Starting a collection is plenty of fun, and if you’re not careful, collecting of any kind can require a lot of space to store your objects. Some people who have an interest in collecting set aside a room in their house for their displays. Many others don’t have that available space. Dollhouse collections are no [...]]]>

Starting a collection is plenty of fun, and if you’re not careful, collecting of any kind can require a lot of space to store your objects. Some people who have an interest in collecting set aside a room in their house for their displays. Many others don’t have that available space. Dollhouse collections are no different, and there are options to enjoy your passion with small dollhouse displays. A small dollhouse lets you enjoy your hobby without letting your collection take over your home.

The first option is to create a room box instead of an entire dollhouse. Don’t be discouraged by the fact that you only have space for one room. In fact, you should be delighted with the notion that you can focus all of your creative energy into decorating this one room. You will be amazed at just how intricate the details are that you create when you just have one room to focus on. From the pattern in the floor to the most delicate design of a lampshade, you can take your time to make sure everything is perfect, instead of worrying about the overall big picture appearance of a house with an exterior that needs to be tended to as well.

Another option for those who are pressed for space is to use small dollhouses. Though a 1:12 scale is the common size for a miniature house, you can create a display using smaller sets that are scaled to 1:24 and even 1:144. These smaller scale dollhouse kits take up much less space and are ideal for those who only have a small corner in which to display their miniatures.

In real life, when builders and contractors must create something in a small space, they built up rather than out. Try the same principle with your dollhouse display. Create multiple levels or add a floor to your dollhouse. Rather than aim for a single dwelling home, try a townhouse-style of dollhouse. These sets are taller and narrower, which gives you more space for your miniature collection without taking up much room.

No matter how tight your living space, there are viable options for you to express your passion for miniatures. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have room to set up a full display, but instead take a great deal of pride in how you are able to creatively use what little bit of space that you do have. You may find that your best work is done when you incorporate your small dollhouse display into the framework of a room where you never thought you’d have room to set one up.

Veronica Scott
http://www.articlesbase.com/hobbies-articles/spacesaving-tactics-for-miniature-collectible-displays-135650.html

It is a perfect alternative to conventional ceramic tiles – DIY Pebble Paving tiles Remodeling. When it comes to contemporary surface coatings, it is the natural look and feel of these tiles, that makes it so unique and popular. Read the following article and find out how you can easily transform any surface from you.

[...]]]>

It is a perfect alternative to conventional ceramic tiles – DIY Pebble Paving tiles Remodeling. When it comes to contemporary surface coatings, it is the natural look and feel of these tiles, that makes it so unique and popular. Read the following article and find out how you can easily transform any surface from you.

Some background information
Pebble Paving tiles renovation consists of a number of uniform adhered natural gravel on a 12 ‘x 12′ mesh back. The islands of Bali and Sumatra in Indonesia are probably the largest source for these beautiful rock tiles. What are the most popular applications? Here are a few of them: kitchen counter tops and backsplashes, bathrooms, showers and floors.

Main advantages
We can quickly several major advantages when using this solution:
* It can easily be adjusted to very small and narrow spaces where other fixed size as conventional ceramic tiles tiles can not.
* Easy to be replaced if necessary.
* Provides unique atmosphere and contemporary look and feel on any surface.
Tips!
* The majority Recommended grout is sanded grout – it is suitable for both internal and external use.
* Use a tile saw to cut stones for edges or corners.
* Is this the first time you install these tiles, it is recommended to learn from the experience of others – there are many forums and demonstration videos over the Internet, where you can find useful information about the initial time of installation.

We could include other important advantages from this fashionable home redesign technique simply because it is versatile like no other tile method available today.

Final words

If you want to bring nature into your home design then this is quickly Pebble Paving tiles easily technique offers unique atmosphere and feeling to any room setting. For a successful installation, it is advisable to the above tips, shortly before starting the installation.

SEO Expert80
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/pebble-paving-tiles-the-remodeling-you-always-wanted-671509.html

The way you know you really believe that the Universe is a friendly place and all of life is in Divine Order it is that you NEVER complain. (Do I really want to say this?) When we complain, we’re saying, something’s wrong here, this shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be happening to me; it shouldn’t [...]]]>

The way you know you really believe that the Universe is a friendly place and all of life is in Divine Order it is that you NEVER complain. (Do I really want to say this?) When we complain, we’re saying, something’s wrong here, this shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be happening to me; it shouldn’t be happening this way. Life is unfair. The universe really is unfriendly and there is no order out here. Whatever it is you are complaining about. Do you have something you are complaining about right now? I’m noticing that I complain about contractors, about what is happening around my house. I decided to let that go and see the order in the universe. But, what if it never gets changed?

You know the energy we put into complaining. I should say, “I” put into complaining. It’s exhausting and it really is about not believing there’s a perfect order in the universe. It believes that somebody else did something to me. This is happening, and it’s happening because somebody else is not living up to what they should be doing. You see, I know how people should be living. I know how others should be running their lives and when they don’t and it interferes with my life, I think there is something wrong out there. Am I the only one that thinks this way? We know the drill. Life is unfair. We may not say it in those words. But notice the words you do use when you say, “I don’t want this to be happening right now.”

When we decide to focus, instead, on the Divine Quality of order, we say things just don’t feel right. When they don’t feel right, and then I remember there is a perfect order in the universe, I can stop and say at that moment, “This really is perfect. Whatever this is.” I have a friend whose husband used to say all the time, “This is it. And I am happy.” Isn’t that a great line? “This is it. And I am happy.” So, you can’t pay your bills? “This is it. And I am happy.” So, you have a headache, or you get a diagnosis you don’t like, “This is it. And I am happy.” So, you lose your job, a friend walks out on you, your love life ends, “This is it. And I am happy.” Have you had enough?

But imagine living like that. We don’t believe in Divine Order. We think there is randomness in the universe and it’s happening to us. We live more in victim hood whenever we believe that things are happening TO us. The reason this didn’t happen is because YOU did this. Those contractors. Oh, I have my conversations with contractors all over the country. It’s not just Florida. I can get agreement for anything I want to complain about. And you will too.

Notice that like attracts like. People say to me, “See, it’s true. All my friends say so.” Of course, your friends say so, because that’s what you say and life is a mirror. We are constantly bringing agreement into our life. If we don’t believe things are in order, the people in our lives won’t either. Maybe you need some new people in your life that can start believing these principles with you. The Law of Attraction, like gravity, works whether you believe it or not.

There is perfection in everything. Life will constantly hand us things to manage, things to experience, things to grapple with. When we accept the Quality of Order, what it does is present us with an opportunity to experience life as a series of opportunities to go beyond the senses. Go beyond the appearances; go beyond what we are seeing and really recognize the truth behind everything. It’s the opportunity to move beyond the little self that only sees the surface and live in the consciousness of our higher self. What Jung used to call our transpersonal self, that part of us that knows and knows that it knows. That part of us that experiences good, and knows there is good. Even though on some days you feel it is quite small, it really is whom you are. It really is your essence.

This week I read somewhere, “Divine set-ups are purposeful events, choreographed by our soul to create the opportunity for us to wake up.” Divine set-ups? an interesting way to see life. Everything that is happening in life is by Divine set-up. We’ve chosen to have certain experiences. Everything has a reason; everything has a season. There’s a time for every purpose under heaven. There are never any accidents in our life. And I’m talking about little things as well as the big ones. It’s all happening perfectly. Nothing happens randomly. There is a perfect order in the universe.

Dr. Toni LaMotta
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/divine-setups-138555.html

Most home owners prefer to remodel their kitchen in the way that suits them. Next to the bathroom, the most used area in the house is naturally your kitchen and many people prefer open plan kitchens for comfort and convenience. Getting kitchen cabinets installed by a contractor can be very expensive. If you are looking [...]]]>

Most home owners prefer to remodel their kitchen in the way that suits them. Next to the bathroom, the most used area in the house is naturally your kitchen and many people prefer open plan kitchens for comfort and convenience. Getting kitchen cabinets installed by a contractor can be very expensive. If you are looking for do it yourself cabintesthen Kitchens Pro has the answer.

We have used the power of the internet to make renovating or completely remodeling your kitchen a snap .You can use the features that we offer for a complete do it yourself cabintes solution for the look you have in mind, and for usability that suits your needs. Why not try out our free design service, no strings attached, so that you can build the kitchen of your dreams with do it yourself cabinets? Our selection of quality kitchen cabinets come in whatever styles, finishes, and colors that you prefer and they are easy to assemble to help you make a success of yourdo it yourself cabintes.

You can save thousands of dollars in do it yourself cabintes. Whether you already know exactly what you want, or need ideas for the perfect kitchen style, you’ll find everything you need on our site. With an extensive inventory of top quality cabinets, and a wealth of information about designing your kitchen, kitchenspro.com is your one-stop resource.

Kitchens Pro supplies top quality kitchen cabinets that you will be delighted to find at a fraction of the price compared to other kitchen cabinet suppliers. Not only will we match any competitor’s price on similar quality cabinets, we’ll even refund you the difference up to 10% below the competing offer. With the lowest prices and the best selection, Kitchens Pro has everything you could want in do it yourself cabintes.

Choosing your do it yourself cabintes is a simple process following a few steps. If you need assistance with your purchase, expert sales professionals will guide you so that you can find exactly what you are looking for. We stand behind our products and prices and with a mission to serve all our customers like royalty, we are one of the leading choices for do it your self enthusiasts.

Designing your dream kitchen is a fairly easy process. First choose what you want your kitchen to look like and then the layout of where you will be installing cabinets. After you have made your choice, purchase everything you need online from the comfort of your own home and your do it yourself cabintes will be shipped you promptly. Once you discover how it easy it is to choose and order do it yourself cabintes, you’ll be eager to get started on your new project. Visit us at kitchenspro.com  for more information about our products and services.

alexander Matt
http://www.articlesbase.com/diy-articles/do-it-yourself-kitchen-cabinets-680039.html

ROCKLAND, MA…

On Saturday, January 31, it will truly be a dog’s day at the DirectBuy of Boston South located near the Rockland/Hingham line and just off Route 228. At that time, the local Zoomin’ Groomin’ van will be at the 10 Commerce Road location to offer grooming services for the pets of DirectBuy members and [...]]]>

ROCKLAND, MA…

On Saturday, January 31, it will truly be a dog’s day at the DirectBuy of Boston South located near the Rockland/Hingham line and just off Route 228. At that time, the local Zoomin’ Groomin’ van will be at the 10 Commerce Road location to offer grooming services for the pets of DirectBuy members and the general public. All proceeds from the event will go to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“Winter months are kind of a tough time for keeping your pets clean. You don’t want to wash them outside and unless you’ve got a dedicated area in your house for cleaning your pet, it means using one of your tubs or sinks,” said John Massaria, owner of DirectBuy of Boston South. “By hosting this event, we’re providing a service for our pet-owning members and pet owners from the general public and we are raising money for a very worthy cause, the MSPCA.”

The pet grooming event will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. as the Zoomin’ Groomin vans will be in the parking lot of DirectBuy of Boston South. While there is no charge to have your pets groomed, the recommended donation is $50-$100. One hundred percent of that money will be donated to MSPCA.

“We’re pet groomers by trade, but the reality is we’re pet lovers, too. An event like this not only provides a nice service for fellow pet lovers and gives us a chance to showcase our service, but it also raises awareness to the good work the MSPCA does and you can’t put a price tag on that,” said Jeff Loomis, owner of Zoomin Groomin franchise.

To arrange for the grooming of your pet and to participate in this event, please call Zoomin Groomin Mobile Pet Spa, (781) 792-1888.

DirectBuy franchises offer members the opportunity to enjoy enormous savings on home furnishings, home improvement items, entertainment and outdoor products and accessories by purchasing wholesale, directly from the manufacturer. In addition, DirectBuy boasts a team of designers to help members with their purchases and gives them access to a roster of hand-selected contractors to expedite those projects.

Consumers interested in becoming members may obtain a Visitor’s Pass to attend an Open House by contacting the showrooms listed above or visiting www.directbuy.com.

About DirectBuy

For more than 37 years, DirectBuy has been showing thousands of consumers unparalleled ways to save as they shop for virtually everything for in and around their homes – from furnishings, home improvement and flooring, to entertainment and outdoor products, accessories and much, much more. With more than 160 locations in North America, DirectBuy offers its members access to approximately 700 brand-name manufacturers and their authorized suppliers in the US, and more than 500 brand-name manufacturers and authorized suppliers in Canada.

Consumers interested in seeing DirectBuy’s savings, service and selection up close may obtain a Visitor’s Pass to attend an Open House by visiting www.directbuy.com or www.directbuycares.com.

About Zoomin Groomin
Zooming Groomin Mobile Pet Spa, with corporate offices in Norwell, Massachusetts, is a pet grooming service that provides convenient, professional, door-to-door pet grooming, and is owned and operated by a team of professionals with copious experience in sales, marketing, management and pet care.  The company is franchising new locations to groomers and other pet enthusiasts throughout the country.

The Standard Spa Package rivals those of popular human spas, and pampers pets with a luxurious hydrosurge therapeutic bath, fluff drying, hair trimming and styling, ear cleaning, tooth brushing, nail maintenance, playtime and special treats.  The Medicated Spa Package for pets includes aromatherapy and hot oil treatments. For more information, please visit www.ZoominGroomin.com.

Joe D’eramo
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/directbuy-of-bostonsouth-rockland-to-host-pet-grooming-event-on-saturday-jan-31-723934.html

If you are looking to remodel your old bathroom and create a whole new space, you might be trying to make your dollar stretch further than usual. And no wonder in this economy! Though we are all waiting for things to turn around for the better, for the moment we have to make do with [...]]]>

If you are looking to remodel your old bathroom and create a whole new space, you might be trying to make your dollar stretch further than usual. And no wonder in this economy! Though we are all waiting for things to turn around for the better, for the moment we have to make do with what is. For many homeowners, this means making the most of their older homes rather than move to a newer one, and if this is the case then a little remodeling might be in order. Many people like to give their old bathrooms a makeover first, because this is an area that we all spend daily time in and want to be as nice and clean as possible. If you want to make your bathroom new again but need to watch your budget, here are a couple tips for you to get the best deal from a bathroom furniture store.

When you walk into a home improvement store and find a bathroom vanity or linen cabinet you really like, you may look at the price and think it’s time to walk away and find something a little less costly. Here’s the thing though…at larger home improvement stores you may not have a lot of wiggle room with the price, but if you go to a smaller, privately owned business to look at bathroom furnishings you’ll be able to negotiate more. If you go to a private business, you can ask to speak with the manager or owner and ask for a discount, which they will be likely to give you to make the sale. So choose the private vendor over the large chain store, and you can get a discount sink vanity that you might not have thought possible. The key is that you have to ask for them, and do it at a place where you can get them.

Another option for saving money on new bathroom vanities is to look online. You’d be surprised what a wide selection of reputable stores sell great quality vanities and bathroom furniture online, and at a discount price. Online stores know that they have to compete with “in-person” retailers somehow, because it’s easier to sell if a person can experience an object with all their senses. So good online bathroom furniture retailers will give you an amazing price that your local stores may not be able to match, and there are your biggest savings! You have to give up seeing the vanity in person until you buy it and it’s shipped to you, but as long as you taken accurate measurements to ensure it will fit and seen high quality images of your purchase, you should be in great shape. Just make sure that your online bathroom vanity retailer has a good reputation and a customer satisfaction policy.

So whether you choose a retailer online or a privately owned local business, make sure to ask for your discounts, because this economy has made bathroom furniture retailers more willing to negotiate down on their prices.

Jane Worthington
http://www.articlesbase.com/bath-showers-articles/where-to-find-the-best-deals-on-bathroom-furniture-712764.html

Everyone I know says I am spaced out.

My wife tells me I’m distracted and self-absorbed. She says I have no sense of time, lose things constantly, and cannot be trusted with small appliances. She says these things are evidence of my dysfunction.According to her, I fade in and out of reality all the time… but [...]]]>

Everyone I know says I am spaced out.

My wife tells me I’m distracted and self-absorbed. She says I have no sense of time, lose things constantly, and cannot be trusted with small appliances. She says these things are evidence of my dysfunction.According to her, I fade in and out of reality all the time… but she doesn’t know the half of it.

My friends think I’m a pie-in-the-sky dreamer too, a guy who spends most of his time in La La Land. They’re too nice to say it, but half the time they think I act like I’m from another planet. That’s because when they see me, half the time I have just come back from another planet. I’ve been hiding this for a long time, but the truth is…I am a REAL space ranger and I have traveled all over the galaxy!

I try to tell my buddies what I have discovered about the inner workings of the universe, but their eyes just roll back in their heads like the reels in a slot machine. It happens so often I have taken to cupping my hands under their mouths on the hopes I will hit the jackpot. So far the only payoff I’ve gotten is a spray of spittle when they burst into laughter.

I know I am hoist on my own petard. It’s my own fault that people question my credibility. Part of my problem comes from publishing a newspaper in which fact is indistinguishable from fiction. In the past, I must admit I have written a few things that stretch the truth. Many people doubt my in-depth interviews with Santa Claus and Bigfoot.

I understand that some folks question whether the Register is really locked in a vicious print war with the New York Times; that our columnist is really over two hundred years old; or that Round Top’s Town Marshall is really 6’9” tall and rides tornadoes.

These are reasonable doubts, and I cannot deny that I might have played loose with the facts a time or two for the sake of art.

But in all fairness, anyone who studies physics will find what most of us think of as “the real world” doesn’t exist. One of the founders of quantum physics, Erwin Schrödinger, points out that at the atomic level, all matter performs in a “completely disorderly heat motion, which opposes itself to their orderly behavior and does not allow the events that happen between a small number of atoms to enroll themselves according to any recognizable physical laws.”

That means if you look closely at the building blocks of the universe from which everything is made – your car, your kids, your dinner, your new pair of shoes – you won’t find anything that looks like facts or reality.

Reality is just a story humans tell one another so we won’t be utterly overwhelmed by the incredible complexity of the world in which we live. The universe is incomprehensibly vast. Life is unfathomably complex. Few of us have the slightest idea what is going on around us, and for the most part, we don’t want to know.

Accepting the truth about our insignificance in the grand scheme of things is a real blow to the ego, so who wants to do it.

The fact that everyone makes up their own reality is just one of the basic truths that even the most backward of the galaxy’s species takes for granted, but here on the old home planet we are still having a hard time getting the message.

People on our planet often think there is some “real and objective” world that is the same for everyone. This kind of provincialism is very embarrassing for a space ranger like myself.

Put yourself in my shoes. You are at a cocktail party at a penthouse in an upscale tourist colony orbiting a gas giant in the Betelgeuse system, and your host, who looks a lot like a six foot tall oyster with chrome hood ornaments suddenly shouts “Humans believe what?” and the whole party breaks up in riotous laughter.

This kind of thing makes it very hard to act cool. Belonging to what many interstellar beings consider “one of the goofiest-looking species in the universe” is hard enough, but being an intellectual laughing stock just adds insult to injury.

That is one of the reasons I have decided to come clean about my secret life and try to explain what is really going on in the universe to the rest of humanity.

Salt Crystals on a String

My strange situation began a long time ago when I first became a space cadet. It began innocently enough. I had a big imagination as a child and was fascinated with the workings of the world – why salt crystals appeared on a string suspended in salt water; why the program in your hand shivers and quakes in a concert hall when the strings crescendo at certain notes; why snowflakes are all unique and other amazing mysteries of science.

When I was a kid, the world was a source of wonder for me, and that wondering set me to wandering in my mind…and the next thing you know I was a space cadet.

It all started when I met Tom Corbette and the Space Rangers.

Tom was as all-American boy, tried and true, and a fellow cadet at the Interplanetary Space Academy. He and I teamed up with two other young cadets. Roger, who was real wise guy but a crack navigator was the first, and Astro, our massive but good-natured engineer was the other. The four of us rocketed all over the solar system before I was out of the sixth grade.

In the summer after I graduated from elementary school, I discovered a book called Glory Road, and found myself hopping from one dimension to the next.

That was where all the trouble started. It was fun, flitting from one alternate universe to another battling impossible odds, but there are serious consequences when you defy the laws of physics, and before long I was paying the piper.

I first began to notice strange things happening when I was in the seventh grade. That school year I lost three watches and four coats. My mother assumed I was simply careless, but as far as I could tell those personal items just disappeared. Right away I knew they had slipped into another time/space continuum but it was hard to prove to my mom.

Sadly, a little known effect of such quantum phenomena is that there is a corresponding perturbation in the electro-chemical energies passing through the synapses of the brain when they occur…which means you can’t actually remember the alternate universe events when they happen to you.

I knew those watches – including the one with Roy Rogers and Trigger on the dial – must lie half buried beneath the purple sands of a distant world. They were probably being crushed under the twelve armored feet of a methane-breathing three-headed desert beast rather than lost in my school locker. But no matter how articulate my argument, I couldn’t convince my unimaginative mother. When I came home from school without my coat for the third time, she grounded me.

That’s when I realized my life as starfarer was better kept a secret.

Now all these years later, I realize that I am not alone. There are other people like me out there in the world, lonely and lost, never seeming to fit in, observing a universe that their friends and neighbors can’t perceive. They seem like normal people except for a few unusual quirks.

They tend to lose anything not chained to their belts. They are constantly looking for their keys, their cell phones, their screw drivers and wallets. Important papers vaporize on their desks at work. They have no sense of time. They have a hard time remembering names and phone numbers and never read directions. They leave lights on all over the house and can’t be trusted with toaster ovens.

They spend a lot of time lost in thought, staring off into space with wistful expressions on their faces. Sometimes they become fixated watching a cloud, or a crawling bug, or the reflection of light on water, and you have to shake them to get their attention.

In other words, they have the attention span of a four-year-old.

If there is anyone in your life like this, I ask you to be patient and forgiving. They may be annoying and hard to live with, but they’re behavior is an unfortunate side effect of an important mission.

They’re secretly defending the earth against invasion by the forces of galactic evil, so give them a break. It easy to get a little distracted when you’re standing alone against the death rays of the machine-beings from the Crab Nebula.

Facing such responsibility, anyone could forget a birthday or two. These people deserve your respect because they are performing a valuable public service. Defending the planet earth from total annihilation is a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it.

To my clients, friends and neighbors, I am a regular guy who happens to be a little eccentric. They assume that I lose things and can’t remember people’s names because I simply don’t pay attention, or because my brain was damaged in the 1960’s by recreational drugs.

Actually, I am constantly cycling from one dimension of space to another. I’ll be in Round Top talking on the cell phone or sitting at the drafting board trying to design someone’s country house…and then all of a sudden I’m taking four G’s as my spacecraft leaves the atmosphere of the fifth planet out from Alpha Centauri in pursuit of insectoid aliens bent on galactic domination.

Needless to say, these circumstances make it difficult for me to maintain my professional composure at my architecture firm. It’s hard to explain what is really going on, so I find it necessary to preserve the charade that I am simply a garden variety ditz.

This guise has long worked to my advantage. You learn a few things about the behavior of sentient life forms when you hang out with aliens from all over the galaxy. I’ve seen it over and over in fifty different star systems. When some species find out you are different – and Homo Sapiens are among them – it makes them afraid, and organisms that are afraid have a tendency to get nasty.

It’s long been my opinion that it’s better to take a little lip, than to have your lip busted. As a result, I have lived a double life. But now I am throwing caution to the wind. I’m going to tell everybody what I have found out in my travels about what is really going on here on the planet earth.

I have to run to the house because I forgot to turn off the coffee percolator and the Queen is afraid I am going to burn the house down. I’ll clue you in as soon as I get back.

The Ultimate Truths of Life on Earth

Whew! That was close. The bottom of the coffee pot was starting to look like a black hole. Now back to the facts about life on earth. There are a many such truths of course, more than I can tell you now, so I am going to focus on the top seven.

1. The Aliens are getting restless.

For the last million years or so, most of galactic society has ignored human beings. I mean, there have been a few good sitcoms based on human beings, mostly comedies sort of like Bedtime for Bonzo, but for the most part no one really cared. Human beings were just funny monkeys scratching themselves. They felt safe from the various types of crazy violent madness we are so good at cooking up because we were stuck on our own planet.

But then Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and that changed everything. Those of us who were alive when that happened experienced a very rare event. Life on earth is roughly 3.8 billion years old. Each of us lives an average about 70 years. That means the odds that any individual organism would be alive when a representative of life on earth actually set foot on another world is 5,428,5714 to one.

It’s not just the Beatles that make us a unique generation and this fact is not lost on folks who live in neighboring star systems, especially because things are happening pretty fast. Our seed is spreading. Voyager I is now about 8.7 billion miles from earth and moving towards them at 46,000 miles an hour. They watch the History Channel. They know what maniacs we are and it is making them nervous.

Now what you need to understand is that most of our neighbors in the galaxy are pretty nice folks. They tend to be forgive and forget types. But there are races out there that view us the same way we view a venereal disease, and if they decide we need a dose of antibiotics, we are toast.

That’s the main reason I have decided to speak up. We need to get our act together in the next couple of generations, or our communal butts are going to be in a sling.

The second thing you need to know I already talked about above. It’s important truth number two.

2. You live in your own little world.

Each of us makes up our individual reality. I mean really. I’m not saying the material world doesn’t exist. There is a world out there, but each of us perceives it differently in significant ways.

Throughout the galaxy, every different organism has its own “real world.” Highly social species like us can coordinate our behavior by talking and mimicking each other, and by building a common living space to channel our actions, but those are just tricks our brains have evolved so we can get more food and make more babies than the other animals we compete with for survival.

Bottom line, you have to guess about what the other guy is thinking. After millions of years of evolution, our brains have gotten very good at guessing. But really…you don’t have the slightest idea what is going on in the minds of your wife, your husband, or your kids….let alone behind the fevered brows of Osama Bin Laden or Tom Delay.

There is no point in worrying about what other people think. There is no point in talking to other people about what they think other people think. There is no point to watching television shows or reading books about what other people think. You’ll never really know.

So just relax and pay attention, because the only way you are ever going to get any idea what a person thinks is by listening to them and watching their behavior.

On advanced worlds, listening and observing are competitive sports. You can get a Ph.D. in them. In many societies, talking is seen as an unpleasant but necessary metabolic process, something like urination or defecation. The smartest people never say a darn thing!

2. You are never alone. You just think you are.

You are really just a cell in a bigger organism. Every advanced society understands this. I know you think paying your own bills and having your own body makes you all grown up and independent, but the truth is that you and every other living thing is just a piece of the living earth.

All the incredibly diverse species that cover our planet are just specialized cells like those in your body. Some are liver cells. Some are stomach lining. Some are neurons.

I know this is a blow to your ego, but it is time to grown up and face the music. You aren’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Even humanity as a whole is not all that big a deal. Our living planet was growing and evolving just fine for billions of years before anyone invented a BMW. It may seem like the American Idol results show is the center of the universe, but it really isn’t.

The reason you think you are an individual is because all living systems are built of small pieces that must be distinct from one another if they are to work. Identity is necessary for their functioning, just as an individual cell is important to the functioning of your pancreas. What a liver cell thinks about the liver makes no difference. All that matters is whether it oozes bile.

The same is true for you. I know this is hard to swallow, but time is running out so I can’t afford to break it to you gently.

3. Everything in the universe is always running down.

Human scientists call this fact the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or entropy. Most physicists consider it the most general law of nature.

When the energy in any system – a star or a living organism – runs down to the point that it becomes a dead, inert lump of matter, it reaches a state that a physicist calls thermodynamic equilibrium, or maximum entropy. It can also be described as “greater order” as significant change in its form stops for all practical purposes.

Most substances degrade relatively rapidly from the relative disorder caused by heat to a more “stable order” as they cool to absolute zero, but the march towards maximum entropy exhibits itself in many other ways. When two solutions are mixed – for instance a jar of sugar water and a jar of plain water – the sugar has a “goal” of becoming equally distributed throughout the liquid water. When it reaches that state, maximum entropy is achieved.

Such effects occur throughout nature. For instance, Americans degrade the complex organisms we refer to as cattle at a mind-boggling rate. In the year 2000, somewhere around thirty-eight million of those highly organized and brilliantly functional organic systems, each capable of independently maintaining its energy level for a considerable number of years, were “degraded” to the more stable state we refer to as sewage by the process of our consumption.

That sewage is then consumed and degraded by specialized microorganisms even closer to thermodynamic equilibrium.

In that same year, each American converted an average of 195 pounds of red meat, poultry and fish into simpler forms. Every year of our lives, we convert more than our weight of other “higher life forms” into energy and protein which we use to battle the relentless march of entropy.

Each individual organism on earth is an efficient processing plant that is remarkably effective at making other organisms in the world around them – and even inorganic compounds – more “stable.”

Eating and finding food are so basic to the function of living things that in almost all organisms the brain is located near the entrance to the gut. There are several families of genes that govern both brain and gut development, which reflects the ancient relationship between the gut and the brain.

It is humbling to consider while pushing our carts through the grocery store that we may be utilizing the first and foremost purpose of our minds, but those are the facts. Like every other animal, our primary business in life is to find food that can be converted to energy to support the functioning of our bodies. What we do not use, we excrete as feces, urine, and perspiration.

Combined, the amount of waste generated by living things, both in life and in death, has altered a significant portion of the earth’s crust. Soil and limestone deposits, both results of millions of years of processing by living things, cover our planet.

All life is knee deep in birth and death, two extremes of a powerful entropic process. This universal contest is present not only in the grand scheme of nature, but also in the daily existence of everything in creation.

Our sun is a powerful generator of energy, but like all sources of energy, that energy is slowly suffering the attrition of entropy. The powerful heat and pressures within the core of our planet create complex mineral deposits, which emerge through volcanic activity and other geological phenomena to create mountains and other grand features, which are in turn worn down by wind, rain, glaciers and other natural forces, and turned into sand and soil.

Our bodies face entropy each day. Millions of years of evolution have built a grand engine in the human physique. Each human body has incredible abilities to persist in the face of entropy’s relentless march – but in the end – every individual living organism, every mountain, every energy source…wears down.

So the bottom line is that your decline is inevitable. No matter how much you work out and how well you eat, you are still on the way out. All you are ever going to do is eat, poop and die. I know that sounds like bad news, but every cloud has a silver lining.

Entropy means that there will always be plenty of work for doctors, remodeling contractors, cosmetics sales people and washing machine repairmen.

4. You only exist as a relationship.

Now this might be hard to understand, so I will use a metaphor that makes it easier. First, I have to tell you that you are what is called a “dissipative structure.” Such a structure accelerates the pace of entropy by taking energy from the world around it and hastening it towards thermodynamic equilibrium.

Dissipative structures are easily observable in nature. Whirlpools and tornadoes are two common examples, but galaxies and eco-systems also qualify.

When barometric pressure rises in a storm front, a regular form with a recognizable structure emerges. We call it a tornado. A tornado allows the high barometric pressure to dissipate more effectively in exchange for maintaining its structure. It has to have a thermodynamic imbalance to exist. When the build up of pressure is equalized, the tornado disappears.

In the early 1990’s, earth scientists performed a thermal analysis while flying over several varied ecosystems and discovered that the more developed the eco-system, the colder its surface temperature. They discovered what the rest of the galaxy already knows, that complex living systems dissipate the sun’s energy more effectively than those that are less diverse. The more complex the living system, the more effective dissipater it is.

Your body is a complex living system too, just like a jungle. The city you live in is also complex living system. Both you and the city are dissipative structures. You take energy out of the world around you like a tornado, and use that energy to avoid the impact of entropy. As pointed out above, you are very effective at turning cows into poop. You do this so you can continue being yourself. The cow is sacrificed to maintain your structure.

A tornado’s identity is a relationship between a high pressure storm system and a low pressure layer of air. A tornado is an identifiable thing, but though it has a structure you can see and it can blow a piece of straw through a fence post, all its parts are parts of other things. It has no distinct content. Its behavior is the only thing unique about it, and that behavior is completely determined by its environment.

So is yours. You are merely a relationship between your physical and cultural environment, and the genes you inherited from your family. The only thing that is “you” is how you act, and how you act is almost entirely determined by your instincts and your environment.

Sorry. I know it’s hard to feel like the most important thing in the universe when someone is trying to say you make decisions like a termite, but…well…you do.

5. Your brain is not designed to make you happy.

Have you ever noticed that it is incredibly difficult to get happy and stay that way?

We have been evolving for several million years. The amazingly brilliant brains in our skulls make us smart enough to get to the moon. Since almost all of us want to be happy, you would think natural selection would have done a better job of getting us that way.

The problem is that natural selection doesn’t care if you are happy unless your happiness makes your genes more likely to make it to the next generation. Genes are very selfish. They have their own agenda, and don’t care a whit about your happiness.

Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker makes this point as follows: “People don’t selfishly spread their genes; genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the genes buy a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation.”

So you see, your brain isn’t designed to make you happy. It is designed to give you grandchildren, and if they make you happy, that is because your genes want you to throw yourself in front of a lion so they can have grandchildren.

After they are born, you see, you are expendable. The reason for this is perhaps the most important truth of all for human beings.

6. All that really matters is sex.

There are plenty of galactic races that don’t have sex. They reproduce with spores, or through binary fission like a paramecium, or are manufactured in a factory. I met an alien one time that reproduced using a Xerox machine. There are many different ways to do it.

But in the long run for human beings, sex is all that matters. Ultimately, every man is a sperm, wiggling his little tail while racing all the other little men up the birth canal for a one-in-a-million chance of getting laid. Every woman is an egg, waiting for first few suitors to arrive, and then being picky about which one she lets penetrate her cell membrane.

That’s about it. Sex is the point of all human existence. Money, power, beauty, kindness, love, morality, success, and all our other cherished ideals are merely various strategies for making babies and helping them survive so they can make more babies.

There are currently about 6,451,058,790 human beings on earth. One year ago there were 6,376,863,118. That’s 74,195,672 more in a year. In 1950, the global population was 2,556,517,137. That’s more than a 250% increase in only 55 years. At that rate, in 110 years there will be about forty billion of us.

You can see why our galactic neighbors are so worried about what will happen if we move into their neighborhoods.

Christopher K. Travis
http://www.articlesbase.com/humor-articles/spaced-out-my-life-as-a-space-ranger-696400.html

The kitchen is often the most occupied part of the house, with many families gathering together there to talk at the end of the day. If this is the case with your family you probably want to make the room as homely and inviting as possible. Kitchen remodeling is one way to achieve this. [...]]]>

The kitchen is often the most occupied part of the house, with many families gathering together there to talk at the end of the day. If this is the case with your family you probably want to make the room as homely and inviting as possible. Kitchen remodeling is one way to achieve this.

The first consideration is the size of your kitchen, and the available space. Does your current arrangement make best use of every inch? Is it easy to keep your kitchen clean and tidy? Are your cupboards well organized, allowing you to find everything you need quickly and easily? Simply reorganizing your kitchen can make it a more functional room and a more pleasant space.

Do you have enough storage space in your kitchen? Visit your local home improvement store to look at the vast range of innovative storage ideas now on sale. You will be happier with the result of your remodeling plans if you factor storage in right from the start, after all, what use is a pretty kitchen if you can’t find what you need, or don’t have room for all your pots and pans?

One storage solution to consider is a rack that can be hung from the ceiling, or fitted to the wall near your cooker, to house all those pots and pans. Not only will this give a professional look to your kitchen, it will make life easier for you as you can just reach for what you need rather than having to search in the back of a low cupboard.

If you feel you have adequate storage in your kitchen but are fed up with the outdated look of your cabinets, you do not necessarily need to start a total rebuilding project. You could simply invest in kitchen cabinet refacing, where the doors of your cabinets are painted or sprayed with a different finish, or are totally replaced with new ones. This is a quick and relatively cheap way to give a whole new look to your kitchen with minimum disruption.

New flooring can make a huge difference to your kitchen. There is a large range of flooring types available, so you need to give your investment some thought before you make a decision. You need something that looks attractive, and is easy to clean, preferably at a reasonable price. Many people avoid carpet in the kitchen as one spillage can ruin it, leaving residual stains and bacteria even if you clean up immediately. However there are now carpets designed specifically for kitchens, so these may be worth investigating if the warm effect a carpet can produce is to your taste. More popular alternatives include tiles or linoleum, which are easily cleaned and disinfected.

If you are considering new appliances as part of your kitchen makeover, you need to consider how easy they are to use and, again, how easy they will be to keep clean. One tip is to avoid grey metal appliances. They may look fantastic in the showroom but once installed in your home they will quickly become smeared with fingerprints, no matter how often you clean them. A kitchen is a room to live in so, although you want it to be attractive, it should be able to cope with the mess caused by everyday living.

Jack Blacksmith
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/kitchen-rebuiliding-does-not-need-to-break-the-bank-99361.html

Learn the seven most important tips for managing your time whether in the field or in the office. Construction contractors and subcontractors including painters, roofers, builders, carpenters, remodeling, doors & windows, siding, commercial, residential or industrial contractors will save countless hours of frustration, confusion and mindless wondering from task to task.

1. Set Goals and Keep [...]]]>

Learn the seven most important tips for managing your time whether in the field or in the office. Construction contractors and subcontractors including painters, roofers, builders, carpenters, remodeling, doors & windows, siding, commercial, residential or industrial contractors will save countless hours of frustration, confusion and mindless wondering from task to task.

1. Set Goals and Keep Them Simple

You need to set a few simple and achievable goals regarding the management of your time and resources. An example could be “As of January 1st, I will no longer check my email until I get at least one pro-active thing done to grow my business.”

Goals must be written down to be worth the paper they’re written on. A specific time limit or completion date is also essential. Without it, we will just make excuses for not getting things done on time.

2. Reduce or Eliminate Interruptions

The biggest time waster of all is the dreadful Interruption! You must pledge to eliminate or at least substantially reduce them at all costs. There are many ways to accomplish this. Typically, contractors invite a vast majority of these distractions. 

We have a tendency to want to know every little thing that is thought, said or done within the business. Simply delegating responsibility to your employees and being unavailable to deal with whatever “emergency” crops up this hour goes a long way to adding countless productive hours to your schedule. 

You will be surprised at what actually can get done without your micro-management.

3. Get Up Early and Get Going Immediately

Most contractors I know don’t have a problem with getting up early. They rise before the sun with nothing but their internal alarm clock. The problem lies after they roll out of bed, jump in the shower, grab a cup of coffee get out of the house.

Many like to take their jolly ol’ time getting the ball rolling. Arriving at the jobsite with three guys waiting for him as he wastes even more time talking on his cell phone to some vendor that can wait until later. Get after it immediately…whatever it may be at the time.

4. A Clean Desk Is a Sign of a Sick Mind

We’ve all heard that, or some version of it. It is absolutely FALSE. There are only two bigger wastes of time than not being able to find something that should be easily located: Interruptions and Procrastination. I will cover those two more in depth in separate articles.

A desk must be clean and your immediate space well organized. No clutter other than what you’re working on at the moment. As soon as you’re done, get your space cleared and ready for the next task. Which brings us to number 5.

5. Multi-Tasking: Good or Bad?

Every single resume I’ve ever received says the same thing somewhere: Good at multi-tasking. It is my contention that multi-tasking (a great new, overly-used buzzword meaning “I can’t get anything done because I’m always starting something else.”) is not a good thing.

Now I’m not saying you can’t be on the phone and writing a note, or walking and chewing gum at the same time. What I am saying is you cannot possibly complete two tasks simultaneously. A vast majority of contractors have six or seven things going on at any given time.

The key is to quickly prioritize and complete each task accordingly before moving on to the next item at hand. If you hunker down and concentrate, many seemingly overwhelming tasks become relatively minor and can be completed in a matter of minutes. Check them off the list and move on. You’re energy will be renewed with a sense of accomplishment.

6. Work In Blocks Of Time

To avoid having to multi-task in the first place, a contractor should set regular, certain blocks of time to get the same things done at the same time each day. Humans are creatures of habit, and this habit will help you be twice as productive as before.

For example, since you probably wear several hats in your business, you may want to break down times according to each hat. I would suggest no shorter than an hour in length so as to give yourself adequate time for substantial completion of any given item.

7:00 – 8:00 Estimating & Bidding
8:00 – 9:00 Advertising Projects
9:00 – 10:00 Return Calls, Faxes, Emails, Etc.
10:00 – 12:00 Visit Jobsites

You get the idea!  During these times, ONLY work on stuff pertaining to the current item at hand. Jot down any new thoughts or ideas and maybe have an hour each day dedicated to coming up with new strategies on how to meet your long-term goals.

7. Implement Systems In All Your Business Functions

Just like interruptions are the biggest time-wasters, fool-proof business systems are, bar none, the most incredible time-savers at your disposal.

From the simple office organization & filing procedures to complex project scheduling nightmares, bookkeeping to installing crown molding, systems are set into place to make things run as smooth as possible…automatically!

Set it and forget it. That’s the sign of a well-oiled contracting business machine.

Have you ever ordered a burger from a fast food restaurant in your home town, then, two months later order the same thing in a town 100 miles away? What do you get? The exact same thing. Every time. Not even a sesame seed’s difference on the bun.

How is this possible? Systems. Get a few going today and see just how much time is really available in a day, week, month or year. You will be amazed!

Dave Fadorsen
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/all-busy-construction-business-owners-must-learn-these-seven-time-management-tips-695277.html

The economy has hit the real estate market hard, and house values are dropping. Simply put, it’s not a great time to sell your home. But if you absolutely have to sell, you may want to seriously consider remodeling certain aspects of your home to improve its market value and visibility. Because of the poor [...]]]>

The economy has hit the real estate market hard, and house values are dropping. Simply put, it’s not a great time to sell your home. But if you absolutely have to sell, you may want to seriously consider remodeling certain aspects of your home to improve its market value and visibility. Because of the poor market, buyers are looking for homes that really stand out. One great way to enhance both the aesthetic and resale value of your property is to remodel your bathroom and install bath vanities.

If you stop and really think about it, your home is not simply an investment in your welfare and security; it is also a financial investment that you can use to increase your wealth. After investing so much time, money, and emotions into you property, you will most definitely want a great financial return. Generally speaking, statistical evidence suggests that the kitchen and the bathroom are responsible for the largest returns on your investment, moreso than any other room on your property. A clean and well-kempt but ordinary house won’t exactly sell prospective buyers, but an aesthetically stunning kitchen and comfortable, attractive bathroom definitely will. In other words, if your kitchen and bathroom stand out, buyers will tend not to notice the other mundane rooms, increasing the probability that they will purchase the property.

For this reason, it is a good idea to focus on your bathroom remodel before you attempt to renovate any other room in your home. Probably the easiest way to revive your bathroom’s style is also the most effective: installing a distinguished and sophisticated bath vanity. These crucial features serve as attractive focal points as well, drawing your guests’ eyes to the inherent beauty of the installation.

Because your bathroom is likely one of the smaller, if not smallest, rooms in your home, you simply aren’t afforded a lot of diversity in terms of unique decorations. Often, you are merely given just enough room for a shower, a toilet, and some kind of table or sink and countertop unit. Making the most out of these bathroom features is essential to a brilliant and beautiful remodel, but you aren’t given many decorative options when it comes to showers and toilets. With this in mind, it is really rather important that you make the most of your bath vanity.

Generally, your bath vanity provides a basin or perhaps a vessel sink, along with a storage cabinet that provides ample storage space for all your stowable items, toiletries, and hygienic products. Many vanities come with mirrors as well. There is a plethora of styles and designs at your disposal, especially in terms of vanity cabinets and original countertops.

Most often, these vanity cabinets are made from a sealed and prepared hardwood like mahogany, oak, cherry, and teak. Oak and other light woods give your bathroom a very cozy, charming, and delightfully rustic appearance. Decadent dark woods like teak or mahogany, quite distinctly from lighter woods, give your bathroom a luxurious and sophisticated elegance that will surely impress guests. This wood may come with engraved ornate designs and intricate patterns and styles; every design has its very own dramatic aesthetic impact. It’s absolutely worth the additional time to look through the massive amount of available options over a wide spectrum of online vanity retailers, with the goal of finding the perfect bath vanity.

Countertop designs are just as diverse and interesting as cabinet designs. Most countertops are stone materials, such as onyx, granite, travertine, slate, and marble. Sometimes, countertops are prepared and carved in wood, like the cabinets, or are constructed in a sort of acrylic polymer with a wood laminate sheath. As I said before, it is your responsibilty to fully research all the available options and find a fantastic deal on a durable, aesthetically pleasing countertop.

After you have picked out and installed the right vanity for your tastes, the remainder of your renovation project will probably fall in place around it. I can say with much certainty that your bathroom will be transformed into an eye-catching, elegant space that will boost your home’s market value in no time. We’re facing some tough times with this real estate market, but you can still sell your home at a great price if you put a little time into renovating and reinvigorating your bathroom.

Wyatt Frisk
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/reinvigorate-the-value-of-your-home-with-bathroom-vanities-706850.html