the ring itself if you blow her away with the presentation.

3. Make it Personal

The way you pop the question should reflect your attitudes and identity as a couple. Your girlfriend sees your relationship as something unique, and you should too. Show her that you do by making your engagement unique and indicative of the two of you as a couple.

For example: my brother and his wife are both writers. When he was ready to ask her to marry him, he purchased classified ads at the newspaper she worked at that led her on a “wild goose chase” around the office. When she finally found him, he presented her with roses and gave her a dozen reasons why he wanted to marry her. If you heart didn’t melt just from reading that, I don’t know what to tell you . . .

Asking a woman to marry you is the most important thing you’ll do for quite some time, a keystone in the life of a young man. If you follow the simple advice above, it will be a proposal that you and your future wife will cherish forever.

Bread mold is a type of fungus that likes to grow on bread because it is often warm and moist. Bread mold needs warmth and moisture, along with oxygen, to thrive. Bread provides an ideal substrate (or living surface) for various types of molds.

Bread Mold Facts

Believe it or not, bread mold is actually a type of plant. Molds grow much faster than traditional plants, due mostly to the fact that their reproductive parts float around in the air, constantly looking for a place to land and thrive. It just so happens that bread, with its warmth and moisture, is the perfect substrate for mold to grow on.

When bread mold spores find a warm and moist surface, they attach and start to reproduce and grow very rapidly. This spreading of spores further infects bread (if bread is the substrate) and sends even more spores into the air.

Each bread mold spore has two parts–one is long and black and the other is short and is capable of breaking into the bread to absorb food and moisture.

Mold doesn’t just grow on bread–it can also grow on anything moist and warm, like meat, shoes and clothes, even things that incidentally wet like books or a tile floor.

There are many different types of mold in all different shapes and sizes. They have names like Aspergillus, Monascus, Rhizopus, Penicillium, and Fusarium. Each of these species has its own unique color and apperance–Rhizopus is black and fuzzy, while Aspergillus is small and hard to see. The Penicillium species is more of a dark green color with a white border.

Harmful Effects of Bread Mold

When human beings come into close contact with mold of any type, they run the risk of absorbing mycotoxins through the skin, mucous membranes, and airways. These mycotoxins are produced naturally by any mold, but especially the mold that makes bread mold. Mycotoxings are very dangerous to human life, as once they attach to the inside of our bodies, they can easily spread and infect the entire body and immune system. Mycotoxins can create all sorts of health problems, from simple allergies and contact hypersensitivity, to more severe respiratory problems like asthma, and chronic coughing, and grave health conditions like permanent memory loss, depression, anxiety, reproductive system failure, sometimes even death.

Benefits of Bread Mold

Some molds that grow on bread are beneficial in the production of foods. Mold on cheeses, sausages, breads, and soy sauce (as well as alcohol like sherries and wines) actually add to the taste of many of these products.

When combined with special foods and a healthy lifestyle, cultured mold can be used to reduce cholesterol.

Bread molds are used in the production of some beneficial drugs.Most famously, the Penicillium chrysogenum mold is used to produce the life-saving antibiotic we call penicillin.

Other molds and bread molds are used to create other life-saving drugs, namely Aspergillus terreus which is used to create cholesterol-lowering drugs, and Tolypocladium Infatum which is used to combat the rejection of transplanted organs.

Bread Mold Growth

The growth of bread mold depends on many different factors, with temperature and moisture being the most important two. At lower temperatures, mold is able to grow, but it grows at a much slower rate. Most molds on planet Earth thrive in temperatures higher than 70°–this is why we refrigerate food. The average fridge temperature is between 39 and 41 degrees, seriously limiting the growth rate of molds.

Very cold temperatures, such as those found in an average freezer, will stop the mold of growth completely. Freezing temperatures kill molds and inhibit their growth.

Remember that bread mold is a living plant organism, one that needs both moisture and oxygen to grow. Moisture is absorbed by the mold plant itself, causing the plant to grow faster just like when you water a plant in your garden.

Bread Mold Science Fair Project

A popular bread mold based science fair project is to determine if mold grows faster at higher or lower temperatures. It’s a popular topic because it is easy to prove with a simple science experiment. Here’s how you perform this classic bread mold science fair project.

Materials

1. 15 slices of sandwich bread. This bread is used because it is inexpensive and each slice will be the same size, weight, and thickness.
2. 15 sealable sandwich bags.
3. 1 piece of film or clear plastic with a 10x10cm grid drawn onto it.
4. Q-Tip
5. Clean Knife
6. Chopping board
7. Sticky notes
8. Marker pen
9. Mold Spores. You can sometimes acquire these from science catalogs or other educational resources. There are plenty of mold spores in the air that will eventually grow on your bread, but getting mold spores and applying them yourself will take less time.
10. Mask
11. Gloves

Experiment

Label your bags with sticky notes. Mark 5 bags as ‘A’, 5 as ‘B’ and 5 as ‘C’.

Cut your bread into 10 x 10 squares.

After you place mold spores on the bread, put one slice into each bag and seal them tightly.

Place all of the ‘A’ bags into the freezer, the ‘B’ bags into the refrigerator and the ‘C’ bags in a warm room. Because the bags in the freezer and fridge will not be getting much light it is best to cover the ‘C’ bags as well so that the light difference doesn’t affect the outcome.

At the same time each day, count the number of square centimeters of mold on each slice of bread. Never open the bags.

Repeat this process for 10 days or until there are measurable results.

Keep careful notes on your results for every slice of bread for the duration of the experiment. You can even take pictures or draw the bread pieces. Now average the results for each sample type, A, B, and C.

You can plot the mold coverage on a graph and determine your results. Plot the amount of mold on each piece of bread and compare it to the number of days. Do this with a sheet of graph paper and colored pens or on a computer graph program.

You’re in the middle of a marathon Batman: Arkham Asylum session and your PS3 stops working. Maybe the disc simply won’t read or (even worse) the machine turns off and won’t turn back on. It’s happened to plenty of people before you–and unfortunately, there’s nothing saying it won’t happen again. Generally, Sony’s gaming systems are reliable. Give your PS3 a well-ventilated space, keep the dust away from the machine, and try to avoid throwing it up against the wall and you probably won’t have any trouble. But for those gamers who can’t bring themselves to dust their house every now and again, the PS3′s sensitivity to dust may be a problem.

When your PS3 breaks, you only have a couple of options. If you think you have a problem with the ventilation fan or the lens that physically reads the discs, you may be able to deal with this problem on your own. Again, most problems with the fan or the lens are caused by dust and grime–if the fan gets too clogged with dust and grime, the PS3 itself will pretty much shut down. This is a stop-gap measure to keep your nasty dusty gaming environment from completely destroying your machine. If the lens gets too dusty, it won’t be able to read the discs you insert.

Broken PS3 Repair

Before you go digging around in your own PS3, remember that Sony offers a one-year warranty for most issues. If you haven’t had your PS3 for more than a year and you have proof of purchase, you can let Sony take care of the problem. In most cases, they’ll even give you a replacement machine rather than try to repair the problem.

If you don’t have proof of purchase or if you are outside the one-year warranty, it may be worthwhile to try to fix your PS3 problem on your own. WARNING: please don’t go trying to fix your own PS3 if you have no motor skills or aren’t comfortable trying to fix a machine in such a way that could damage it further. What you do is up to you–we don’t take any responsibility for any damage you cause with your clumsiness.

Your first step should be running your PS3 in “safe mode.” This is similar to running a PC in safe mode–you can restore default settings and even the entire file system. You can also restore the entire system or rebuild the database. Sony recommends that you backup your data before you attempt to run in safe mode. Here is Sony’s guide to working in safe mode on your PS3.  Sony suggests only using safe mode if your PS3 is experiencing the following symptoms:

• When the PS3 system starts up, the XMB menu does not come up.
• When the PS3 system starts up, nothing at all appears on the screen.
• When the PS3 system starts up, a message stating “The hard disk’s file system is corrupted and will be restored” is displayed.
• When the PS3 system starts up, a message stating “The hard disk’s database will be rebuilt” is displayed.
• If your PS3 system stops while restarting after a PS3 system update or while updating or rebuilding the database.

There are simpler ways to try and fix your system, namely cleaning your PS3 discs with a gentle cloth, cleaning the lens with Sony’s special lens-cleaning formula, or (if you’re really brave) cleaning any dust and grime from the fan yourself. I’m not gonna tell you how to do this–if you’re handy enough to clean the fan, you’re handy enough to know how to access it.

Broken PS3 for Sale

If you don’t want to fix your own PS3 and if you don’t have the proper papers to allow Sony to fix it for you, you may have considered trying to sell your busted PS3 system. You’re not going to make much money, but there are some people willing to purchase your broken PS3 machine.

Your first place to sell your broken PS3 is on eBay. There are always hundreds of broken PS3′s for sale there. People buy these machines to use the parts. Don’t ask what they do with them–presumably they use them to fix their own machines or to fix other people’s. Why do you care what they do with your broken equipment?

Selling your broken PS3 is a good way to recover some of your lost investment.

Broken PS3 Value

Depending on the size of your PS3′s memory, the style of the machine, and a few other details, you can expect to sell it for between $50 and $130 on any decent auction site. If you have a relatively new 160 GB PS3 slim model, you’ll get a pretty good amount of cash. If, on the other hand, you have a 40GB machine, the value of your broken PS3 shrinks considerably.

When your PS3 breaks, it isn’t the end of the world. In many cases, Sony will fix the machine for you–worst case, they’ll charge you $150 (US) to have the machine repaired. If you’re handy with electronics, you may be able to fix the machine on your own. If all else fails, you can get some of your money back by selling your broken PS3 on eBay or Craigslist.

Aloe vera is the scientific name of the plant known as “true aloe” or “medicinal aloe.” The plant form of aloe vera is a succulent, meaning it is a plant that stores water. These plants usually thrive in dry areas where retaining water is a survival tactic. Other types of succulent plants include pitcher plants and most species of cacti.

Aloe vera is prized in many cultures because of its uses in natural remedies. Reportedly, aloe vera and the extracts from the aloe vera plant can be used to treat wounds, burns, minor skin infections, certain types of cysts, and even chronic diseases like diabetes and elevated blood lipids. Aloe vera‘s uses in health remedies are said to be caused by the high saturation of chemicals in the sap–chemicals called polysaccharides, mannans, anthraquinones, and lectins.

Aloe Vera Gel Uses

Aloe vera gel is a generic name for any “gel” containing natural aloe vera extracts. People use aloe vera gel for many different purposes.

Soothing

People claim that aloe vera extract and aloe vera gel soothes the pain and itching of small wounds and burns. Unfortunately for proponents of the use of aloe vera gel for wound care, a study in 2007 found that wounds treated with aloe vera gel actually took longer to heal than wounds treated with conventional medical treatment. Having said that, the study went on to suggest that the use of aloe vera gel on first and second degree burns was medically plausible, showing that first and second degree burns treated with aloe vera gel healed faster and caused less pain to the patient.

Moisturizing

There is no scientific evidence yet that proves that aloe vera gel is a better moisturizer than anything commercially-produced. People swear that moisturizing products containing aloe vera gel or extract work well, and if you try an aloe vera gel moisturizer and like the results, there’s no reason to continue using it. The “gel” texture of aloe vera sap is the main reason for its use as a moisturizer and beauty product.

Antibacterial & Antifungal

The use of aloe vera gel in treating minor skin infections and fungal infections is widespread and has lots of science to back it up. Chemical compounds in the sap of aloe vera have antibiotic and antifungal properties that have been proven in the lab. Boils and cysts treated with aloe vera gel tend to heal faster and cleaner than the same wounds treated with medical products or nothing at all.

Healing

Besides simple wound and burn care, the ingestion of aloe vera has been shown to help control diabetes. An ingredient in aloe vera gel lowers blood glucose levels. Similar to its effect on diabetes, the ingestion of aloe vera gel has been shown to lower lipid levels in the blood. Even newer research has proven that ingesting aloe vera extract of any type can help to treat acute hepatitis and other diseases. Much of the research into the use of aloe vera as a medical treatment for diabetes or high blood lipids has shifted to using it as a cancer treatment, though this has only been proven in cats and dogs.

Food

Modern chefs are starting to turn to various aloe vera extracts to add a special characteristic to their gastronomic creations. Aloe vera gel’s unique texture makes it a wonderful tool for chefs interested in “molecular gastronomy”, who are more interested in texture and appearance than traditional chefs.

Aloe Vera Gel Benefits

The benefits of aloe vera gel are many, as you should be able to tell from the wide array of medical and other uses for the gel listed above. Because aloe vera is inexpensive to cultivate, adding it to a medical treatment won’t carry the burden of adding other forms of treatment. You can buy aloe vera gel at health food stores and even grocery stores and other retail environments. The low cost of aloe vera gel is a huge benefit for people looking to use aloe vera extract or sap in their lineup of  natural remedies.

Aloe Vera Gel for Acne

Unfortunately for acne sufferers, aloe vera gel won’t actually “heal” or prevent acne. But aloe vera sap and extract can help people suffering from acne.

The sap of the aloe vera plant can help to treat the redness and swelling that characterize acne. Basically, aloe vera gel can lessen the appearance of acne and help treat the pain and discomfort of lesions, but it will not keep acne from appearing.

Aloe Vera Gel for Face

Since aloe vera gel works well on acne, it stands to reason that using it on everyday pimples and blemishes is a good idea. Using aloe vera gel on problem blemishes is smarter (and cheaper) than using traditional medical treatments–you can keep an aloe vera plant in your backyard and break off a tiny bit of one of the leaves and apply it directly to your blemishes, rather than purchasing an expensive chemical treatment and smearing that all over your face.

Aloe Vera Gel for Hair

Adding aloe vera gel to your hair care products is a great way to turn an everyday hair product into a moisturizer. Aloe vera gel is an incredible moisturizer, and simply adding aloe vera gel to your commercial haircare product amps up that products moisturizing capability.

Aloe Vera Gel for Skin

Since aloe vera gel is a wonderful moisturizer on your hair, using it on your skin is a no-brainer. You can simply add some aloe vera gel to your favorite lotion or use aloe vera gel directly on your skin. Since aloe vera gel products are available in 100% organic or all-natural formulations, you can add aloe vera moisturizers to your skin without worrying about covering yourself in nasty chemicals.

Aloe vera gel and aloe vera extracts and saps are wonderful products with many uses. You can grow aloe vera plants in your yard, especially if you live in a hot or dry climate where aloe vera plants flourish.

You may have seen them on the highways and byways of America especially during high-traffic times, late at night, or during the holidays. In general, DUI checkpoints are regular points along high-traffic roads that allow police and other peace officers to examine drivers to make sure they aren’t driving in an impaired state.

DUI checkpoints take many forms–some are simply patrol cars checking speed and safety, and pulling over drivers who appear to be impaired for a closer check. Other checkpoints are more invasive–all cars travelling along a certain stretch of road must pull over and pass inspection. The kind of checkpoint that you encounter has more to do with a state’s laws and attitudes toward DUI checkpoints than anything else.

38 states in America conduct DUI checkpoints, also known as sobriety checkpoints, as part of their state policy toward impaired and drunk driving. The other 12 states have found that laws exist preventing or challenging the legality of such checkpoints.

DUI Checkpoint Locations

The best way to find DUI checkpoint locations is to watch local news and read your local newspaper. Most places that setup DUI checkpoints are legally bound to announce the location in some form. Your municipal or state police department may even post these checkpoint locations on their website.

DUI Checkpoint Locators

Websites like Roadblock Registry allow you to search for posted roadblocks by state and sometimes by city. You can also use your own two eyes to spot roadblocks–if you see lots of flashing lights between 9 pm and 2 am, you can bet you’ve just found a DUI checkpoint.

DUI Checkpoint Apps

Three apps for smartphones, called Buzzed, Tipsy, and Checkpointer, allow people with smartphones to instantly access roadblock and DUI checkpoint registries. These apps run from totally free to $4.99, and the more expensive the app the larger the database and the more often the updates. These apps are currently legal, though there are legal challenges to their existence and availability to the public.

DUI Checkpoint Laws

Depending on the state you live in, you may or may not have to worry about DUI checkpoints. Some states have ruled that such checkpoints are illegal–other states have specific interpretations of the Constitution that make such checkpoints illegal. There appears to be a geographic component to the legality of DUI checkpoints, with states in the Deep South and around New England favoring DUI checkpoints, while states in the West and Midwest tend to declare them illegal.

Here is a breakdown of all fifty states, whether or not they conduct DUI checkpoints, and how often.

Alabama–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted throughout the year.

Alaska–DUI checkpoints are illegal because the state has no legal authority to run them.

Arizona–DUI checkpoints are conducted at least once per month.

Arkansas–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

California–DUI checkpoints are conducted once or twice a month.

Colorado–DUI checkpoints are conducted once or twice a month.

Connecticut–DUI checkpoints are legal but are not conducted regularly.

Delaware–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted once a month between January and June and weekly from June through December.

D.C.– DUI checkpoints are conducted once or twice a month.

Florida–Florida is the DUI checkpoint capital of the world. DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted 15-20 times monthly.

Georgia–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Hawaii–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Idaho–DUI checkpoints are illegal by state law.

Illinois–Illinois is almost as DUI checkpoint-crazy as Florida, conducting several hundred checkpoints randomly throughout the year.

Indiana–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted randomly.

Iowa–DUI checkpoints are illegal because  of a state law that authorizes roadblocks but does not specifically authorize sobriety checkpoints.

Kansas–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted once or twice a month.

Kentucky–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted weekly.

Louisiana–The state Supreme Court recently authorized the use of DUI checkpoints.

Maine–DUI checkpoints are legal but rare.

Maryland–DUI checkpoints are legal and are conducted weekly.

Massachusetts–DUI checkpoints are conducted year round.

Michigan–DUI checkpoints are specifically classified as illegal by the Michigan state constitution.

Minnesota–DUI checkpoints are illegal by the Minnesota state constitution.

Mississippi–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Missouri–DUI checkpoints are conducted twice a month.

Montana–By state law, only “safety spot checks” are allowed.

Nebraska–DUI checkpoints are conducted 6 – 10 times per month.

Nevada–DUI checkpoints are conducted twice a month.

New Hampshire–According to the New Hampshire DPS, DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly, “weather permitting.”

New Jersey–DUI checkpoints are conducted once or twice a month.

New Mexico– New Mexico law states “DUI checkpoints set up to detect and apprehend drunk drivers are constitutionally permissable as long as law enforcement follows . . . guidelines to ensure their reasonableness.”

New York–DUI checkpoints are legal and conducted weekly.

North Carolina–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

North Dakota–DUI checkpoints are legal but not often conducted.

Ohio–DUI checkpoints are conducted regularly throughout the year.

Oklahoma–DUI checkpoints are conducted once or twice a month.

Oregon–DUI checkpoints are illegal under state constitution.

Pennsylvania–Pennsylvania conducts the third-most DUI checkpoints in America, at a rate of “several hundred per year.”

Rhode Island–DUI checkpoints are illegal by Rhode Island law.

South Carolina–DUI checkpoints are legal but not conducted regularly.

South Dakota–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Tennessee–DUI checkpoints are currently under challenge at the state Supreme Court level.

Texas– DUI checkpoints are illegal under Texas’ own interpretation of the Federal constitution.

Utah–DUI checkpoints are conducted six times a year.

Vermont–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Virginia–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Washington–DUI checkpoints are illegal by state law.

West Virginia–DUI checkpoints are conducted weekly.

Wisconsin–DUI checkpoints are prohibited by law.

Wyoming–DUI checkpoints are illegal due to the state’s interpretation of Federal roadblock statutes.

Ab muscles are the holy grail of abdominal workouts. You could even go one step further and say that a good set of ab muscles is the ultimate goal of most people’s entire workout plans. Sure, people will say that the goal of their workout routine is to be “physically fit” or “healthy”, but really they want that sexy 6 pack and the respect and attention it gets them.

Well-defined ab muscles have a specific appearance that gives them the nickname “6 pack”–if you look at the photo in this article you’ll see why. Ab muscles are joined with connective tissue that creates a “peak and valley” look, separating the individual ab muscles and making them stand out against the other muscles and flesh in the abdominal area. The phrase “6 pack” refers to the six bulging ab muscles that are grouped in threes on either side of the belly button.

But for some ab workout enthusiasts, a six pack is just not enough. The elusive “8 pack” abs are just what they sound like–8 individual ab muscles that stand out, rather than just 6. While some people say that anyone can have 8 pack abs, others claim that genetics has more to do with the development of an 8 pack than diet or proper exercise.

Are 8 Pack Abs Possible?

If you look at an anatomical drawing of the area where ab muscles develop, you’ll see that there are indeed 8 individual bulging muscles in the abdomen. What creates the unique “6 pack” or “8 pack” look are the valleys between the muscles created by connective tissue. The reason why most people feel they can’t develop 8 pack abs is that the connective tissue that joins the lowest ab muscles (the 2 that turn a 6 pack into an 8 pack) is not the same as the tissue that joins the upper abdominals. This special connective tissue juts out between the lower ab muscles, thereby avoiding the “valley” look that leads to the development of the “pack” look.

The short answer is that yes, 8 pack abs are possible. As for the best way to develop an 8 pack . . . well, that’s a different story altogether. Opinion is divided about how much your DNA has to do with your ability to turn your sexy 6 pack into an outrageous 8 pack. If genetics is a big component of the 8 pack, then you can workout as hard as you want and slam back protein like a dinosaur and you’re never going to get that 8 pack look.

Workout

Your ab muscles are actually a single long “sheet” of muscle known as the rectus abdominus. There are three lines of tendons that hold the ab muscles in place over the intestines, and a long piece of tendon that separates the muscle into two vertical groups–so really, everyone “has” an 8 pack, we just can’t always see it.

People who say you can improve your ab workout to further develop the 8 pack claim that the reason most men just have a 6 pack is that they only work the upper part of the rectus abdominus. According to these people, working out both the upper and lower sections of your abs will lead to an 8 pack.

You do this by first getting rid of the fat that hides the lower section of your ab muscles. Even if you have a well-defined 6 pack, chances are your lowest two ab muscles are hidden under a layer of fat. Most 8 pack enthusiasts claim that a series of 8 ab exercises that work the ab muscles from all angles and in all directions is the only way to find out if your 8 pack can rear its awesome head.

What are these exercises? Here’s a quick list:

• Ball curl-up
• Ball curl-up with knee tuck
• Twisting medicine ball toss
• V raise
• Hanging trunk twist
• V raise with knee tuck
• Single resistance double crunch
• Double resistance double crunch

Diet

Different studies give different numbers, but in general it is thought that about 3/4 of your ability to lose weight is tied up in what you’re eating. Your fuel accounts for more of your ability to shed pounds than your actions.

The first thing you need to do is eat six times a day. If you eat quality food every three or four hours, you’ll never be hungry or tempted to eat garbage. This also keeps your metabolism working which will help you lose weight and burn fat. Eat three normal meals and three smaller snacks. Here’s your new eating schedule:

8 am: Breakfast

11 am: Snack

1 pm: Lunch

4 pm: Snack

6 pm: Dinner

9 pm: Snack

So what foods should you eat? A trainer taught me the phrase “ABS DIET POWER.” Each letter in that phrase is a different food that you should be eating.

Almonds (or any nut)

Beans (or any legume)

Spinach (or any leafy green)

Dairy

Instant oatmeal

Eggs

Turkey

Peanut butter

Olive oil

Whole grains

Extra protein (whey)

Raspberries (and other berries)

If you eat these power foods 6 times a day and do your ab workouts, you’re on your way to the 8 pack you’ve always dreamed of having.

Genetics

Unfortunately, my friend, it appears that the last component of developing 8 pack abs is simple genetics. Some people can eat all the proper foods at the proper times, do all the right ab workouts, and still never see those final two pieces of the 8 pack come together.

If you’re lucky enough to have genes that lead to tighter lower tendons in your rectus abdominus, you’ll find out soon after starting the abs diet and proper workouts. If not, you’ll find that out too.

Building a sexy set of 8 pack abs isn’t rocket science. Eat the right foods, do the right workouts, and luck out in terms of your genetics, and you’ll have the 8 pack that blows away any and every 6 pack you could ever see. Stick to your diet, do your workout, and flash your 8 pack at all those 6 pack punks at the gym.

Winsome Wood History

Although Winsome Wood has not been around as long as some other manufacturers have. Everything they’ve done so far has been right! Since 1977, Winsome Wood has been at the top of their game as a manufacturer and distributor for brilliant pieces for the home.

The specialty of the company is wood, hence the name Winsome Wood and many reviews even compare their stools to the quality you would expect from a Hillsdale stool. They certainly have proven that they offer not only innovative designs but that their products are an exceptional value as well.

In fact, their furniture has become so well accepted in the market that the Target Corporation awarded then with the Partner Award of Excellence in 2008. Target is a corporation known for being quite selective when choosing a vender worthy of this recognition. This award suggests that Winsome Wood offers superior business practices that compliment value, reliability and differentiation, the three hallmark characteristics of Target Corporation.

Finding Winsome Wood

Winsome Wood is a wholesaler so they do not sell directly to consumers but rather through their extensive list of retail partners. Their warehouse, assembly facility and main office are in Woodinville, Washington however, beautiful Delta, British Columbia is home to their branch office and warehouse. Top retailers that carry Winsome Wood products are Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bellacor, Bi-Mart, BizChair, Cost U Less, CSN Stores, Curtain and Bath Outlet, Fred Meyer, Hayneedle, Home Furniture Showroom, Kitchen Source, Living Direct, Meijer, One Way Furniture, Organize-It, Stacks and Stacks, Stands and Mounts and Target.

Product Line

Winsome Wood carries everything from wine storage options to kitchen bar stools. Some of the hottest products are:

• Accent Tables – Although the Angolo night table with drawer is a popular choice, Winsome Wood offers a three-piece nesting table, an Ella plant or phone stand, curved nightstand with a drawer, end table with cabinet, Genoa accent table, Kami table and more.

• Dining – Contemporary bistro tables, swivel faux leather chairs, island sets with saddle stools, pub tables and buffets with doors are available.

• Home Office – Winsome Woods adjustable laptop table is top on every wish list but they also have other computer desk options available as well.

• Seating – Benches with storage solutions and Windsor chairs look great in any home.

• Wine Storage – Whether you are just looking for a 24-bottle wine rack or more of a cabinet style, Winsome Wood has an impressive collection.

• Media and Entertainment – From traditional to contemporary, straight to corner, if you are in need of a wood entertainment unit, this is a manufacturer that makes a few exceptional pieces that will compliment the decor in any home.

Winsome Wood also manufacturers bed trays, TV trays, kitchen carts, space-saver leaf-drop tables, shelving and plenty of storage solutions including fabric baskets, coat trees, magazine racks, luggage racks, shoe racks and valet stands. Pretty much any type of wood furniture or accent piece you are looking for, Winsome Wood will have something to compliment your home.

About the Author

David Dawson lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, three kids and a Pomeranian. He is an organic chemist who loves gardening and reading. David created AllBarStoolsSeating.com to assist consumers in picking out the perfect stool sets for their home.

See also:

1. Nebraska Furniture Mart Coupons
2. Bathroom Furniture
3. Storkcraft Children’s Furniture
4. Rent to Own Furniture
5. Crate and Barrel Coupons
6. Carolina Cottage Furniture Importer
7. Home Gallery Stores
   

Career History by Year

Although you may simply associate his name and immediately think of all the brilliant and helpful WordPress themes for small businesses that are available, there is a lot more to his career and how he got to where is today.

• 2002 – Matt Mullenweg was part of the National Fed Challenge, an academic competition for high school students where he contributed codes for cleaner permalinks and typographic entities. He was using b2/cafelog blogging software to showcase photos from the trip but b2 ended several month after.

• 2003 – Matt announced on his blog that he intended on bringing the software up to date to accommodate his needs and he was contacted right away by Mike Little to work with him. Their plan was to use the b2 codebase to create WordPress. Michael Valdrighi, b2 developer joined in to help. At this time, Matt was attending The University of Houston and only 19 years old.

• 2004 – Working with Tantek Celik and Eric Meyer, Global Multimedia Protocols Group was founded, offering the first microformats. In April, he paired up with Dougal Campbell and they launched Ping-O-Matic to notify search engines of blog updates. Later, in October, Matt was recruited to work on WordPress by CNET. He made the decision to drop out of college and make the move to San Francisco. Just two months later in December, he announced bbPress, something he designed from scratch over the holidays.

• 2005 – This is the year that really acknowledges Matt. The WordPress team and himself released WordPress 1.5 which quickly had 900,000 downloads and an endless number of people eager to learn how to set-up WordPress site. Later that year in October, Matt announced he wanted to solely focus on WordPress full-time so he would be leaving CNET. In November, WordPress was no longer invite-only, welcoming the world to join in on the success.

• 2006 – Matt recruited Toni Schneider, former Oddpost CEO to join his small team named Automattic, bringing the staff to a whopping six people. His investors were CNET, Radar Partners, Trive Ventures and Polaris Ventures.

• 2007 – PC World ranked him number 16 out of 50 in their list of Important People on the Web. He acquired Gravatar in October, a service to enable users to upload an avatar and there was also rumor that there was $200 million offer to buy Automattic which he turned down.

• 2008 – Matt became a likeable figure this year. Despite his success, it was noted that he was still driving an old Chevy Lumina and he wore a Fight Club t-shirt for his photo shoot with Linux Journal, making him appear a bit more human. Automattic now had 18 employees and he was ranked in Inc. Magazines 30 Under 30 list.

Today

Today Matt Mullenweg is the force behind Automattic, WordPress, Gravatar, Akismet, VaultPress, Polldaddy, IntenseDebate, Plinky, P2, After the Deadline and VIP. He has also founded Audrey Capital, a company to helps innovative ideas grow.

About the Author

Don Campbell lives in Silicon Valley where he works with small business owners to help them create WordPress websites that get noticed by search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. He opened his business, Expand2Web in January 2008 and when he’s not busy helping customers everyday on the web or hanging out at the Google campus, he enjoys the beauty of California.

See also:

1. WordPress Plugins
2. WordPress Themes
3. How to Make a Website
4. How Much Is Google Worth?
5. Sell Artwork Online
6. Best Internet Hosting Company
7. Career Builder Courses

Getting Into Exercise

If you have searched online for a Bowflex dumbbells review, Tony Horton’s name probably comes up quite often because his program is literally the talk of the fitness world but he certainly wasn’t always known as this exercise guru. Horton moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career and even paid his bills as a standup comedian for a while.

Horton started working out in Venice, California at World Gym where professional body builders such as Lou Ferrigno and Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out. He never had the desire to have all that bulging muscle but he did want to be as physically fit as possible so he concentrated on exercise routines that would build strong muscles while improving speed, balance and flexibility. Horton later was introduced to the idea of interval training by Mark Sisson, taking his workouts to an extreme level.

During this time, Horton established ASH Fitness after he had worked as a personal trainer. Here his client list consisted of names such as Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Idol, Lindsey Buckingham and Tom Petty. When he was asked to create a workout DVD series, Horton designed Power 90.

Power 90 Extreme

Chances are, if you are looking for a P90X review, you can find thousands of them. This program is popular for two good reasons, it is extreme and it works! P90X focuses on muscle confusion which is basically a method of periodization and cross-training by switching the order in which exercises are done and adding variations. This shocks the body so rather than your body getting used to your typical routine and reaching a plateau, it burns fat and builds muscle every time.

P90X is a program designed for 90 days that combines cardio, stretching, strength training, plyometrics and yoga. It comes with a fitness plan, nutrition guide, calendar and of course, a collection of DVDs that enables you to workout in the privacy of your own home.

The 13-week program requires you to workout 6 days per week using one of the scheduled 12 available workouts. These exercise routines are mostly under one hour long and target different muscles and skills.

Workouts

• Chest and Back – Biceps, triceps, pectorals, back
• Plyometrics – Full body, primarily legs
• Shoulders and Arms – Biceps, triceps, shoulders
• Yoga X – Full body
• Legs and Back – Back, calves, quadriceps, hamstrings
• Kenpo X – Full body
• X Stretch – Full body
• Core Synergistic – Full body
• Chest, Shoulders and Triceps – Pectorals, shoulders, triceps
• Back and Biceps – Back, biceps
• Cardio X – Full body
• Ab Ripper X – Core, abdominals

Horton also provides a detailed meal plan to follow with the program that is made up of three phases, switching back and forth between high carbohydrates and protein. The P90X requires dumbbells, exercise mat, pullup bar, sturdy chair and yoga blocks.

See also:

1. What Is the P90X Workout?
2. Medication Side Effects
3. The Zone Diet
4. Health Insurance Cost
5. Health Coverage Tax Credit
6. What Is BMI?
7. What Is an Exercise Treadmill Test?
   

History of GEICO

Despite the company starting as a very small, private organization, it grew faster than anyone could have ever anticipated. By 1948, Lorimer Davidson, an investment banker helped expansion by joining the company and by 1964, they had already exceeded 1 million policyholders. In 1980, GEICO introduced their 24-hour telephone customer service they are so well-known for and by the year 2000, everyone’s favorite gecko had joined the team to participate in their ad campaigns.

Of course, who could forget the GEICO Cavemen campaign convincing viewers just how easy it was to get free car insurance quotes. At the end of 2010, GEICO had more than 10 million policyholders! All this from a kind couple who started a small business for themselves.

Types of Insurance Providers – Rates and Coverage

About the only thing the GEICO website doesn’t provide is health insurance quotes online but they certainly cover everything else. Aside from your automobiles, below are other types of insurance GEICO can help you out with.

• Motorcycles – Regardless if you have a standard, cruiser, sport bike, touring bike or one that’s custom made, they take motorcycle coverage seriously. They even have scooter insurance available.

• Boat – Whether your boat is in the water, at dock or on your trailer, you want quality insurance. GEICO even has winter lay-up available for dry dock season.

• ATV – GEICO offers flex payments and online claim reporting to keep your trail riding fun, safe and affordable.

• RV – Campers, travel trailers and motor homes fall under this category too. You can get a discount on your rate if your automobile is also insured with them and you have completed a recent defensive driver course.

• Homeowners – Your home is worth protecting. GEICO offers a large variety of policies to fill the needs of anyone.

• Renters – Just because you don’t own a home doesn’t mean you don’t have to protect your personal belongings.

• Mobile Home – These policies are similar to homeowner insurance but GEICO customizes them specifically for the needs of mobile homes.

• Life Insurance – Making sure your family is financially secure should something happen to you, is one of GEICO’s specialties.

• Flood Insurance – It is proven time and time again that anyone can deal with flood damage. GEICO keeps this coverage affordable for you.

• Overseas Insurance – Regardless if you are moving or vacationing overseas, GEICO eliminates the hassle of getting your vehicle or property insured.

• Commercial Auto Insurance – GEICO takes the guesswork and frustration out of buying commercial auto insurance and they allow you to manage your account 24/7.

• Identity Theft – Maybe you aren’t even aware that this type of coverage exists but GEICO understands the importance of being protected and even provides six credit reports per year.

GEICO is a company who has gotten where they are today because of great coverage, affordable rates and exceptional customer service. They take the confusion and anxiety out of buying any type of insurance by making their policies easy to understand.

About the Author

Laura Penekamp is a stay at home mom with three wonderful kids who are now finally all old enough for a full day of school. She is a freelance writer and now that she has a quiet house during the day, has become quite productive. Laura loves to save money and has learned through the years how to understand insurance policies to ensure she’s not paying for something she doesn’t need.

See also:

1. Who Invented Car Insurance?
2. Motorcycle Insurance Costs
3. Is It Illegal to Drive without Car Insurance?
4. Buying Car Insurance
5. Online Auto Insurance
6. Fastest Motorcycle in the World
7. Cheap Car Insurance
   

Mecherle’s Vision

Mecherle simply wanted to do things right and fair, treating customers like a neighbor, a vision still true today. State Farm began originally, strictly as an automobile insurance company, offering only a single line. Today they offer almost 100 services and products spread across 5 different types of businesses. They have proven time and time again that they are more than committed to their customers which is all Mecherle ever wanted. In fact, they handle on average close to 35,000 claims everyday. Due to their reputation for being so efficient, they are one of the first choices individuals turn to who are looking for free car insurance quotes.

Products and Services

• Automobile – As you would expect from a company with such a reputable history, State Farm will put you in a policy that accommodates your needs. Automobile coverage protects you, your fellow drivers, passengers, pedestrians and property.
• Homeowners – State Farm’s claim network is one of the world’s largest and is accessible 24/7. They even offer discounts for safety items like smoke alarms, burglar alarms, fire extinguishers and deadbolts.
• Renters – For less than one dollar per day, State Farm can cover your property and provide peace of mind.
• Health – If you are looking for health insurance quotes online, State Farm probably offers exactly what you need in one of their many polices. Individuals, Medicare Supplemental, Prescription and Hospital Income Coverage are polices suited for everyone.
• Boat – Risks with boats include sinking, fire, storms, theft, capsizing, stranding, collision and explosion. State Farm boat insurance can cover not just the property but accessories as well.
• Disability – State Farm understands that when you can’t work, you still have bills that need paying. Disability insurance protects you as well as your family against severe financial hardship.
• Business – There are always risks involved with starting your own business but State Farm makes them a little less scary. Their agents understand the diverse needs of every business owner and can build a plan according to your needs.
• Long-term Care – These policies help you to pay for care that you need when the time comes. Long-term expenses can quickly deplete finances for your family.

State Farm also covers condo owners, life and annuities, farm and ranch, flood, personal, motorcycle, volcano damage and community organizations. Not to mention, whether you are a policyholder or not, they provide mutual plans and everyday banking and loans.

About the Author

Laura Penekamp knows a thing or two about saving money considering she’s a mom of three. Being a freelance writer, she has discovered that the right insurance policies not only save you money but protect everything that is important to you. Laura feels this information is important to be aware of which is why she shares it with as many people as possible.

See also:

1. Who Invented Car Insurance?
2. Motorcycle Insurance Costs
3. Is It Illegal to Drive without Car Insurance?
4. Buying Car Insurance
5. Online Auto Insurance
6. Fastest Motorcycle in the World
7. Cheap Car Insurance

Overview

Adobe was founded by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in December 1982 and was later incorporated in California in 1983. Interestingly, Adobe was named after the creek by the same name that is in Los Eltos, California, that ran directly behind Warnocks’s home. Adobe employs nearly 9,000 individuals worldwide and over half of the company’s revenue is generated from countries other than the United States.

Adobe Reader is distributed on many platforms in an impressive 34 languages so if you are a computer guru and are thinking about pursuing a career designing video games or retouching photos, you may want to reconsider all your options and check out the career availabilities that Adobe has to offer. Anyone can fix a photo but only the best of the best can say they work with Adobe!

Achievements

• 1984 – Adobe Post Script launched page description language that was able to provide reliable output for visually rich documents.
• 1990 – Adobe Photoshop was released making photo retouch precise and easy. It became the industry standard for creating and editing digital images.
• 1991 – Adobe Premiere Pro was created, a high performance and extremely powerful software used for editing both digital video and audio.
• 1993 – Adobe After Effects was launched providing visual effect tools and motion graphics for work involving digital video production.
• 1993 – Adobe Acrobat was also released in 1993 to provide a collection of products for technical, creative and business solutions. It offered a way to communicate more securely with PDF.
• 1996 – Adobe Flash became the most advanced authoring environment in the industry to create interactive websites, digital experiences and mobile content.
• 1997 – Adobe DreamWeaver was launched, the leading web development tool in the industry. This enabled users to design, develop and maintain websites.
• 1999 – Adobe InDesign, a design and layout software was released that created a fluid environment and sophisticated graphics.
• 2003 – Adobe Creative Suite was released, a family of development tools for every type of creative work flow.
• 2003 – Adobe Connect, also launched in 2003 provided web communication solutions, accessible to anyone.
• 2003 – Adobe Flex joined the many accomplishments in 2003. It provided a set of building blocks to create more responsive and richer presentation.
• 2004 – Adobe Live Cycle Enterprise Suite enabled organizations to offer customers consistent experiences to result in an increase in revenue and loyalty.
• 2007 – Adobe Digital Editions was launched, a software application for managing, purchasing and reading digital publications.
• 2008 – Adobe AIR was an application run-time released to create stand-alone applications on many devices and platforms.
• 2009 – Omniture Online Marketing Suite was released, an on-demand software that would essentially optimize customer interaction.

Therefore, while you’re thinking that perhaps Adobe is really something that only applies to flash pages on your computer, it’s all around you. Adobe is on your phone, used for touching up photos in magazines, etc. It has improved everything digital and visual.

About the Author

Melissa Cameron is married with two children and although she absolutely adores spending time with her family, her real passions are digital photography and learning new things. When Melissa really started to use some of her photos as art, she learned just how important Adobe is to enhancing her hobby.

See also:

1. Post Digital Photos Online
2. PSP Video Converter Downloads
3. What Is Photoshop?
4. How to Make a Website
5. Infrared Photography
6. Dual Core Processors
7. Online Tools for Artists
   

September 1961

It was at this date in Queens, NY that Jean Neditch first conceived of what would eventually become Weight Watchers. Jean weighed about 214 pounds and had tried all the fad diets, none of which stuck. As had always happened before, Jean soon discovered that her willpower to stick with her current diet was slipping; she knew that she was not going to stick with this diet. Something had to be done.

So Jean called some friends and admitted to each and every one of them that she was obsessed with cookies. During these conversations, she discovered that all her friends had their own food obsessions. Jean and her friends then organized weekly meetings to talk about their love of food and their various cravings.

Word spread throughout the neighbourhood and before the group knew it membership had grown to 40 people. It was a groundbreaking hit. Two of attendees, Felice and Albert Lippert, commented that she should start holding the meetings in a bigger, commercial location.

From Hobby to Business

A year and a half after Jean and her friends started meeting in her apartment Weight Watchers was professionally born. Jean held the first pro meeting in a loft in New York City. Jean didn’t advertise and had 50 RSVP. Instead of 50 showing up, Jean got 400. Word had gotten out. Jean did the best she could and held meetings for 50 folks at a time.

Jean’s attendees then began opening Weight Watchers franchises the world over. They kept up with modern diet discoveries and implemented a psychologist-designed behavioural aspect to the program, lending them further credibility. They were also one of the first diet programs to add an exercise component in 1978.

Success/Buyout & Weight Watchers Today

In 1978, Jean’s onetime little company was bought by the H.J. Heinz Company, which sent it into the stratosphere. With this parent company, Weight Watchers was able to reach even more folks and eventually grew into the company we know today.

These days, Weight Watchers has a comprehensive plan to suit everyone. Here’s a little look.

• The Meetings – Just like in the old days, Weight Watchers still has meetings where folks can get together and talk to professionals and each other about weight loss and fitness.
• Online Service – This Weight Watchers plan is perfect for those dieters that can’t or simply don’t want to get together with other people in person. It manages to do this and still offer the same kind of social support system that Weight Watchers is known for.
• PointsPlus – This diet program is an integral part of all Weight Watchers plans and lets you track what you eat with points instead of counting calories and the like. All the work is done for you.

Is Weight Watchers for Me?

Only you have the answer to that question, but most have found Weight Watchers fitting after reading a Nutrisystem meal replacement plan review that made them decide against it or had a Medifast promotion that wasn’t for them. Just give it a try!

About the Author

Melissa Cameron is a married homemaker with two children. She enjoys spending time with her family, digital photography, and learning about new things. Her latest passion is getting in shape, losing a few pounds, and improving upon the eating habits of her family at the same time.

See also:

1. LA Weight Loss
2. Effective Weight Loss Solutions
3. Healthy Diets that Work
4. CVS Coupons
5. Diets that Work Fast
6. The Zone Diet
7. The South Beach Diet
   

Why Home Gallery Stores Are So Successful

There are many reasons why Home Gallery Stores have remained a top-rated choice for home furnishings for nearly a century.  This is a company that started out as a small dream in Goldsboro, North Carolina and quickly became the most popular furniture store in South Carolina and Virginia too.  Thanks to the internet and the popularity of online ordering, the entire country can enjoy their stunning pieces and superb customer service.

So, why is Home Gallery Stores still so popular?  Lee runs the business the same way his grandfather did so many years ago. The company still only deals with manufacturers who they have a strong relationship with and trust to stand behind their product, regardless if it’s a dining room set, living room furniture or a small piece of wall decor.

Home Gallery Stores guarantees customer satisfaction which is a huge reason why families have continued to make their purchases from them through many generations.  They understand how hard consumers work for their money and they want to offer the best deal possible.  They are not in the habit of charging double the cost like many other furniture stores do.   Quite often, they simply price items just over cost to cover their expenses and that’s it because they want you to get the best deal.  In fact, they are so confident in their pricing, product and customer service that they still offer the same money back guarantee they always have.

Home Gallery Stores Products

From entertainment wall units to cribs, Home Gallery Stores has it all.  You’ll find items for every room in your home in styles such as contemporary, traditional, country, coastal, rustic, tropical, and safari.  Only the top manufacturers bring you accent chairs, tables, baker’s racks, bar stools, bistro tables, beds, benches, bookcases, china cabinets, sofas, desks, futons, kitchen island carts, recliners, outdoor furniture, tables, room dividers, cribs, changing tables, rugs and a whole lot more.  You will even find more than 1,000 American made products!

About the Author

Melissa Cameron is married with two children.  She loves digital photography, running, Pilates and spending time with her family.  When it came time to buy a few new furniture pieces, they trusted Home Gallery Stores as her parents have in the past and they were incredibly pleased with their shopping experience.  Melissa and her husband will continue to ship at Home Gallery Stores in the future.

See also:

1. Nebraska Furniture Mart Coupons
2. Bathroom Furniture
3. Storkcraft Furniture for Children
4. Rent to Own Furniture
5. Crate and Barrel Coupons
6. Carolina Cottage Furniture
7. Home Gallery Stores
   

If you’re one of those people who truly enjoys entertaining at home you really should consider buying or building a wet bar to make your entertainment space even more enjoyable. Having a wet bar is not only convenient; its presence lends a certain festive atmosphere to your home.

Wet bars and mini bars

Certainly anyone who has ever stayed in a hotel knows what a wet bar is. Usually they are in the room and provide the lodger with an attractive selection of expensive spirits and incredibly overpriced nuts. However what makes it a “wet” bar is the fact that there is a sink and faucet built in. Without the plumbing it is considered a “dry” bar.

Those hotel bars are normally pretty small and that’s understandable given the limited space in a hotel room and the fact that only one or two people will be using the bar. However if you decide to add one of these entertainment essentials to your home, you’ll have to take into consideration a number of things to get the best use of your wet bar.

• The first consideration is where to place the bar. It has to be in an area where a waterline and drain can be easily installed. Once that spot has been identified you’ll need to decide on how much space you have available and create your ideal dimensions for the unit.
• Wet bars can be purchased completely finished, or in kits or if you’re handy and have the space to work you can build your own. Typically they are constructed of wood or stainless steel or a combination. Unlike the hotels who seem to all buy from the same manufacturer, there is a huge selection of styles and finishes to choose from and picking one will be your biggest challenge.
• When selecting a wet bar model consider adding a mini refrigerator as a built in. You’ll find that having a place to keep beer, wine and mixes chilled keeps you behind the bar serving guests and enjoying yourself instead of running off to the kitchen to fetch another bottle of tonic.
• Another feature to consider when choosing a wet bar is the bar’s surface. There are going to be spills and people are going to leave wet glasses on top of the bar so you want a material that is water and stain resistant. Stainless steel is a good choice but you can also use a laminated material.
• Make sure you have adequate storage for your supply of spirits and all the gadgets and goodies that a good bar needs like corkscrews, napkins, shakers and those cute little umbrella toothpicks.

As a final touch dress up your wet bar with some comfortable seating. You can use ordinary kitchen stools or class it up with something like Hillsdale bar stools. Having seating in front of the bar invites your guests to come a sit for a while. It’s actually a good ice breaker if you are entertaining somebody new.

An attractive wet bar will not only make your entertaining more enjoyable, it can actually add value to your home if you decide to sell. The presence of a wet bar says this house is a fun place to live and makes the house even more attractive.

Author Bio

David Dawson lives in Boston with his wife and three kids and absolutely loves spending time entertaining at home. A full time organic chemist, David has turned his passion for home entertainment into a part time job by creating a website dedicated to home entertainment tips and products.

General Information

Allstate is a Fortune 100 company who sells 13 lines of major insurance and they also offer banking services and investment and retirement products. Allstate is committed to helping customers plan for their future by protecting what they have and preparing for tomorrow. In fact, over 16 million households look to Allstate for their services and everyday, drivers from across the country turn to them for free car insurance quotes.

Your Choice Auto

One of the things that makes Allstate stand out from the rest is that they reward you for your safe driving habits. With Your Choice Auto, you receive rewards such as:

• Accident Forgiveness – Accidents are just that, accidents! Why should your rates go up just because you have one little fender bender? That’s kind of ridiculous and Allstate agrees. They can actually keep your rates the same, even if the accident was your fault.
• New Car Replacement – There is nothing worse than totaling a car, especially a new one. If your new car happens to be totaled within the first three years, Allstate will replace it with a vehicle of depreciated value.
• Deductible Rewards – When you sign up for Your Choice Auto you get $100 reduced from your collision deductible. Then, you get this same reward for every year you are accident-free, up to a $500 value.
• Safe Driving Bonus – Every six months that you go without any accidents, you receive a check for a Safe Driving Bonus that can total up to five percent of what you typically pay for your premium.

Roadside Services

While shopping for health insurance quotes online can be confusing, buying car insurance certainly doesn’t have to be. Especially when you learn about Allstate’s exceptional roadside service. When they say you’re in good hands with them, they mean it. Allstate offers three different plans to choose from:

• Allstate Motor Club – This plan is open to anyone so you don’t have to have your vehicle insured with them to purchase this type of roadside coverage. There are family and individual membership options available and you don’t have to have an invoice to receive reimbursement. Services include towing, tire change, jump-start, lockout, refueling, trip-planning, travel discounts, legal defense and arrest bond cards.
• Good Hands Roadside – Once again, anyone can purchase this coverage, not just current policyholders and it will cover up to five vehicles and five registered drivers. It covers $75 per tow and $50 for other services including tire change, jump-start, lockout and refueling.
• Towing Labor Coverage – This service is only available to Allstate policyholders. It applies to the vehicle on the policy and Allstate will pay whatever the limit amount is set at including towing, tire change, jump-start, lockout and refueling.

Allstate understands that whether you are a policyholder with them or not, you want to be protected on the road which is why they offer Allstate Motor club and Good Hands Roadside. Now, wherever you go, you can have peace of mind knowing you’re in good hands.

About the Author

Laura Penekamp is a mother of three who loves history and writing so she is fortunate to be able to stay at home and work as a freelance writer. Being a mom on a budget, she is always looking for a way to save money and has learned that choosing the right insurance coverage can certainly be helpful.

In the Beginning

Medifast was quickly picked up doctors by doctors and distributed to overweight patients. It was a true success story; so successful, in fact, that Medifast could pick up new properties and evolve into a direct-to-customer business while still retaining its prescription facet.

As part of its evolution, Medifast had the subsidiaries Jason Pharmaceuticals, Jason Properties, Jason Enterprises, Take Shape for Life, and Seven Crondall under its collective wing. Take Shape for Life and Jason Pharmaceuticals are the two most involved with Medifast’s day-to-day operations.

Medifast Today

In today’s day and age, Medifast has expanded greatly but still continues to offer medically sound diets to those who want to get fit. Thousands of doctors have prescribed Medifast to millions of patients. Medifast has many facets to appeal to a wide variety of dieters, such as:

• Medifast Direct – This plan is the typical Medifast program obtained on their website. Commonly known as the 5 & 1 Plan, this plan focuses on metabolism and also has a social counselling aspect as well.
• Take Shape for Life – This social support system includes health coaching and professional counseling created by Dr. Wayne Anderson.
• Medifast’s Weight Control Centres – These centres are franchises and they are located in five different states. These centres offer a place for dieters to actually visit when they need help with their plan and would like face-to-face meeting with professionals.
• Medifast Participating Doctors – Though Medifast has expanded significantly, their products can still be gotten via prescription from participating doctors.

The 5 & 1 Plan

Let’s look closer at the 5 & 1 Diet Plan. It’s the current popular plan from Medifast and consists of 5 meals you order through Medifast, complemented by a single “Lean & Green Meal” which you prepare yourself or you can even order it at a restaurant as long as it meets the criteria set forth in the diet. It is made up of lean proteins and non-starch vegetables. It’s also made to be easily accessible and perfect for today’s busy mom or dad.

The best facet of the 5 & 1 Plan is that it implements the modern ideal we’ve all heard about metabolism. We’ve consistently been told to eat more, smaller meals, rather than fewer, large ones, but his plan actually calls for it by design. This plan and a good amount of healthy exercise can really turn you around and get you on the right track.

Should I Try Medifast?

Medifast’s clientele list contains people from all walks of life. Someone in a similar situation to yours has probably found success with this program, so if you have read a Nutrisystem weight loss program review and found that it’s not going to work for you, go online and get a Medifast promotion code and give it a shot.

About the Author

Melissa Cameron is a homemaker with a family with which she loves spending time. She also enjoys digital photography and learning about new things. Her newest passion is getting in shape, losing a few pounds, and improving upon the eating habits of her family at the same time.

In 1971, Harold Katz was sitting around in his native Philadelphia and had an idea after seeing his mother’s weight loss struggles. Katz had no college degree or other nutritionist training, yet he founded a weight loss program that broke commonly-held preconceptions about fitness by focusing on not only a low calorie diet, but also on behavior and counseling.

That First Decade

As a native of Philadelphia, it was only natural that Katz’s first center was opened near there in Willow Grove. Many more centers quickly began to open and Katz even had some franchises looking to capitalize on his success. Katz’s company was not even known as Nutrisystem yet and was already ranked among the one hundred fastest growing businesses in the US.

Nutrisystem (as it was now known) went public in 1982 and expanded into a $300 million business. With this newfound success, the company moved into a new $2 million building. For his part, Katz was able to buy a mansion and even purchase his hometown basketball team, the Philadelphia 76ers.

Rough Times

The 1980s was a boom time for the weight loss industry, including Nutrisystem. They were in all fifty states and had over 500 weight loss centers. They were doubling their revenue every year, so Harold Katz unsuccessfully began exploring other businesses such as cosmetics, salons, and many more. Katz’s unsuccessful explorations created tension among his franchisees and there were lawsuits. To keep the company afloat changes were made.

• A new CEO was hired
• Harold Katz was bought out
• The company was once again private

These changes turned the company around and they opened an additional 1500 weight loss centers. Nutrisystem exploded to a $764 million company.

The rough times persisted, however. Shortly thereafter, more lawsuits came down the pike. Nutrisystem had to file for Chapter 11 in the early 90s, so they made a huge change and took to the Internet in 1997.

The Modern Program

Nutrisystem was reborn in the online world. They also entered into a successful deal with QVC and still sell over 20% of their food there.

Nutrisystem continues to do well today by providing diet programs on the Internet via their website and through their affiliates. The Nutrisystem website is a one-stop shop area for their goods and even offers counseling right then and there. You can also do the same thing via telephone if you prefer.

Nutrisystem maintains a strong television presence as well. By now, everyone has seen their celebrity endorsements: Marie Osmond, Jillian Barberie, Dan Marino, Don Shula, and many more.

Give it a Try

Nutrisystem has survived and flourished when other companies would fold, so that says something about it. If you want to get in shape, give Nutrisystem a try. If you have downloaded some Medifast diet coupons and decided it’s simply not for you, read a Nutrisystem weight loss diet review. Chances are, you will find that it’s a good fit.

About the Author

Melissa Cameron is a homemaker with an unbelievable family. She enjoys spending time with them, her digital photography, and also learning about new things. Her newest passion is getting into shape, losing a little weight, and improving the eating habits of her husband and kids at the same time.