I took this picture of Mount Rainier from my Washington State
seaside county, which is over 120 miles to the west.
You may have this photo for your own personal use.
Right click on the picture and select "save picture as".
Sometimes called inbound links, backlinks are the lifeblood of Search Engine Positioning. In order for a website to be on the top of search engines like Google without the webmaster having to pay big money for advertising, the website has to have a large number of backlinks. Backlinks are links on one website that lead back to another website. The more established, high quality, and high Page Rank the website that contains the link has, the more power it has to help the linked website with its search engine position. If the website that is getting backlinks gets many High Quality and High Page Rank backlinks, the better the chance it has of being in a high position on the Search Engines.
Are you looking for the best weight loss program? Maybe you're 20 pounds over what you think you should weigh. Maybe you're 200. I have found what I believe is the very best weight loss program in the world, but first I would like to remind you that your weight does not define you . What you weigh is a portion of your anatomy, just like your toes or your elbows. Your weight can be changed; you have a lot of control over this portion of who you are. However, your weight and your body size are not the definition of who you are.
Many years ago, the mother of my best friend commented that although she doesn't like having her picture taken, she allows her family to snap shots of her because the way she looks now is how they know her and the person in those photos is someone who is very, very much loved. Long after she's gone, those pictures will give her family comfort and may even make them smile. Her looks today is how they will remember her tomorrow. Why begrudge loving family members a memory of a person they held very dear?
When I was in middle school, the librarian, Mrs W, was a very large woman. To us “tweens” she was one of the biggest women we had ever known. Mrs. W was a highly intelligent individual and because she was a librarian and a longtime educator, very likely had her Master's Degree. One afternoon, Mrs W substituted in one of my classes for a teacher who had gone home ill. After class, I stayed to get to know Mrs. W a little bit better. She told me about her struggles when she was younger accepting herself because of her outward appearance (many overweight people have struggled with their size for years) and how she finally had learned to accept herself the way she was. Here was one of the most brilliant, kindest women I had ever known, telling me that she struggled with who she was because she had a weight issue!!
Have you learned to appreciate yourself for who you really are, or are you still looking at the number on the scale to tell you if you're worthy? When a friend calls you in the middle of the night because her car broke down on a deserted highway and her 2-year-old is scared and crying, do you tell her “Sorry. I'm too fat to help you”? Of course not!! You jump in your car and you drive to her aid immediately. The face your friend sees when you finally arrive is the face of someone who's very much loved and appreciated. She'd rather see you in that moment than anybody else on earth.
When your 16 year old daughter asks you to help her with her algebra homework, do you tell her that you will, as soon as you lose 30lbs? Of course not!! You sit down at the table next to her and do your best to show her how to calculate the equations. The person who you are is the same one who developed throughout the course of your life; you are the person who was shaped and influenced by the little “daily” things that took place in your life as well as the person who, through adversity, grew in character. You are the one who would never cheat another human being, and you are the one who makes children laugh and smile. You are the loving person who finds a warm home for the stray kitten who wandered into your yard and decided to stay. You have a whole lot to offer humanity, and the world without you would not be the same.
Your weight and your size do not define you. You are you and you have been very, very blessed.
You get home from an exhausting day at work, feed the family, then settle down for a little bit of relaxation time. You open the newspaper, click on the television, or fire up the computer. What are the first words you see? Beef recall. Your first thoughts are “I hope I haven’t just fed that tainted meat to my children” as you scan the news for details of the company in question and the locations where the beef was distributed. The relief you feel when you find that the recall took place in another state or another country is palpable. You were lucky. This time.
As the food industry continues to grow, stories about food poisoning, or its official title “foodborne illness” multiply. In one state 50 people were sickened. In another, children died. The government scrambles to keep up with the regulations and inspection processes that reduce the risks to the public. But are we doomed to rely on the efforts of regulatory agencies to keep our families safe, or is there something we can do to ensure that they stay healthy? No!! The consumer…you…has a great deal of control over whether the food his or her family eats sickens a family member, or if everyone remains healthy.
The very first thing you must do is to ensure that you purchase your meat from a reputable vendor. Make sure that the premises are clean and that the workers look healthy. Make sure that their refrigerated products appear very cool to the touch; the meat should not be in the Temperature Danger Zone between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees. Keep the meat you are purchasing away from other foods, especially produce like salad ingredients that will not be cooked.
If you will be keeping the meat in the refrigerator at home for any length of time, make sure that the refrigerator is keeping food chilled at below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the meat on the bottom shelf, below ready-to-eat foods and produce. If the meat juices were to drip, they won’t then cross contaminate these products. Keep the meat no longer than 72 hours before cooking. If you are planning to keep it longer, make the decision to put the meat into the freezer when you get home instead of the refrigerator, and practice proper thawing techniques before cooking.
Make sure your hands are clean before handling the raw meat, and wash them immediately after. Handling raw meat and then touching other foods or items in your kitchen can cross-contaminate those items and cause germs to remain on them and multiply.
If you use a cutting board for the meat, make sure that it is made from a non porous material, such as glass or acrylic. Do not place raw meat on a wooden bread board. After using the cutting board, wash it, rinse it, then sanitize it in a solution of one capful of chlorine bleach to one gallon of water. Do not rinse the cutting board after sanitizing it. (Don’t worry; restaurants use this solution all the time to sanitize the items you eat from. It won’t sicken you.) Let it air dry, and then put it away.
The most important thing you can do is to make sure that the meat is cooked fully to the proper Minimum Internal Temperature. Do not rely on how it looks. If you want to ensure your family remains free of foodborne illness, it is vital that you keep a metal stem thermometer available, and make sure it is calibrated. Check several portions of the thickest part of the meat.
From the United States Department of Agriculture’s website, these are the temperatures that you must ensure your food is cooked to in order to ensure safety:
USDA Recommended Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures
Following these guidelines will drastically reduce the risk of anybody in your immediate family contracting foodborne illness.
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Get a larger version of the Mount Rainier Photo here
This happened to me years ago and the reason that I have written this article is so that others won't make the same mistake I made when they decide to kick their dogs out of their people beds and put them in their own dog pet beds.
Dog Pet Beds
By Ralph Cramdin
This happened to me years ago and the reason that I have written this article is so that others won't make the same mistake I made when they decide to kick their dogs out of their people beds and put them in their own dog pet beds.
I was a young man back then and I lived in a tiny house that only had one bedroom which was also very tiny. In this tiny bedroom I had a tiny bed barely big enough to hold me let alone my 2 dogs Bozo and Sparky.
And of course my 2 dogs loved to sleep in the same bed as me but there just wasn't enough room. So I decided that the next best thing would be for me to build them dog pet beds in the corner of my tiny bedroom. The only problem was space or a lack of space where I could build 2 separate dog beds.
I have always believed in mans ingenuity and his ability to create solutions where no solutions seem possible. So I racked my brains and came up with an ingenious solution to the space problem.
I made a blue print of my dog pet beds and early on a Saturday morning I went to the lumber yard and got all the necessary lumber to build the dog beds. When I got home I decided I wanted to make this a surprise for my dogs Bozo and Sparky so I locked myself in the tiny bedroom and started sawing and nailing the bed frames.
I was determined to finish the dog beds by bed time so my dogs would have brand new beds to sleep in that night. I worked diligently without rest and by bed time I had finally completed the dog beds.
I opened the door to my bedroom and let Sparky and Bozo in to see their new sleeping quarters. And the ingenious idea I had come up with to solve the lack of space problem was that I had built dog bunk beds. That's right, one bed on top of the other. I had even hand crafted a small ladder that could be used to climb up to the top dog bunk bed.
My 2 dogs seemed very pleased with their new sleeping quarters. But a problem arose. Both dogs wanted to sleep in the bottom bunk bed?
It was at this point that I realized that dogs couldn't climb ladders.
That put me right back at square one. Because only one dog could sleep in the dog beds I had built the other dog slept with me. But the dog sleeping by himself would get lonely and would join me and the other dog in my bed.
I couldn't get a decent nights sleep. I solved this problem by moving to a bigger house with a bigger bedroom and getting a bigger bed.
And even though my solution of building bunk beds for my dogs didn't work out I still thought it was ingenious. If only dogs could climb ladders.
(c) All rights reserved.
I just can't decide and its driving me nuts. Whether to get pet medical insurance or not. I can't sleep and I'm losing my hair. The story is here Pet Medical Insurance.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ralph_Cramdin
http://EzineArticles.com/?Dog-Pet-Beds&id=606594
Parents! Do you know what your children are doing online? Do you really know? When your son or daughter says they are doing homework on the computer, are they in an area where this can be verified? Or are they locked away in their bedroom, using the computer to do who knows what?
Millions of Americans were riveted to their television screens during the series "To Catch a Predator" that Dateline NBC aired showing dozens of predators who were attempting to meet up with people they thought were teenagers. In most of the cases, the men caught on tape on Dateline NBC thought they were going to the home of a 13 year old whose parents were out of town. 13 years old!!
These people were folks from every walk of life. There was a teacher, a rabbi (!), a busdriver. What was really shocking was that many of these folks already were working with children in their jobs every day.
YouTube ran a spot that showed what a chatroom would look like if the people involved were actually in a room together. You might wonder "what is that 50-something, married bald man doing talking to the 14 year old girl?" Of course he told the girl that he was 15. And who is the 'Psycho' guy who's obviously mad at the world and everyone in it? And who are those two single guys over in the corner having a private conversation? Except for the twist at the end, this YouTube spot was pretty true to life about what chatrooms are like and the type of people who frequent them.
Chatrooms are extremely popular among teens and young adults. Chatrooms are also targeted by predators trying to get with these kids for sex. This was obvious in To Catch a Predator and is inferred in the YouTube spot I mentioned. Social networking sites are also common among the young.
MySpace has been in the news lately because of the predators on that site looking for young people to victimize. MySpace and Facebook are the two top sites known as 'networking' sites for people to make friends. However, because of the relative 'anonymity' of the Internet, these are places that predators frequent looking for children to victimize. Many parents are wary of letting their children have a MySpace account at all; however, quite a few teachers and school personnel are reporting that kids as young as 5th grade claim to have profiles on MySpace.
On a forum that I like to frequent (which has a large number of users who are parents), one of the posters reported that some strange words had come up during searches. Words like "sex", "boobs", etc. This poster has several children; among them a son who is 11. However, shockingly enough, it wasn't the 11 year old who had been searching for these terms online. It was her six year old and his friends!! Six years old!! Now, I know kids will be curious and boys will give in to their curiosities. This is a normal part of growing up. But if I were the parent, I'd want my child's curiosities NOT abused by an online predator, looking to make a victim out of my kid.
What can parents do to ensure the safety of their children? First of all, parents need to talk to their children often about what types of things their children are interested in. Not only is this good communication, this can ensure the safety of a child. Second, parents can warn their children about online predators and how they often appear to be a friend at first. Third, parents must warn their children NOT to EVER give personal information out on the internet. No real names, phone numbers, addresses, or whatever. Fourth, parents must create a line of communication that allows their children to come to them and talk about it if they have been frightened or disturbed by someone online.
The FBI and law enforcement have been working toward making the internet a safer place for people in general. It is easier today than it was even six months ago to catch and prosectute an online stalker. This is an evolving subject for law enforcement, but great strides have already been made. If you feel your child was threatened, contact law enforement.
I have included the actual YouTube chatroom spot on my website, which is dedicated to the safety of young people online. Like I said earlier, this "chatroom" is pretty true-to-life, but it shows what it would be like if the people were actually sitting in a room together.
My site is dedicated to keeping children safe online. It is interactive and includes riveting videos about online safety and a chatroom where parents can go to speak to each other about keeping their children safe on the internet.
Click Here for my site.
Work from home!!
Have you ever wished you could spend more time with your family? Have you ever wanted to give up the stress of commuting to your office or worksite every day? Have you ever dreamed of beginning your workday in your pajamas?
There have always been jobs that people could do at home. In years past, housewives would care for someone else's child, or take in sewing tasks that they could perform in their own homes. However, in this age of information, the internet has opened the door to a whole new realm of opportunities for creating wealth while staying home.
There are several choices a person has when he or she decides to begin making an income at home. There are corporations that hire people to perform tasks at home. These corporations "outsource" these tasks because not only does it give people an opportunity to stay at home while making a living (which keeps employees happier and causes them to work longer term) it is often more cost efficient for the company. There is little to no 'overhead' for an employee that is not onsite, although many of these work-at-home employees receive company benefits.
Some of the most common corporate-sponsored work at home jobs are:
Data Entry
Document Coding
Virtual Assistants
Legal Transcription
Medical Transcription
Customer Service Reps
Freelance Writers
Proofreaders
Editors
Translators
Telemarketers
Online Tutors
Call centers
People who decide to work with a corporation that offers work from home opportunities should first research the corporation. How long have they been in business? Are they reputable? Are there others who work for them who will tell you what you can expect? How will you be paid? Are benefits available?
Another, very popular way of working at home is what is known as Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates are people who sign up with companies to market their products at their own expense. The companies, in turn, give a percentage of all sales to the affiliate as payment. Some companies offer up to 75% of the sale to the affiliate. Some individuals who do affiliate marketing have made a killing online marketing the products of others. Three of the internet's top affiliate marketers, all who have become wealthy online, are:
Allan Gardyne at AssociatePrograms.com
Allan Gardyne writes everything about affiliate programs and maintains a directory of quality affiliate programs you could find on the Internet.
Rosalind Gardner at NetProfitsToday.com
Rosalind Gardner tells us that Internet Marketing is not complicated, nor is rocket science. Hers is a success story and she's a living proof, among 2% of Internet Marketers, that you and I can succeed in earning money on the Internet.
Ewen Chia and Autopilot Profits on digg review
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Straits Times (print Edition, above) on 29 April 2007, a self taught entrepreneur discuss about how he made his first million on the Internet and his take home pay is five-figure income on average from Web business. He has made it in the game of life and lives in a 5-storey 3,000 square feet house with his wife and two sons and he drives a white BMW 5 series.
It is a fact that people spend money by shopping online. From a report on Shop.org in 2003:
"
Everyday people, from all walks of life, have learned how to create an income from home. The idea of working from home can go from a fantasy you have as the drudgery of your workday overcomes you, to a reality. The choice is completely up to you.
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Want to work from home? Click here for information that can teach you how.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, and my husband hails from Southern California. Everywhere you look, there are people whose native language is Spanish. People you work with, people who serve you in restaurants, people you buy groceries and other products from. My husband tells me that there are more native Spanish speakers in California than there are English speakers. I have heard that Spanish is surpassing English in the United States of America.
When my husband's daughter Tanya was injured at work, she was given a chance to go to school for retraining to another field. She chose to train to work in the medical field. She did well in her studies and completed the training in record time. However, she found out after she was done that she was not hirable in her field. Why? Because she was not bilingual!! All that studying for nothing!
My good friend Maria, who was born in Mexico landed a dream job with a very large bank here in my town. She was paid to sit all day and greet people and answer phones. She had banker's hours and the great benefits offered by this bank. She doesn't have a banking background; she has only worked in restaurant/retail, just as I have. Why did she get this job? Because she's bilingual!! Because there is a HUGE market for people who can foster communication between English and Spanish speakers. Maria also has done translating for local government agencies.
My friend Maurice has a very lucrative job working for a banking company in D.C. because he is bilingual and he uses his language skills every day in his job. I still see his parents every now and then and they keep me posted on how well he's doing.
If Spanish truly is surpassing English in the United States, then it would make sense that anyone who wanted to further his/her career or get better options for a higher paying career would learn the Spanish language. But how? Should one pay for classes at a local college? A Spanish tutor? How long would it take to learn Spanish, anyway? How much would it cost?
For anyone who truly believes that speaking Spanish fluently would further his/her chances of making a lot more money, this course is for you. You can learn to speak Spanish in 90 days. Yes, 90 days!! Because I believe so much in this program, I am offering a money back guarantee on this program if you haven't learned Spanish in 90 days. So this program is a zero risk program. Who knows? Maybe it will get you your dream job...or at the very least, a job with a "dream schedule". Take it from someone who has worked in retail, there is a lot to be said for having a flexible work schedule. 
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