Home Kitchen

A Guide to Bathroom Remodeling

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There’s a reason so many Hollywood actors keep their awards in their bathrooms – all of your guests will visit that room at some point, so why not put the trophies where everyone will see them? But even if you haven’t won an Academy Award, your guests will still be checking your bathroom. A well done bathroom remodel can impress your guests and increase the value of your home.

Bathroom remodel can be as simple as new paint and fixtures, or it can be a total makeover and expansion. If you want to start a bathroom remodel, the first thing to do is evaluate your current bathroom.

Think about these questions to make sure you get the most out of your project:

How many people will use the bathroom?

If a family shares a bathroom, it may be a good idea to have a separate area for the toilet and shower so that someone can shower while someone else uses the mirror and vanity.

What is the current state of the bathroom?

Attacking dirty tiles with bleach or an industrial tile cleaning solution, polishing fixtures, and adding brighter lights can restore shine to your bathroom and cost less than a renovation. But if the bathroom is outdated, collapses, or just plain boring, consider more intense changes.

How much money do you have for the renewal?

Before you start, think about how much money you can realistically afford. No remodeling project should put you in debt. Once you have a budget, take a trip to your local hardware store to check prices. Shop around and start looking for deals before starting your renovation project. It is not necessary to buy everything at once; you can easily wait for store sales to buy the tools you need and store them.

How much work can you do yourself?

If this is your first remodel project, take care of yourself. You will need to use this room, so make sure you don’t get into trouble. If your bathroom needs new wiring, plumbing, or even tile, don’t be afraid to ask for professional help. Just be sure to factor it into your budget.

How much space do you have?

If you can tear down walls, be sure to plan ahead. Sliding doors and a shower, not a bathtub, are easy ways to save space.

How long are you going to use the bathroom?

If you are remodeling to help sell your home, or could sell it soon, it may be best to stick with simple, conservative changes. Get things going and looking clean, but don’t add the hot tub of your dreams.

These questions address some of the most basic points of bathroom remodeling. Plan ahead, budget, keep an eye out for deals, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Remember, modeling the bathroom should be fun and the results are for your enjoyment. Do your best.

Auto

Famous cars from the 80s

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Many people say that the 80s had the most striking cars of all time. They weren’t just in movies, they were on television, in video games, and in our dreams. From gull wing doors to racing vents, Targa covers to huge spoilers, everyone has their favorite. Was it the Ferrari Testarossa or perhaps the Delorean from Back to the Future? It’s good to look back on an exciting decade …

Ferrari Testarossa – Going into production in 1984, the Testarossa was the successor to the Berlinetta Boxer. A Pininfarina-designed car, the Testarossa was originally produced between 1984 and 1991. A two-door coupe, the Testarossa had a fixed roof and a 12-cylinder engine. After the production of the Testarossa, the 512 TR and the F512 M followed, which were produced between 1992 and 1996.

Lamborghini Countach – a mid-engined sports car, the Countach was produced by Lamborghini between 1974 and 1990. Its design not only pioneered the sharp-angled, wedge-shaped look of the time, but also popularized it. In 2004, Sports Car International, the American automobile magazine, named the Countach number ten on their list of the best sports cars of the 1980s. Top Gear became number one on their list of the sexiest supercars. of all times. Available in 4.0L, 5.0L, and 5.2L, all engines were a powerful V12.

DeLorean DMC-12 – Originally manufactured in Northern Ireland, the DMC-12 was made available to the US market in 1981. More commonly known as the DeLorean, it was the only model produced by the company and featured gull-wing doors. The car became iconic for its appearance as a time machine in the Back to the Future movies.

Compare car insurance
If you are lucky enough to have the money in your bank to consider buying one of the cars listed above, you will probably be interested in going online to compare car insurance. As with most things today, most people use the World Wide Web (WWW) to search for a variety of products and services. Why? Not only can you find exactly what you are looking for in a matter of minutes and with just a few clicks, you can also save money by shopping online. This also applies when you go online to compare auto insurance. You will often find the best insurance deals when you use the power of the internet (and earn a little more money for gas)!

Digital Marketing

Book Marketing Platform

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To start marketing your book, you must first establish a platform for your book and its author. If this is your first foray into book marketing, these tasks will take some time, but they are essential activities.

The main contents of its platform are listed below.

* Strategic marketing plan

* Website page

* Amazon Central

* Social media accounts

* Media kit

Some of these activities cannot be completed until your book is published or on pre-order. In other words, after you have a presence on the Internet. You will need the cover image and other information about the book before you can complete these activities. If you have an editor, some activities may have already been done, but you should review them with a view to improving and strengthening them.

Let’s go over the content on your platform, one item at a time.

Strategic marketing plan:

This is the document that anchors and directs all your marketing activities. Perhaps the most important part is the identity of the customer. Unless you know who your customers are and how to reach them, your marketing activities will be in vain. For example, if you wrote a children’s picture book, you may think that children are your clients. They are not. Children don’t have money or credit cards, and they don’t surf the web looking for things to buy. The children’s parents and grandparents are their main customers.

Website page:

As a new author, you must face the fact that your book is published in the 21st century. Readers search and find books on the Internet. The implication of the last statement is that you and your book need a website. The easiest way to establish a web presence is to use a program like WordPress or Blogger or Weebly.

Websites like WordPress, Blogger, and Weebly have two essential types of content: pages and posts. Pages are static in the sense that they do not change unless you deliberately intend to change them. Once you set a page on the website, it stays there, it doesn’t move, and it doesn’t change.

The posts are for blogs and are not static pages. A new blog post will appear at the top of the website once you publish it. When you write a second post, the first post will move down to make room for the new post.

So what do you do with a website once you have it up and running? You use it to fool your book. There should be a dedicated page for the book and it should be easy to find. Don’t make a visitor search for the book page.

Initially, that page should have a cover image, your book blurb, and purchase links. You can also put your short synopsis on it.

Amazon Central:

Once your book is available for sale or pre-order on Amazon, you can start an author page. If you have an editor, they may have started this page for you. In this case, you need to look at it to see if you can add content to it.

You can find Author Central at: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/home

After logging in with your password, you can add your bio and other information to the page. One of the great features of the author page is that you can add a lot of information about the book that you couldn’t do when you uploaded it to Kindle.

The topics of the book include Editorial Reviews. These are reviews that Amazon will not allow to be published on the book site because Amazon will not allow paid reviews. If you get a review from a reputable site like Publishers Weekly, this is the place to post it.

Another topic is From the author. Here you tell the readers why you wrote the book. Or the problems you encountered writing it. Or anecdotes from the writing process.

You can also upload videos to the page (that is, a trailer) and you can set an RSS feed so that your blog posts are displayed on the author page.

Altogether, the author page is a great marketing tool.

To find out what an author’s page looks like, go to mine: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BM76IE

Social media accounts:

Social media is an essential part of your marketing plan and your brand. However, be careful. Social media is a huge waste of time and many sites are almost useless when it comes to marketing and selling your book. However, you must persist.

At a minimum, I recommend that you create and maintain accounts on the following platforms:

* Goodreads

* Facebook

* LinkedIn

* Twitter

Feel free to use other accounts, but keep in mind that social media can be a huge waste of time and you want to advertise and market your book, not wasting time.

Media kit:

The purpose of a media kit is to let people in the media and other stakeholders know your writing credentials. If the book is your only writing project so far, there won’t be much material, but start anyway. If you posted short stories, articles, or other content, add it to enhance your resume. The media kit is on your website or blog and should be available to anyone who wants to download it. For that reason, you may want to consider not including personal information in it, such as your home address or phone number.

So what does a media kit include? Here is a list of items that make up your kit:

* Organic.

* Press releases.

* Links to websites.

* Body of work.

* Book descriptions.

* Book reviews.

Make sure the media kit is a doc or pdf file so everyone can download and open it.

Relationship

Basics of iPhone app development

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Ever since Apple launched the iPhone in the US, people all over the world have put it in their hands, so there are a lot of people using iPhones today. It is an amazing piece of technology that can be bought at an average price and incorporates touch technology with a large screen and a compact curved shape.

The touch screen can be touched with two different fingers in different places. IPhone also has a global positioning system so you can find out where you are. It has the ability to detect motion in three dimensions, along with other features such as a camera, address book, and a programmable vibrator. Therefore, the iPhone is more than a phone. It is powered by a 620 MHz ARM CPU with reduced heating, along with a 128 MB DRAM and from 4 to 16 GB of Flash memory. It uses an Apple OS X, built on Unix. The great news about the possibilities of the iPhone is that you can create your own applications in addition to the ones provided. There is a developer toolkit, iPhone SDK, that allows you to develop iPhone applications. There are two options: web-based applications and native applications. Web apps run in a browser using HTML, CSS, ASP, Java, .NET, Ruby, or JSP, and native apps run in the built-in frameworks provided by the iPhone development kit.

The language you write your code in is called Objective-C, as implemented by Apple. It is an object-oriented language, so it presents encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism of methods and data that focus on Objects, accessibility and the connections between them. In this way, you can make buttons, views, windows, sliders and controllers to maneuver your information within the program and interact with it through events and actions.

Standard classes are available, but you can create your own classes that inherit something from the regular ones and have them interact in your project. The operating system comes in four layers (Core OS, Core Services, Media, Cocoa touch), each layer contains the frameworks that you can use for your application. The basic level of the Core OS contains the kernel software that deals with networking, threading, input / output, and memory. The core services provide you with the frameworks for all applications, the media provides protocols for audio and video, and Cocoa touch is the one that allows you to control events, windows, and user interfaces.

You must use an Intel Mac computer with MAC OS X Leopard, and you must use the iPhone SDK, which is downloadable. The latter can test your application in the absence of the iPhone device. In addition, you must register for the development of the program at Apple.

IPhone game apps have already been created. They use the phone’s motion sensor devices to steer the race cars in racing games. Other applications use Wi-Fi to connect you to the Internet like a laptop or computer.

If you are interested in developing a mobile game or an iPhone application, you can search for an iPhone application development company on the internet. These companies may not be more than two years old, but some have been in IT for much longer, so their experience may be useful to you.

Gaming

Organizations can dramatically reduce workers’ compensation costs by helping employees stay fit to work

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Introduction

Data from the National Compensation Insurance Council shows the high cost of allowing or even requiring employees to attempt work for which they are sadly not prepared, physically and mentally. They are not physically prepared because their bodies are not trained for the performance requirements of the jobs they are asked to do; mentally unprepared because they do not know that they are not prepared or, if they do, they are not trained for the tasks that are required of them

In the United States, workers’ compensation costs are higher in California at $ 3.48 per $ 100 in payroll; Connecticut follows with $ 2.87, followed by New Jersey ($ 2.82), New York ($ 2.75) and Alaska $ 2.68). The state with the lowest costs is North Dakota: 88 cents. The median figure: $ 1.85 per $ 100 of payroll.

Traditional approaches

These costs are a significant burden on businesses, a drag on productivity, profits, job satisfaction, and the quality of life of the workforce, and that’s only a partial list of issues.

What are companies doing about workers’ compensation problems, besides lamenting the fact that they pay so much for injuries on the job? Here is a list of thirteen steps that companies take or that consultants and other experts recommend taking.

1. Return disabled employees to work as soon as possible.

2. Report only regular wages, if possible, when employees work time and a half.

3. Establish a joint work and management committee to identify and correct health or safety problems in the workplace.

4. Educate and train employees on the safe use of equipment, safe work behavior, and safety procedures.

5. Provide prompt medical attention if an employee is injured.

6. Determine if there is a pattern to such statements.

7. Instruct employees not to take risks.

8. Distribute safety instruction manuals to employees.

9. Hold managers and supervisors accountable for the safety record of their departments and crews.

10. Be careful when hiring.

11. Offer better health insurance to lower workers’ compensation premiums.

12. Correctly classify job descriptions and employee titles, as some classifications carry more risk, resulting in higher premiums.

13. Eliminate workplace hazards that have caused an employee to become ill or injured.

Other strategy

Why not take responsibility for ensuring employees are fit to work? Most are not fit for work, in fact very few are. It is rare to find literature suggesting that employers ever implement prevention or “upstream” strategies; As in the thirteen-step list above, almost all efforts are “top-down.” Downstream strategies are those focused on saving bodies in the water, without keeping workers out of harm’s way in the first place, protected from the turbulent waters of weak bodies and unsuspecting minds.

There is another way that organizations can reduce medical spending, decrease the incidence of accidents, improve productivity, and improve return-to-work outcomes. How? Engaging employees with REAL wellness programs that transcend chronic disease management offerings and that go beyond preaching on exercise, diet, and stress management.

Companies can insist on suitable workers, hire suitable workers, train and support suitable workers, and reward results linked to suitable workers.

The number one risk of accidents and injuries is not random bad luck, malicious acts of God, or dangerous workplace conditions, although the latter is an unforgivable problem that must also be addressed as a priority. The number one risk of high workers’ compensation costs is that people are unsuitable for their jobs. Specifically, they are not trained to realize and maintain the musculoskeletal function that most 8-5 or other work hours require.

Workers should receive comprehensive training on the nature of genuine and wellness-worthy musculoskeletal fitness, how to achieve, maintain and develop such fitness, and how to understand the risks of such fitness. Different types of jobs, of course, require different levels of physical fitness, and these variations must be understood and applied to specific work settings. Each job must be evaluated to determine the required musculoskeletal fitness levels.

A full program could include musculoskeletal displays and workstation evaluations, depending on the extent to which the jobs involve:

* manual operation.

* deal with existing conditions.

* strength and flexibility.

* skeletal alignment.

* body fat percentage and aerobic fitness.

Summary

Australian fitness and wellness expert John Miller describes a system for the prevention and treatment of what he calls “personally generated bodily system dysfunctions.” His work has shown that a high proportion of employees with back pain have a physical fitness problem: Their weak and tight muscles have allowed the pelvic bones and then the vertebrae to become misaligned. To quote Coach Miller, whom I have seen in action in Canberra, “only on the rarest of occasions is back pain caused by lack of rubbing, crunching, heating, vibration, strapping, doping, or surgery.” Or, expressed in the coach’s inimitable Australian talk, “It’s a great question to expect to be in good musculoskeletal health without staying fit. It’s also a great question to hope to improve if someone does something to you. You have to do something to yourself.” .

Be well, look on the bright side and take care of yourself.

Health Fitness

An effective and progressive training plan

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Many people exercise, go to the gym for a long time, and don’t see much improvement. Many more people join the gym after making their New Year’s resolutions and try to get quick results, but many fail. Many people go to the gym often and feel that they are not getting results equal to the amount of work they do. Most of the time, New Years Resolutions people abandon their training plan and go back to their old ways. The other guy who goes to the gym often will continue to go and look the same for years to come or they will eventually stop exercising or meet someone with good advice that will change the way they view exercise. and they will begin to see the error in their old routines.

  • Why People Don’t See Results After Exercising For A Long Time

People with New Years resolutions just have unrealistic expectations, they think that if they go to the gym for a couple of hours every other day they will look amazing and when that doesn’t happen or their new motivation disappears, they quit. No one said it was going to be easy and only those who are willing to work hard will get results.

On the other hand, there are those who work tirelessly for months and sometimes years and haven’t made much progress since they started. It is difficult to do something even when the return is not equivalent to the input. You’re basically running lost. If your training were a business, you would certainly be in trouble. The point is, if you do something long enough and you don’t get results, it’s pretty obvious that there is a glitch in the system. You need to re-evaluate your routine and try to figure out what could be wrong with your routine, for example, your training could be the right type of training, but the flaw could be in your diet. The flaw could be that you are over training or doing too much cardio, those are just things to think about if you want to find out why you are not getting stronger, bigger, leaner, etc. (whatever your goal is).

  • How to make sure your training is effective and progressive

This has been said before, but it needs to be said again, you need to work the smart way which is what gives you results, that is what makes a workout effective. You need to set goals for yourself, that’s where progressive comes in. A workout is not smart and effective if it means that you are still lifting the same weight that you were lifting when you started lifting weights. The thing is, you have to set goals, like every two weeks I’m going to add 5 pounds to my bench press so that in as many weeks I will lift 220 pounds. So you know what you are looking for, therefore you will work towards it and as you get stronger and see your lifts improve, that will also serve as motivation and you will reach your goal.

The entire exercise process should be goal-oriented, with steps to achieve your goals like the example above, you could probably lift 220 pounds in a shorter period of time, but you will get more out of each weight if you don’t skip the steps. You have to think to yourself if you want to be the little guy who can lift a lot of weight or you want to gain as much lean muscle as you can with the weights you used to progressively reach your goal. If something does not work for you, change it, do not continue doing the same; try other combinations because they might do you more good than what you are currently doing.

And finally, give each part of the body enough time to recover and have a diet that is established according to your goals, whether it is a low-calorie diet to lose weight or a high-calorie diet to gain mass. Someone else might not work for you so you need to experiment and find what works for you, that’s a smart progressive workout.

Legal Law

A Guide for Criminal Lawyers

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A criminal attorney is someone who specializes in handling criminal cases with implications like arson, DUI, murder, robbery, etc. The main function of a criminal lawyer is to review the evidence and devise an effective defense strategy. Criminal attorneys work as defense attorneys or prosecutors. A criminal defense attorney will represent the accused, advise the client on legal matters, and assist in the drafting of legal documents such as contracts, wills, etc. They can also act as public defenders in cases of homelessness. A criminal defense attorney with substantial experience in the field will have the ability to cross-examine prosecution witnesses to prove the client’s innocence. In extreme situations, a professional attorney can negotiate with the prosecution attorney to impose charges and punishments fairly. A prosecutor works on behalf of the government in criminal proceedings. Whether it is defense or prosecution, criminal attorneys can use government statistics and other official documents at any stage of the case. The laws governing criminal attorneys vary from state to state, but a basic code of law is observed throughout the United States. The criminal lawyer’s office will assume the responsibility of meeting clients, arranging brief appointments, conducting background investigations on cases, etc.

To practice as a licensed attorney, you must pass the bar exam after completing a three-year course at a law school. In addition to educational requirements, a criminal lawyer must possess certain qualities, such as good communication and listening skills, organizational skills, public speaking skills, the ability to handle complex criminal cases, and to deal with people of all backgrounds. Since criminal cases involve a lot of paperwork for criminal trials and proceedings, criminal attorneys must also possess writing skills. Also, they should be excellent negotiators. The salary of a criminal lawyer will depend on the jurisdiction and the nature of the case.

Lifestyle Fashion

Foods that do not match the menu

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The question of whether you are actually getting the exact same food that appears on the menu has persisted in the restaurant industry. What guarantee is there that you will get exactly what you asked for? Is there a check and balance to ensure the integrity of the companies that supply the food available in restaurants? There can be many questions surrounding the notion that the food you are ordering is not exactly as stated on the menu. But rest assured, there are few to no loopholes within the major food supply chains, so there is no cause for widespread panic and I’m not trying to stop you from going to your favorite restaurant. On the contrary, most restaurants operate ethically, as the success of a restaurant is based primarily on its reputation, level of service, and quality of food. We’re about to uncover some of the biggest scams in the restaurant industry, and as a consumer, you need to know that the old “bait and switch” practice still exists. We hope this article helps you become a more informed consumer so you can make better dining decisions.

Mass-produced processed foods or factory foods have been available since 1910 and have continued to gain popularity ever since. Some of America’s most iconic food brands were first created in labs and produced in factories before becoming part of our everyday kitchen. Some of the mainstream processed foods that have been popular since 1910 are Nathan’s hot dogs, Aunt Jemima’s syrup, Hellman’s mayonnaise, Oreo cookies, and Fluff marshmallows, to name a few. Advances in technology led some food factories to focus their efforts on packaging and bottling everything from vegetables to soft drinks.

Today, the fast food industry is the largest distributor of processed foods, but it is definitely not the first to introduce people to foods made in a factory. However, the fast food industry was instrumental in perfecting factory food delivery and brought about a major change in the way we eat by conditioning us to accept factory processed food as a substitute for food. real. Americans consume epic servings of pre-made food every day. The fast food industry is estimated to serve 50,000,000 Americans a day. There has been such a massive infiltration of factory food into our daily kitchen that it is difficult to determine what is real and what is processed when you choose to eat at a fast food restaurant.

Fortunately, fast food is not our only option when choosing between going out or staying home to eat. Most casual dining restaurants serve higher quality food compared to fast food restaurants, but still below the quality of food that you can find in a fine dining establishment. There have been many reports of not getting exactly what the menu suggests, especially when ordering seafood from a restaurant. For example, there are 61 species of tuna and only four species are of great commercial importance. Big Eye, Albacore, Yellowfin and Skipjack are the 4 main species of tuna that you will find in restaurants.

Yellowfin also known as Ahi tuna and is often mixed with Big Eye tuna because they are similar in texture and color. Albacore tuna, a less expensive tuna, is often mislabeled as regular tuna, as it has similar characteristics and can easily be disguised on a bed of rice, surrounded by vegetables, and topped with sauce.

Shrimp, scallops, oysters, and other shellfish are of varying quality and can be easily swapped without raising too many eyebrows. Varieties of shellfish species that are closely related cousins ​​are often similar in color and texture and the difference is undetectable unless you have access to scientific genetic DNA testing. Most large chain restaurants rarely sell mislabeled fish; however, there are reports to suggest that the seafood you ordered could be a closely related DNA cousin to the seafood featured on the menu. In one case, one of the largest fine dining restaurant chains in the US actually served yellowfin and listed the dish as albacore on the menu, a more expensive fish than indicated on the menu.

How could I talk about food fraud without mentioning the massive and deceptive scam that is happening at all levels of food distribution and created from the popularity of Kobe beef? What I’m going to tell you is plain and simple, if you bought Kobe beef in the past, it probably wasn’t Kobe beef at all! Until a few years ago, the FDA banned all imported meat from Japan. That means that until a few years ago there was not an ounce of Kobe beef available in the US Thousands of people became unsuspecting victims of a crime that spans the entire restaurant industry. From large distributors, celebrity chefs, bar owners, and restaurant managers, the Kobe Beef Scam is one of the restaurant industry’s biggest scams to date.

According to the Kobe Beef Council in Japan, in 2016 less than 5,900 pounds. of certified Kobe beef was exported to the US from Japan. Now 5900 lbs. It looks like a lot of meat if you were making the world’s largest hamburger, but to put it in perspective, in 2016 we consumed 18,020,960,000 pounds. of beef in the US Food for Thought, 29,494,738,000 lbs. of chicken ended up on our plates in 2016. Compared to the amount of chicken and beef consumed in the US, the amount of Kobe beef available in 2016 was incredibly minimal. I guess, despite how rare Kobe beef was in 2016, nothing was wasted on burgers, sliders, or any other Kobe-like product. Fake Kobe is so profitable that it spread to another Japanese variety of beef, Wagyu beef. Wagyu beef is the other half of the meaty master plan to get more money from innocent diners.

Wagyu is a Japanese word and translated into English means “Japanese cow”. There are four types of Japanese cows that can be considered Wagyu (Kuroge Washu, Akage Washu or Akaushi, Mukaku Washu and Nihon Tankaku Washu). American farmers have imported a small number of Japanese Wagyu cows to be raised and raised in the United States creating a new category of beef, “Domestic Wagyu.” Domestic Wagyu is the new ultra-beef, not as expensive as Kobe. There are a handful of farmers who work hard to keep the domestic Wagyu bloodline pure, but eventually most Wagyu will be crossed to suit American palates and sold at your local butcher or grocery store. The quality of Wagyu beef is somewhere between Kobe beef and USDA Prime, but how can you be sure it’s real?

I went to a restaurant and ordered the Wagyu steak and it was good, but like USDA Prime it’s good too. Was I a victim of money grabbing from meat barons? I’m not sure, but it was a fantastic meal nonetheless. Let me explain my experience with Wagyu this way, if you opened my fridge right now you will find USDA Prime New York strips, ribs or t-bones and not Wagyu beef. So that this doesn’t happen to you and to stay out of the woods at least until this controversy fades, order or buy a USDA Prime steak, ask a great cook to prepare and enjoy it. You will not be disappointed!

The fact is, only a small fraction of people in the food industry are willing to lie for a profit, but their careers are generally cut short and the gravy train of scam money is cut short immediately. The worst abuse is occurring in the smaller local restaurants that don’t have much of a reputation to protect. For the most part, big-name chains and big-name restaurants have to maintain a high level of food quality, service, and overall reputation or we just wouldn’t give them our business.

Greetings to you!

Pets

Understanding a dog show

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Thousands if not millions of people tune in to watch the great televised dog shows, but what they see is just the tip of the iceberg, the group competitions and the best of the show. These are certainly exciting competitions, as the best dogs of each breed compete for the highest honor at a dog show. However, a lot more happens at a dog show before the group competitions begin.

Think of a dog show as a pyramid, divided into three sections:

1. The base and most of the pyramid is made up of the Race Contests.

2. The next much smaller section is made up of Group Competitions. The many AKC breeds are divided into seven groups. The Best of Breed winner from each race advances to compete in their group.

3. A small section at the top of the pyramid is one third of a dog show. This is the Best in Show competition. Only 7 dogs compete, the winning dog of each group competition.

Now, let’s take it to the level of race.

In breed competition, no matter what the breed is, individual dogs are judged according to a written breed standard, which describes the attributes that the “ideal specimen” of the breed should possess. Breed standards include descriptions of head, eyes, pigment, coat, color, bite (i.e., tooth placement), structure, and movement. In an ideal world, dogs are judged by the standard and the person showing the dog is ignored. (In the real world, the person at the end of the initiative can influence a judge’s decision because some judges are prone to awarding the victory to professional handlers and ignoring those who are not.)

So, this is how the classes are conducted. First, the classes are divided by sex. Males compete against males. Females compete against females. The following classes are available for each sex:

Puppy 6-9– Puppies who are not yet champions and who are between six and nine months old compete in this class.

Puppy 9-12-Puppies that are not yet champions and that are between nine and twelve months old compete in this class.

Twelve to eighteen months– Adults who are not yet champions and who are between twelve and eighteen months old compete in this category.

Beginner – To compete in this class, a dog must be six months of age or older; must have earned less than three first places in the beginners class; must not have won a first place in the Bred-by-Exhibitor, American-Bred or Open Class; and he must not have earned any points for his championship.

Hobbyist-owner-manager– Dogs that are at least six months old and that are not champions must be handled in this class by their registered owner. The class is limited to exhibitors who have not been, at any time, a professional dog handler, an AKC approved conformation judge, or who have not been employed as assistants to a professional dog handler.

Raised by exhibitor – This class is for dogs that are showcased by their owner breeder and are not yet champions.

Raised in America – To enter this class, a dog that is not yet a champion must have been born in the United States from a mating that took place in the United States.

Open – This class is for any dog ​​of the breed that is at least 6 months old.

Let’s say there are at least 4 entries in each of those classes. Starting with puppy class (male) 6-9, the dogs are called to the ring. The dogs are identified by a number that the exhibitor wears on a bracelet on his left arm. They enter the ring in numerical order. Generally, the judge first places the dogs in line, stands back, and takes a quick look at each one. You can stop in front of each dog to look at the head and expression. He then tells the exhibitors to “take them around” the ring and stop at the examination table. Each dog is placed on the examination table where the judge “checks” them, examines each dog and compares its attributes to the breed standard. Next, ask each exhibitor to move their dog. This is often referred to as “down and back” as the judge sends the dog first to judge the rear movement of the dog and then towards him to judge the forward movement. Then some judges send the dog around the ring to the end of the line so they can judge the lateral movement. When all the dogs have finished the movement portion of the assessment and are back in line, the judge will step back and look at the dogs again before performing the locations, sometimes returning to a dog for a second look or asking to an exhibitor who would move a particular dog again. Often times, the judges will ask the exhibitors to take the dogs around the ring one last time. Then the judges make their investments.

Each class has a chance of four placements, and ribbons are awarded for each. First place = blue ribbon, Second = red, Third = Yellow and Fourth = white.

The next class would be Puppy 9-12 and so on until all the male dogs in the various classes have been judged. The assessment routine must be the same for each class.

Then comes the Winners Dog class. The first place winner of each male class returns to the ring. This time they are lined up by class in reverse order, with the Open Dog winner being first in line and the Puppy 6-9 winner being last in line. The dogs are re-judged, but are not normally placed back on the table for examination. The dog that wins this class is known as the winning dog. He gets a purple ribbon and, most importantly, the points for his championship. Once the winning dog is chosen, the other winners remain in the ring because the judge has to choose a winning reserve dog (the second). The second-place dog in the class that the Winners Dog came from returns to the ring to compete for the Reserve. For example, let’s say the winning dog comes from the Bred By Exhibitor class. Then the second-place dog in that class Bred By Exhibitor enters the ring with the winners of the other classes to be judged against him by Reserve. The judge then awards a winning reserve dog.

Now the evaluation of the kinds of dogs is done.

Then come classes for women. (At dog shows, females are called “Bitches”, and it is not used in a derogatory sense or in the sense of an expletive. It simply means “female canine”). The judging routine is the same. At the end, all the winners of the Bitch classes return to the ring and a winning Bitch and a reserve winning Bitch are awarded.

The men and women who compete in these classes compete for points toward their championship titles. To become a champion, a dog must earn 15 points. Out of the 15 points, two of the dog’s victories must be major victories. A “major” is a 3, 4 or 5 point win. Five points is the highest number of points a dog can earn in a show. Points at each show differ for each breed and depend on the number of dogs of each sex in each breed competing that day. AKC reviews its points program annually and the program is printed in each program’s catalog, a book that lists each entry in the program by group and by race.

The final class for each race is the Best of Breed class. The winning dog and the winning bitch compete with the champions for the Best of Breed award. At the end of the Best of Breed competition, these prizes are generally awarded if there are enough dogs in the class for all prizes to be awarded:

Best of breed– This is the dog judged as the best show of the breed. The Best of Breed can be awarded to one of the champions on display or awarded to the Winning Dog or Winning Bitch, the dog the judge deems most worthy.

Best of winners – This placement is awarded to the winning dog or winning bitch, whichever the judge deems more worthy.

The best of the opposite sex – This award is given to a dog of the opposite sex to the one that won the Best of Breed award. (If a female wins Best of Breed, this winner would be a male, and vice versa).

Select dog– A champion male who has not won either Best of breed or Best opposite sex, but the judge considers him worthy of an award.

Select bitch– A champion woman who has not won either Best of Breed or Best Opposite Sex, but the judge considers that she deserves an award.

Champions compete for race points, which will increase to give them national rankings. One point is awarded for each breed of dog entered in the contest. So if there are 20 Lhasa Apsos entered in a show, the race winner will get 20 race points. Best of Breed (if a champion), Best opposite sex (if a champion), Select Dog, and Select Bitch will also earn points toward a Grand Championship title. Once they obtain that title, the accumulation of points grants them the status of Great Champion Bronze, Silver or Gold.

The Best of Breed winner from each breed entered in the dog show is now eligible to represent their breed by competing in the Group Competition. There are seven AKC groups. Since it is this part of the dog show that is usually shown on television, most people are familiar with what goes on in these groups. The seven groups are

1. Sporty– These dogs were bred to hunt game birds both on land and in water. Examples include Cocker Spaniels, Irish Setters, Labradors, Golden Retrievers, Vizslas.

2. Hounds – Hound breeds were bred to hunt other game animals by sight or smell. Examples include Coonhounds, Beagles, Whippets, Saluki.

3. Working – These dogs were bred to pull carts, guard property, and perform search and rescue services. Examples include Boxers, Newfoundlands, Akita, Bernese Mountain Dogs.

4. Terrier – Terriers were bred to get rid of vermin. Examples include Skye, Norfolk, Airedale, Welsh, and Fox Terriers.

5. Toy – These little dogs were bred to be housemates. Examples include Pomeranians, Shih Tzu, Maltese, Chihuahuas, Pekingese.

6. Not sporty – This diverse group includes dogs that vary in size and function. Many are considered companion dogs. Examples include the Lhasa Apso, Dalmation, Poodle (standard and miniature), Keeshonden, Lowchen, Shiba Inu.

7. Grazing – These dogs were bred to help shepherds and ranchers herd and / or care for their livestock. Examples include Briards, Collies, Old English Sheepdog, Corgis, German Shepherd.

It is important to realize that in group competition, dogs are not judged against each other because the standards for each breed are diverse. What the judge is looking for is the dog that best represents the ideal described in his breed standard. Of the dogs displayed, the judge will select four for their locations. The ribbon colors are the same for group locations as they are for regular classes: blue, red, yellow, and white.

Dogs competing in the group compete for group points towards the national group rankings. For example, let’s say there were a total of 233 herding dogs entered into a show. The winner of that group receives 233 group points. Subtract the number of dogs of the same breed as the winner and the remainder of the points goes to the second-place dog. Subtract the number of points in that dog’s breed and the remaining points go to the third-place dog, and so on for the fourth-place dog.

Finally, the seven winners of the group are taken to the ring where they compete for Best in the show, the highest award in a dog show. The winner of Best in Show receives points for the victory, which will go towards the national rankings. Therefore, if a show had a total entry of 2,000 dogs, the Best in Show winner receives 2,000 points. If a show had an entry of 300 dogs, the Best in Show winner receives 300 points.

Real Estate

Why NOT Budgeting for Home Maintenance Can Ruin Your Retirement

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How much should I budget for the annual general maintenance expenses of my house?

Where most people ‘take it for granted’ until they need to replace the windows at $ 300 / pc or the roof at $ 10 / sqft. And if you are retired and most of your money is in your IRAs, now we have to add taxes on top of the cost.

While teaching one of our retirement planning classes here locally, one of our students had an interesting question about how much he should budget for general house maintenance. This is a question that usually comes up when we are putting together an income plan for a couple to retire successfully. It also happens when we are developing an estate plan and the trustees want to set aside money specifically for the maintenance of their home so that their beneficiaries do not have to sell the home before they are ready. They understand that anytime you “have to” sell anything, especially a high-value item, the buyer wants a good deal.

There is a general rule of thumb of 1% of your purchase price (current market value) or about $ 1 per square foot of living area. The living room should include your basement, attic, and garage in this calculation. For example: Colonial 2 story with attached two car garage and full basement. If the estimated size of your home is 2400 square feet. foot so it’s safe to assume you have 1200 square feet on the top floor, as well as the main floor and basement. Realistically, you are looking at a potential 3,600 square feet of living space. A two-car garage is typically about 440 square feet. So if you add it all up, you have a little over 4,000 square feet that should be included in this calculation and not just the square footage that your home originally purchased.

Therefore, the range in which to implement your budget is from 1% of the purchase price to $ 1 of the full square footage of the house. In our example, assuming the houses are selling for $ 100 square feet and you bought your house for $ 240,000. The lower limit of your home maintenance budget should be $ 2,400 and the upper limit should be $ 1 of total square footage or $ 4,000.

Now let’s talk about the $ 100 per square foot. If we put this as a value, we can simply research what houses are currently selling for in our neighborhood to see if we are above or below that factor. For example, if we find that a similar 2,400-square-foot house sold for $ 220,000, then we will immediately know that it is undervalued (22/24 = $ 91.67 square feet). Then we would budget at 91.67% (2400 * .9167) which is $ 2200 or (4000 square feet * 92 cents) which is $ 3680. Of course, our budget would work the other way around if we find that our house is currently valued above. For example, a similar home is selling for $ 300,000 or 125% above par, so our lower end of the range is $ 3,000 while the upper end is now $ 5,000.

So why the difference? How does the market value per square foot have an effect on my cost of ownership? When considering a budget for your home, the geographic cost of living, the quantity and quality of products and services, and the level of outside influences are the main contributors to how current market fluctuations affect your home’s daily maintenance costs. Wealthier neighborhood stores sell products at a higher premium compared to lower-income neighborhoods. Those same stores have more specialized products versus more generic brands to choose from. More affluent stores have better opportunities to buy in bulk compared to lower-income demographic stores, where the premium is put into smaller packages that get less investment from the customer. Larger homes often have more amenities, landscaping, and building material changes that add higher ongoing maintenance cost.

Other considerations that will affect your long-term budget when you bought the home:

– Age of the house, roof, windows, additions, etc.

– Age of electrical appliances, air conditioning, plumbing, electricity.

– Home construction, vinyl siding, brick, stone, etc.

– Ongoing maintenance before purchase

– Proactive maintenance, protective paints and seals and waterproofing

– Guarantees of electrical appliances, maintenance.

– House topography, high ground or valley, windy without trees or surrounded by trees

– City water or well

– Extreme weather

Doesn’t it seem like it should cost so much to maintain a home? You’re right, it doesn’t seem like it, but let’s see the list:

Age of life for

– Roof: 20 years at approximately $ 9 / square foot, or $ 22,800 ($ 1,140 / year)

– Oven: 15 to 20 years old and will cost around $ 2,500 in today’s dollars ($ 125 / year)

– Hot water heater – 10 years at approximately $ 500 ($ 50 / year)

– Water softener (if applicable) – 10-15 years at approximately $ 500 ($ 35 / year)

– Central Air – 20 years at approximately $ 4000 ($ 200 / year)

– Sprinkler system 30 years at approximately $ 2,500 ($ 85 / year)

– Entry 30 years at approximately $ 9000 ($ 300 / year)

That’s a total of about $ 1935 in today’s dollars and with an inflation rate of 2.5%, most of these costs will be slightly higher. In 20 years, this monthly maintenance fee will be approximately $ 3,100. When budgeting for long-term maintenance, daily maintenance now has a range of approximately $ 465 and then peaks at $ 2,065. It’s silly to take over and stick to a budget, especially when there is a chance that you may never need it. But as my mother always told me while making fun of the umbrella walking out the door, it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

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