Digi-Journal

This video shows you how to keep your dog under control while walking next to you using the 4 Ps of dog training: patience, practice, persistence and praise.

Technorati Tags: dog training

Since my anniversary is coming up, I thought that I would spring something special on my wife: a romantic getaway.  It has been awhile since we have done anything like that, but since it will be five years of marriage together in a couple of weeks, we need to celebrate in style, right?

I have booked a romantic coastal location for our weekend away that is just a few hours from our home.  We will drive there after work on Friday (we happen to both be done at four), and stay through until Monday since neither of us works until Tuesday.  It should be a great weekend of rest and relaxation.

But I know that my wife sure doesn’t like sitting around a hotel room for any length of time, so I have made sure to find some good tourist attractions that we can visit.  If the weather is nice enough, we might even have the chance to go scuba diving at a shipwreck an hour from where we are staying.

Irrespective of what we do on the trip, it will just be nice to reconnect with her and remind ourselves why we fell in love in the first place.

Technorati Tags: coastal, tourist attractions

There are moments all throughout our lives when we suddenly feel as grown up as we are. It’s funny that this can keep happening again and again but it’s true.

Some examples of this feeling cropping up in my own life include:

• The first time I walked home from school alone. I was only about eight but I felt so grown up because I didn’t need my mom to walk me those few blocks home.
• Driving my first car. What teenager doesn’t feel the freedom of being grown up when getting that first car and driver’s license?!
• Ordering properly at a French restaurant. I was on a date in my mid-Twenties and I felt totally comfortable ordering my food (including the wine). I felt like such an adult!
• Discussing decorative sconces with my friends. I remember pouring over catalogs with some friends debating whether we liked Murray Feiss or Schonbek better. Suddenly I realized that this was a really grown-up thing to talk about!
• Dating the first guy that I didn’t really fight with. I had done many years of dating but when I finally met a guy that I could disagree with and it wouldn’t turn into a drama-filled argument I knew I was finally in a grown-up relationship.

When have you felt the most grown up?

Technorati Tags: Murray Feiss, Schonbek

I have been thinking about buying a shuffleboard table for my boyfriend for Christmas. I’ve never bought one of these tables before though so I’ve been doing a lot of research into what to look for in a shuffleboard table. While doing this research I discovered a new type of game that you can buy. It’s called Sholf.

Sholf is a mixture between shuffleboard and golf. It is a set that comes with a long carpet and a bunch of golf balls. The carpet has three different scoring zones laid out on to it. Like with shuffleboard, your goal is to put your ball as close to the edge of the carpet as possible without it falling off because only the team that is closest to the edge gets to count the points. Like with golf, you use a putter to hit the ball across the green carpet.

The game looks like it could be fun. You can hit your ball into other people’s balls in order to knock them off the carpet and get your ball closest to the edge where you want it. I think we’d get a kick out of playing that. Still, it’s not the same as a real shuffleboard table so I don’t think that this is what I’ll be getting.

Technorati Tags: shuffleboard, what to look for in a shuffleboard table

A friend of mine recently relocated to Florida. She got a new job and is getting settled in. However she’s having a tough time finding new health insurance. Her new business doesn’t offer health insurance coverage to her so she has to get individual health insurance. The problem isn’t that it’s tough to find affordable health insurance in Florida. The problem is that there are too many good options to choose from!

Of course, the most affordable health insurance in the state is Florida Medicare. However you have to meet certain qualifications in order to be able to use this common type of health insurance. My friend doesn’t meet those qualifications. At least she can rule out this particular type of Florida insurance!

She’s sure that she’ll eventually figure out which health insurance to go with. It’s just tough because she’s never had to get her own insurance coverage before. She’s always just taken whatever was offered through her employment. This is the first time that nothing was offered. She’s a trooper though so I’m sure she’ll use this as an opportunity to learn as much as she can about choosing a health insurance plan. Then maybe she can help me review mine!

Technorati Tags: affordable health insurance Florida, Florida medicare

I will have to say that there is nothing quite like my job.  It not only lets me be creative, but it also lets me follow my passion for drawing.  Can you guess what I do?

Well, I do illustrations for a film company.

I have been drawing for them for the last ten years and it has been a blast.  I have worked on a large number of short animation films, as well as some full length ones as well.  I guess for me the best part is that I get paid to do something I love and that is one of the best feelings in the world.

But this morning I have had to get up early to touch up the illustrations that I was working on last night.  It was rather humid here and some of the pictures just didn’t turn out the way I was hoping, so I am going over everything to make sure they will be ok for the client meeting that is scheduled this afternoon.

It shouldn’t take too long to get everything fixed and make it down to Actuality Films – I should be there by noon.  I can’t wait to see what we will be working on tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Actuality Films, illustrations

One of the best ways to market your business is to use direct mailing lists. These lists help you to target the customers who are most likely to be interested in buying your products or services. You can buy mailing lists that focus on many different types of information.

Some of the most popular consumer mailing lists that businesses get include:

• Local customers. Businesses that provide local services will try to get the lists of people who live right in the area where the business is located.
• Age-group mailing lists. Some businesses target specific age groups which are most likely to buy their products. Baby boomer mailing lists are particularly popular with businesses that buy mailing lists.
• Types of homes. It’s useful for a business to know who lives in a home. Are you trying to sell a service that’s perfect for families or do you want to get mailing lists that are filled with single home owners?
• Language-based mailing lists. If you offer bilingual service at your place of business then you already knew that this is an asset. Exploit it by targeting people who speak that language. For example, many businesses order Spanish-speaker mailing lists.

Work with a service that provides many different types of mailing lists to figure out which ones are best for your business marketing.

Technorati Tags: buy mailing lists, consumer mailing lists

I think that there is one single thing that teachers should teach you in elementary school. They should teach you that you are capable of learning anything. If they taught us this when we were kids, we would be able to spend the rest of our lives learning everything that we needed to know. Instead, they teach us specific things and many of us grow up feeling like there are some things that we just can’t learn.

The areas that we feel inadequate in as learners are all different. Ask me to learn about data capture systems or the work of networked scanning system providers and I’m as comfortable as a pea in a pod. But ask me to learn how to draw or paint and I immediately will tell you that it’s something I “just can’t learn”. And although I think that I can get better at improving my relationships, it’s taken me a long time to learn that this is something that I can learn.

I wish that it wasn’t this way for me. I wish that I could look at any area of life and think to myself that I could learn how to do it if only I tried. I’m not quite there. And I think that’s because that’s not what we learn when we’re little. We learn our ABCs. We learn specific things. But we don’t learn explicitly that we are able to learn. That needs to change.

Technorati Tags: data capture systems, networked scanning system providers

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not tech savvy at all.  In fact, except for turning on the computer and checking my email, my computer skills are pretty much non-existent.  But, as a business owner, I see the value of having an online presence, so I have been looking at ways to make that happen.

After getting a website setup by a local website design firm, I was left with the daunting task of figuring out how to market the website.  At that point, I knew that I was way out of my league and that I would need some help to get things started.

I had my secretary do a search on any companies that offered seo in Tampa so that we could contact them to see what we needed to do to get our website ranking well in the search engines.  Though price was a concern, I knew that when it came to marketing, in most cases you get what you pay for, and being cheap about it wasn’t going to work very well.

After a number of presentations from firms that were interested in our business, we went with a company that could not only provide us with local Tampa pay per click advice but put a solid organic search results plan in place.  We have signed a three month contract, and after that point, we will evaluate how well the marketing is going and make adjustments as required.  I am really interested to see how things turn out.

Technorati Tags: seo in Tampa, Tampa pay per click

After a childhood friend of mine died a few years ago, I remember her mom saying that despite her grief, she thinks that most of the time people would prefer their problems over someone else’s.  And it’s true — when we hear about something happening to someone else, we tend to perceive it as much worse than anything that is happening to us.

I think of this frequently, particularly when I go to the doctor’s office (I have type 1 diabetes).  Today I had to go in for a PFT (pulmonary function test) for a study I’m participating in, and while I was there I saw the sleep lab where they do sleep studies on people who have a hard time sleeping at night for whatever reason — insomnia, sleep apnea, etc.  And despite the fact that I take injections several times a day, my first thought was, “I am SO glad I don’t have that problem.”

I always have the same thought when I talk to someone with cancer, or a handicap that prevents them from physically doing things that I can do — at least as easily.  We can’t choose our problems, that’s true, but we learn how to deal with them.  The devil you know over the devil you don’t, right?

I  honestly think that, when it comes down to it, most people would prefer their own problems to anyone else’s — no matter how much some people cry and moan about how awful their lives are.  You know they would do it no matter what, so even they would probably prefer their own problems, no matter how much they complain about them now!

Technorati Tags: pulmonary function test, wheelchair lift