Rider Fitness - Targeted for Equestrians

What you can do to become a better and more efficient rider

Part #1 - Cardiovascular Fitness

There are many things each of us can do on a regular basis to improve our riding and better our horses. You do not need a lot of equipment or expensive gym memberships, you simply need a few minutes every other day. Before beginning any exercise program it is a good idea to consult your physician and it is imperative that you do so if you have any existing health problems.

We all know how important it is to regularly exercise our horses but we often neglect ourselves. Riding, regardless of type, is a very physical sport and requires great muscle control and stability. In this article, I will demonstrate some basic guidelines you can follow to improve your cardiovascular heath as well as your horses’.

The first component to any exercise program is Cardiovascular Fitness. There are many forms of cardiovascular activity, including riding. A good rule of thumb is if you feel winded or out of breath while riding you likely need to improve your cardiovascular capacity. Of course all horses are different and some require you to work harder than others, however if you are fatigued in 15 minutes or less of moderate riding you should consider supplementing your riding with another cardiovascular activity. Some examples of alternate activities include; power walking, running, cycling, swimming, cross-country skiing, hiking and many more. When participating in these activities you can monitor how hard you are working a number of ways. First, you can take your heart rate which for moderate activity should be between 70 - 85% of your maximum heart rate. You can find your maximum heart rate by starting with 220 if you are male and 226 if you are female and subtracting your age, then multiplying by your target heart rate zone (70-85%).

Methods of Measuring Cardiovascular Activity:

1) Heart Rate

Ex: Female age 30 yrs exercising at a moderate level of 70 - 85% of her maximum heart rate Pulse taken on the wrist or neck over 60 secs.

Max - age=max HR, x % = heart rate zone

*226 - 30 = 196 x .70 = 137 beats per minute

*226 - 30 = 196 x .85 = 167 beats per minute

(*male use 220 as max)

137 - 167 bpm would be the heart rate zone for this person. Another easier way, although less accurate, is the Perceived Exertion Scale.

2) Perceived Exertion

This method uses a scale of 1 -10, 1 being very easy and 10 being very difficult. For example, 1 would be resting on couch and 10 would be a full sprint.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

very easy ----------------->easy----------------->moderate---------->difficult

Using this method you would ask yourself "how hard am I working?" and you should be at about a 7 or 8 on the scale.

How often do I need to exercise for? The minimum as recommended by Health Canada is 30 minutes of moderate activity (in your heart rate zone) 3 times a week. Now this is just a guideline and depending on your riding goals and how you feel when riding, you may need to do more or less. Keep in mind that your riding may also count as some of this time, that is if you achieve a heart rate in your training zone (70-85%) while riding.

Again, if you want to be able to ride longer without becoming out of breath, I suggest you increase the Cardiovascular training you do out of the saddle. You may ride 5 days a week but perhaps you are not riding efficiently? For example, if you added 1 day of another activity you would see and feel a difference in your daily rides! One more suggestion, if you are counting your riding time as cardiovascular training, and you are not sure how hard you are working, try wearing a heart rate monitor. Sometimes it is difficult to check your heart rate while on your horse so a heart rate monitor easily displays it for you. I will discuss this topic in more detail next time!

Summary

Cardiovascular health is equally important for you as well as your horses. To ride efficiently we need to be fit and often riding alone is not enough. As riders, we all have different goals and aspirations and our fitness programs should reflect them! There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to riders or rider fitness, therefore we each need to assess our individual needs and that of our horses in order to build sound fitness programs that are as unique as we all are!

Written for www.ccriderss.com [http://www.ccriderss.com]

How Honest Are You?

Do you remember when every meeting you had was done face to face? For years, that's the way we interacted with each other because there was no choice. Now we are inundated with choice - Facebook, Twitter, Skype, SMS, Face Time, online chat, email and of course, good old fashioned telephone conversations. All these methods of communication have left us in a state of constant-connection always in pursuit of the latest news, advice, information, gossip etc. But now we have a little bit of distance in how we communicate, how truthful are we? In my opinion you still can't beat a face-to-face meeting where you can build a rapport with somebody but that doesn't mean you can't achieve this in other communication mediums. Truth is everything in business and the way you communicate with your customers needs to build trust or you can kiss goodbye to repeat business.

With email marketing you can start to build trust with your client base. In order to do this though you need to be honest about your own business and the way you operate. Here are a few questions for you to mull over:

Do you tell customers when they are eligible for a free upgrade or other benefits? Do you remind customers if they haven't claimed something they might be entitled to? Do you remind customers when their warrant or guarantee is about to expire? Do you advise customers before automatically renewing their subscription or other agreements? Do you advise customers if they could be on a better tariff? Do you pro-actively follow up on poor service or mistakes with apologies and refunds? Do you ever recommend a competitor's product or service if it better suits your client's needs? Do you ever use third parties to generate customer reviews? Do you ever use customer analytics to improve their overall experience with your business?

If by now you are starting to blush slightly then maybe it's time that you started to make your business a bit more transparent. In the email-marketing world we all know what it's like to receive spam, fraudulent offers, hard sell, and unrealistic opportunities. Unfortunately the more ways we have to communicate, the more we are bombarded with information that we can't trust. However, it is possible to cut through all this noise and make your business become a shining beacon for truth, integrity and transparency in how you communicate with your customers. You just need to be honest with yourself first...

For honest, no nonsense advice on how to start an email marketing campaign that builds trust with your customers then please contact Hayley Cashmore on 0845 116 2723 or email info@threespiresconsulting.co.uk

Advantages of Cheap Ebooks

There was a time when the idea of ebooks taking the place of hard copy books seemed far-fetched and impossible. Now, however, with electronic reading becoming more and more popular by the moment, people are beginning to get a glimpse of the future of reading, and it mostly involves electronic books.

There are many reasons why cheap ebooks became widely accepted and are slowly becoming the dominant medium in literature. These reasons may help convince you to invest in an eBook reader and take up an eBook reading habit.

1. Availability. Cheap ebooks are so easy to find, with them being so rampant on the Internet. It is now possible to find copies of any title on the market without even leaving one's home. People can browse through lots of online libraries and download their selected titles for a fee. It certainly beats having to go to a bookstore to look for your desired titles, and since you can easily jump from one online library to another, you don't have to go through the hassle of not finding the book you want after driving all the way to the bookstore.

2. Accessibility. Cheap ebooks are also highly accessible. Once you find the title you want, getting a copy is as easy as making a few clicks. That is, if you are buying from the bookstore that supports your ereader. But even if you seek for ebooks from other online sources, getting access to the digital copies is as easy as connecting your ereader to your computer and transferring the files.

3. Affordability. Electronic book copies are usually offered at lower prices online due to the competition among different online booksellers. With a lack of monopoly, the booksellers have to find way to bring in more customers than their competitors. One strategy to ensure this is by lowering the prices of books. And since online bookstores that sell digital copies do everything electronically, they have very little expenses in maintaining their businesses. This puts them in the position to offer lower prices.

4. Convenience. The biggest reason, however, that convinces people to start reading cheap ebooks rather than their hard copy versions, is the convenience of electronic reading. Since ebooks don't take up any space at all, you can store them in your ereader or on an online storage service. In one ereader or one memory disk, you can store up to thousands of electronic books already. Not only is this logistically convenient, but it also allows you to access your books wherever you may be. This makes it a joy to read while commuting or even when you're traveling.

Using A SEO Directory to Promote a Website

In order to run a successful search engine marketing campaign, incoming links are seen as the most significant aspect. It is known that if you are able to gain the right high-quality links, it will make it much easier to rank a website higher in the natural searches results. A wide range of linking practices are available, some more beneficial than others. One of the easiest techniques for acquiring high quality one way links is to use the general or niche specific SEO directory websites.

There are literally thousands of web directories across the internet offering the opportunity to publish a link, which directs back to your website. Directories might range from the general, which accept any type of website, the niche specific directories, and the business directories. Each of these directory types will have their own target audience, so it is important to choose the one that will be most beneficial for your needs.

Also, web directories are either free-based or incorporate a payment structure for the submission process. Fees can range from a nominal one-time payment to those charging several hundred dollars or more. A recurring monthly or yearly fee might also be applicable. The choice of web directory used often comes down to your marketing strategy and available budget.

A high-quality and human edited paid directory can often be highly beneficial to any website to get listed on. If looking at the more expensive web directories, such as the Yahoo Directory for instance, it often helps to look at the long-term benefits that may be gained. Mostly from having your site listed on a highly trafficked site. Paid listings are also seen to offer significant SEO benefits in the search engines.

Submitting a website to a handful of quality free-based Web directories is also an effective step in getting a website well indexed and also to boost a sites ranking position in the natural search results. Even though the search engines might not give so much emphasis on the free directory listings, you still benefit from the incoming links. Also, if the general or niche specific directories have sufficient traffic, then some of that traffic might make its way to your site by clicking on your well thought out link and description.

All in all, submitting a website to these online directories, whether paid or free, offers an excellent opportunity to increase the success of your search engine marketing campaign. Instead of submitting to just one or two well-chosen SEO directories, aim to submit to several web directories over a prolonged period to really see the benefits.

Insuring The Older Worker With Workers Compensation

In many globalized countries these days, including much of Europe and America, there is a problem of an aging workforce. In Germany many of the workers in auto plants are near retirement age, and the specialized labor force to replace them is in critical shortage. There are similar challenges in US, within the next decade workers compensation laws will continue to change and adapt to theses new situations.

According to data from the U.S. Census, employees in the United States are rapidly aging and many people over the age of 55 are still working. These numbers have increased by more than 50% over the last six years. With this in mind, there's a way for employers and employees to prepare by actually changing the work environment, as well as taking caution with more safety initiatives. This is where employers and workers unions have a rare situation where they can genuinely work together for the betterment of both parties. Furthermore, as commodity and labor prices in the marketplace will fluctuate, worker's compensation policy trends will also have to change as well. Group health insurance plans will increase, forcing workers compensation insurance to also change as the larger corporations force the insurance industry to also adapt.

Together with the problem of worker maturation, this presents a new field of pitfalls, which then cause finance problems essential in insurance policy formation. In addition to their employers, aging workers need to learn new methods to use modern assisted technology. If incidents do occur then, they're more successfully dealt with in the workers compensation statements. While older personnel are more experienced and have less workplace injuries, they are from a financial standpoint, more expensive than newly hired younger staff. This provides an incentive and opportunity for employers to find younger workers to replace them. However, with the changes in broad demographic trends, the gap between the aging labor force and their replacements continues to grow. The growth of age-related health issues will also produce changes in work compensation.

In accordance with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004, the states paid out over $56 million to assist workers; annually that amount continues to increase. In almost all of theses cases the injuries were physical incidents while the worker was attending to his official work duties at the assigned work place. Nearly half of the insurance budget set aside by the states is used for health care bills alone, and throughout 2007, workers compensation payouts rose to nearly $70 million. The statistics also stress the number one issue in worker's compensation claims were again, physical related injuries.

The most beneficial way for the system to improve is to actually favor the older workers. However, as trends Indicate, the system needs some serious revision. For some employers, what might have been adequate in the past will certainly not suffice in the future. If workers compensation laws favor assisted technology, costs will go up for employers. This may reflect in the national economy as more regulations are applied in the different states. Assisted technology may have higher costs for the employers, but they will benefit society as a whole by reducing our government payouts in the form of injury compensation.

Retail History

It is one of the biggest employers in the world. It eats up a large chunk of our money. It is the retail industry.

Retailing is a massive, passive beast that pervades just about all our lives. Virtually all of us shop, sometimes as a pleasure and sometimes as a burdenous chore.

But when and how did it all begin? The answer is probably to do with surpluses. As we got better at cultivating the land, some people found that even after feeding their families and animals and putting food into storage, there was some left over. Rather than waste this surplus, it was traded for other surpluses or perhaps tools or other objects.

Those that had enough land and were particularly good at producing food from it would have realized that they were on to a good thing by deliberately producing surpluses. Eventually the informal trade in goods would have become more organized, with central markets being formed where these producers could get together on a regular basis in order to exchange goods.

Of course, trading goods for other goods is all very well until you have just about every thing you are likely to ever need, or the product you want has yet to be produced. In order to get around this, people started to owe goods to other people. Early forms of credit may have just been verbal agreements. As time passed, some traders and producers decided to keep a record of what was owed. One way this was done was by the debtor leaving some collateral with the creditor - some object or an animal that was held by the creditor until the debt was paid. This was OK until the debtor needed the tool or animal in order to produce the very goods that were owed. An alternative way of denoting credit was to use a symbolic object, such as small animal. Since small animals are not very portable, it became more normal to use small inanimate objects such as pebbles. Over time these small object became more decorated and valued and eventually metal coins and paper notes became more and more familiar. So early trading gave rise to money.

As time passed, some producers would have found they were better at selling the goods than growing them (or perhaps enjoyed it more!). Others preferred to stick to growing. So there was a gradual separation of the producers and the traders.

And it was not just food that was sold. Tools, trinkets, jewelry, cups, plates and many other objects would have been traded as well.

The informal markets would, over time, become more formal and more permanent. So shops began. Other traders would prefer to travel around selling their goods. These became known as peddlers. Selling from a regular market, from a permanent shop or peddling goods are known collectively as retailing.

What Sells Best On eBay? Tips For Wholesalers

There are many wholesalers trying to make a business out of selling on eBay. This success is largely attributed to the type of products you decide to sell. Consider selling on eBay tips for a profitable opportunity, brand awareness and a competitive edge.

There are a large number of products currently sold on this popular site and therefore you will need to identify where there is a demand. Once you have determined a demand for something, consistent sales will be relatively simple to maintain. Although items in demand will generate sales, it is not always easy to achieve profitability due to its competitive nature.

The limitation of these lists, is that depending on the type of product there is such a huge demand that the competition is massive. If you are starting out with wholesale goods on such a competitive platform, you will be running up against the larger more established businesses which have already developed a loyal customer base. The problem is that you will be selling similar products while needing to convince consumers of purchasing products from you instead of the trusted competitor.

Some of the most popular items sold on this site include technology from digital cameras to iPods. Another stumbling block for wholesalers is that profits are made by selling to large retail stores. The result is that the prices in comparison to individual sellers are also relatively higher for the average consumers.

One of the major ways national wholesalers make money using this site is through the sale of return items, which are largely discounted. This often provides a considerable edge over the single seller as entrepreneurs are unable to keep up with such large discounts. In order to determine what to sell, it is important to conduct research into the current demands and competitors.

In order to draw in a target market, be sure to focus on a single strategy. It is necessary that you are specific about the types of items you will be selling and consider the type of category of merchandise you are interested in addressing. When contacting companies to purchase wholesale products from, be sure to research the legitimacy of goods and protect yourself from liability.

When deciding which items to sell, be sure to look for what is missing or what is not meeting the demand. This may set your product range apart from other wholesalers or drastically reduce your prices in comparison to the competition. With selling on eBay tips, you may achieve profitability and success in your business.

Hotel Remodeling - Renovation And Interior Design Setting New Trend In Hotel Construction Management

The past three years have been the best for the hotel industry in more than two decades and is expected a boom in coming years. Revenue per available room has jumped to 10% approximately as compared to last year, the biggest increase since 1984.

Hotelier who wanted to capture the market share, increase the revenue per available room of their hotel and enhance their guest's experiences it is suggested to get some remodeling, interior design or hotel renovation work done to make their success their priority.

Just keep in mind hotel remodeling also accounts complete hotel renovation services, such as restaurants, spas, golf courses, marinas, casinos etc.

The hospitality industry relies heavily on the ability to achieve superior ratings from guests. Defining the guest experience depends on many subtle factors such as the bed quality, fabrics, linens, mirrors, the completed hotel interior is essential for success. And it is very necessary to tailor and cater carefully as per the tastes and demands of individual guest.

To feed this emerging demand to hotel industry, professional companies are stepping forward to provide complete Hotel Construction Management services inclusive of Hotel Remodeling, Interior design and Renovation services.

These Hotel Construction Management companies do not offer hotel operation services; they are only concern with the hotel operation and work deliberately with the property management team to insure on time completions with little or no guest inconveniences. These companies are having trained staff that manages and accomplished their job smartly and insures hardly or no trouble to hotel customers.

If you are hotelier is interested to reinvent his / her brand start, it is suggested to refer such a Remodeling and Renovation cum Construction Management service provider. As they can provide you a quality work which can definitely prove a cost effective strategy for your hotel brand.

Phone Answering Service Is Your Partner for an Effective Patient Care

Everyday, there are lots of people who seek for proper medical care. Even those individuals who do not have serious health conditions tend to call or go to a clinic near them just to have a check up and be sure that their health is doing well. However, clinics come in many types. There are clinics that offer the highest quality of services to their patients and there are some that can't even handle a small crowd. Now what's the main issue here? Obviously, no matter how good a doctor is in the operation room, he will surely be deemed incompetent if he can't give proper assistance to his patients. Being a doctor is not limited to performing medical and surgical procedures successfully. It must include a proper conduct right from the consultation phase until the whole course of treatment is completed.

If you are a doctor and you believe that you are good in taking care of your patients, you have to make sure that you are equipped with the things that will improve your patient care capacities. Yes you may have a number of staff members at your clinic, but the main question is, are they all capable of assisting your patients best? If not, then this calls for a phone answering service.

An answering service allows you to give the best assistance to your patients. Patients are not only looking at the expertise of a doctor alone but on how you deal with them too. If you have a call answering service in your own clinic, you will have no problem with accommodating your patients any more. But to do this, you will have to choose a firm that offers a good 24/7 medical answering service.

You are certainly aware that your clinic is receiving countless calls in a day and it can be very exhausting just to think about them. Instead of assisting patients on your clinic, your staffs will then be very busy answering every phone call. But with a medical answering service, all of them can effectively render care to every individual looking for a first-rate patient assistance.

Apart from your clinic hours, it is not new to you that you will need to hire a person who can take calls during the night while you rest. Instead of using manpower, why not practice office automation? This idea has been very popular for many clinics worldwide. In fact, doctors who are opting for after-hours answering service have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from their patients. Who will not be happy being promptly and efficiently entertained in the middle of the night?

Whatever people may want to call it-- doctor answering service, physician answering service, virtual answering service and the like-- surely the idea of having this is one of the most effective medical practice management schemes ever.

There are many factors that can affect the way you care for your patients. Embracing automation like getting an answering message service is a wise idea. Instead of paying for a real person, why not pay for a cost-effective virtual answering service instead? It certainly pays to have a good partner while you confidently carry out your medical practice.

Study Habits for Middle School Students

Ohhh I still remember when I was at Middle school, those beautiful days. At the beginning of each year, everything was very nice, new friends, new teachers some times, playing football and running from one side to the other all the time... Anyway it was beautiful "at the beginning of course" hahaha, because over time, the headaches started to appear.

You guys know what I'm talking about, when I say headaches right?

Yes that's right, tests, exams, many subjects, homework; ugh it was a big headache to put everything in my little head...

But well, we cannot do anything about it, we really have to study to acquire more knowledge... otherwise in the future we will be a Joe nobody (and nobody wants that);

Although the classes are boring, and we have so many pages to study, and many formulas to memorize, it is our duty, to know how to study, and have the best grades to step up to the next year and let our parents happy.

You should have good grades not only to glad your parents, but to glad yourself, because in the future, you will have a better profession, and you will be the person who will benefit most.

In middle school there are many more disciplines than in elementary school, and usually, the student may not be accustomed to so many disciplines, and may end up shuffling. It is very important to know how to organize your notes, because later you will need them when you're studying, and if they are organized, it will be easier to find each subject.

Summaries, summaries, summaries, much attention to it, always write the summary, always! As we all know the summary contains the topics that are spoken in the classroom. If you ever decide to study for a test, and you are not quite sure what you have to study, or where to start, you know where you have to search, right? Open your notebook, and check the summaries, you will find everything you need.

Another crucial tip is to study daily. I do not recommend creating the habit of studying only on the eve of exams or tests, because besides you stay too stressed, and do not manage to retain everything in the brain, you will accumulate a lot of subjects, and it will be hard to put everything in the head, in a short time.

Now imagine that you have 2 - 3 or 4 tests in a week? How are you going to study everything at once on the eve? It's impossible... you will get so stressed, and your head will "KABOOM"!

Maybe you can manage to pass on some tests, but most of the tests will go all wrong, trust me.

Well I gave you, some tips on how to get good study habits in middle school, read and follow what I said, and you will have good results, do not forget to pay close attention in class, write everything on paper and take notes of what the teacher say.

Good luck buddy!

The Right Wood for Your Home, Hardwood Vs Softwood

There are many types of wood out there so how do you know you are choosing the right one for your home project? Do you go for the prettiest one, the one that looks the strongest, and the cheapest one? How do you know the one you chose will work for what you bought it for, what happens if it isn't strong enough for the job? There are a couple things to think about before entering the lumber yard ready to purchase your wood, first think of what you need the wood for and what is the look you were hoping for. Then think about the area you are using the wood for, how reliable and strong will it need to be over time, not all woods were created equal. The best thing to do before purchasing wood for your home project is to do your homework, and then speak to a friendly expert at the lumber yard; they will be able to give you the best information possible.

Hardwood comes from trees which the leaves fall annually and bloom in the spring usually producing fruits or flowers. Some hardwoods from trees are Ipé, Tigerwood and Garapa these are all excellent woods for building things such as decks. Softwoods come from trees with needles, trees that remain green throughout the year and drop cones. Some softwoods from trees are cedar, redwood and treated pine, these woods are perfect for inside home projects like tables and all do very well with stains and sealers.

Ipé is an extremely solid and heavy wood, it is resistant to moisture and insect infestations, it has very little expansion due to weather, and amazingly even without any treatments at all it will last for over 40 years. It is visually unaffected by dog scratches or high heel dents, and naturally has beautiful rich colors such as walnut brown, olive and mahogany reds. Tigerwood is one of the most beautiful woods in the world, with black-brown streaks it has a tiger stripping look, and golden hues to deep red and brown Tigerwood has a high-class appearance. Tigerwood is very thick and sturdy and will keep in great condition for up to 25 years, it is also resistant to moisture and insects, making this wood strong and elegant. Garapa is more of a yellow/white color and is also a strong wood at an amazing price; it is not as strong as Ipé or Tigerwood but still a durable hardwood. Garapa used outdoors for decking will last 10-15 years and up to 20 if taken really good care of.

Cedar wood is good for many things indoors and out, it has natural preservatives and is a strong durable wood, with beautiful amber to reddish brown colors. Redwood is similar to cedar but with blond coloring all the way to rich dark reds, and also has natural preservatives making it a good wood to use indoors or outdoors. Treated Pine woods are a very affordable wood but have a tendency to warp or twist more than cedar or redwoods do. Since Yellow pine lumber does not have a natural preservative like cedar or redwood it is treated with a copper-based preservative which helps protect from rot, decay or infestations.

So there you go, the hardwoods and softwoods. Hardwoods are like they sound, they are hard, strong, durable, and dense. They are great for outdoor projects and will last a very long time. Softwoods are also good woods, some better than others, most with natural preservatives, but these are the woods you really want to choose for your indoor DIY projects, building tables or bookshelves are perfect for these woods.

Backlink Tool: How to Use Twitter for Link Building

Search engines use hundreds of signals, including links that get tweeted on Twitter, to determine how they should rank a website. Building a strong online presence is becoming increasingly more important for ranking well in search results. Webmasters can use Twitter to promote their sites and get relevant backlinks. This social media platform allows you to give short and sharp pieces of information to prospects. If people retweet your updates, your site will be seen as an authority on a topic and build trust.

Here are a few tips on how to use Twitter for link building:

Write Great Content

If you want people to retweet your content, you need to provide useful information that will make them want to link to it. When you share a link, search engines will use the text you enter to determine what your link is about. Make sure you include relevant keywords in your tweets. The more traffic your tweets will get, the more traffic and backlinks your website will receive. While using a backlink tool can bring you instant results, sharing quality content on social media sites will improve your visibility online and build organic links.

Stay Active

Update your Twitter account frequently. People like to see fresh information on a website. If you haven't used Twitter lately, your potential clients could assume that you don't do business anymore. Make it a habit of posting tweets on a regular basis. Tweet other people's content as well. If you have different business units, set up different Twitter accounts.

Link to Your Profile

Getting people to visit your website is great, but you should also be trying to get them to start following you on Twitter. Include a link to your Twitter profile on business cards, newsletters, LinkedIn profiles, and Google profiles.

Find Bloggers Who Use Tweets for Inspiration

Many bloggers and webmasters use Twitter to find new ideas for their posts. Check out the backlink portfolios of their profiles. Answer their questions on Twitter and encourage them to write. If other bloggers find your tweets interesting and useful, they might include a link to your website in their articles.

Win Blog Contests

Do some research and look for blog contests related to your niche. Some bloggers will link to the winner's website or Twitter profile. Search for well established blogs and websites that provide high quality links. Use Twitter search to find these types of contests.

The Skinny on Storage Auctions

You have probably seen one of the several "reality" television shows that profile professional storage unit buyers. The shows makes it look as if treasure is just waiting to be found behind every storage unit door and that these "auction buyers" are turning a hefty profit.

As you may suspect, the reality of buying storage units is a lot less glamorous. The reality is that it can be dirty, labor intensive work that may or may not pay off. I admit that I'm fascinated by these shows. In fact, when I was visiting the Los Angeles area recently I made my family stop by the consignment store that one of the buyers on the show owns. Let's just say this guy is a marketing genius. I had the same experience when I popped into a "reality show famous" pawn shop in Las Vegas a few years ago, let's just say the opportunity to purchase souvenirs was plentiful.

I wanted to find out more about it and whether or not it could be a profitable endeavor. A buddy of mine, Tom, (a recovering alcoholic) has been going to these auctions for years.

He doesn't resell the stuff, he just does it for fun and keeps, gives away or trades the stuff he finds. I've listened to him brag for years about all the cool finds he has uncovered. I kind of think he traded one addiction for the other, because he is a regular at these things and I made him take me with him so I could see first hand how it works.

Let me tell you, it was like walking into the Cheers bar with Norm. Everyone knew my buddy and because he just does it for fun, none of the other professional buyers viewed him or me as a threat so I think they were a little more forthcoming with information. If I had disclosed that I was planning to write an eBook about the subject I don't think my reception would have been as warm.

Anyhow, I went to a number of auctions with Tom over the course of a few months and got quite an education. Here's what I learned:

This niche is best geared towards those individuals that are interested in obtaining their merchandise to resell in a variety of venues. You never know what you might find. The haul from one storage unit could have you reselling its goods on Craigslist, at a flea market, a pawn shop, eBay, specialty dealer or auction house.

If you are a people person and enjoy networking and getting to know experts in various fields of industry then you may be well suited to buying storage units or lockers.

America is a nation of pack rats. Shopping is the national pastime in my opinion. We live in a disposal society and people just can't get enough "stuff", even if that means buying luxury items on credit cards and such.

Divorces, relocation, loss of job, illness and even death can cause a person to stop paying on a storage unit. It happens much more frequently than you'd think.

A storage unit can range in size from 25 to several 100 square feet.

I recommend prioritizing climate controlled storage facilities as they tend to have a better quality of merchandise. Look in the yellow pages and scout out some promising facilities in your area and give them a call. Ask when their next auction will be held.

Oftentimes they have a set day and time on a recurring basis for when they hold their auctions. Newspapers will often list public storage unit times as well; the storage facility is required by law to post an ad in the Classifieds under Public Notices prior to each sale.

In some States, the Public Notice is required to print the name and usually the last known address of the person or persons responsible for the unit. A Google search can sometimes turn up information or social network sites that the unit owners are registered on. This kind of information can be helpful when determining your maximum bid on a unit. It can give you insight into that person's hobbies, interests and income status.

I'm usually a big supporter of local mom and pop enterprises, but in the case of storage unit auctions bigger corporations are sometimes better. The reasoning behind this is that the corporate structure behind the bigger (and often climate controlled) facilities is that they have stringent policies and procedures to follow when they auction off a unit.

It is not unheard of for locks to be broken on units, any "good" contents removed, and a new lock put in its place. The lucky "auction winner" has been royally screwed. Unless they have a personal relationship with the owners of the smaller facilities, many auction professionals stick with the corporate guys for this reason.

I recommend showing up a bit early to the auction. You must come prepared with cash to pay for any units you do buy and the means to haul away whatever goodies or garbage lay inside. This is where it pays off if you have a truck or other large vehicle. In most cases you will need to remove ALL contents from the unit the same day as the auction. Sometimes the facility will require you to give them a small deposit (usually $25) that will be returned to you when the storage unit is fully cleaned out.

The prices you see these units going for on television is not representative of reality. On average you can expect to pay between $25 to $500 for an average sized unit. Never pay more than 50% of the estimated value of an item. This is tough when you are a newbie. A trick that professionals use is to add up the estimated value in their head and cut it in half...this is their MAX bid.

Also, call the storage facility the morning of the auction to confirm it is still happening, especially if only one or two lockers are up for auction. Owners of these units have until the last minute to show up and pay their arrearage. With gas prices being as high as they are, you don't want to waste precious time and fuel driving to an auction that has been cancelled.

Remember that you only get to briefly look at a unit from the exterior before the bidding begins. Unless you are absolutely certain that you saw a high value item, it's wise to be conservative in your bidding. Bring a flashlight and your smartphone. If you see something you think is valuable or you see the name of a company on the side of a box you can quickly do a Google search and find out more about its value. It's also important to bring a lock with you. After the storage facility cuts the lock they may or may not provide you with one. It's best to have one on hand so the contents of your unit will be safe while you are collecting your vehicle, etc.

Before bidding, look at the quality of boxes in the unit. Boxes that bear a moving company's logo are desirable. This means the unit's owner paid to move the contents at some point in time, thus reasoning the contents have a good value. Boxes of any variety are preferable over trash bags. The people that stacked their unit carefully versus haphazardly often have more valuable contents inside.

Be conservative when bidding on unknown boxes. The magazine I used to work for had a huge storage unit filled with back issues. The magazine was eventually sold and is now defunct. Luckily, the owners did the right thing and closed the storage unit and recycled the old back issues. I often think how frustrated someone would have been to buy that unit (had it gone up for auction) only to find they needed to dispose of several hundred boxes of worthless old magazines.

Here's another tip. Check everything! This means inside books, pockets, purses, etc. People tend to hide money in storage units and you never know where you'll find it. Wear gloves and thoroughly inspect each item before you deem it trash!

The professionals I spoke with seem to agree that about 1 in 10 storage units is a legitimate win. Instead of gambling in the casinos, they gamble on storage units. The odds are a lot better.

You should realize that YOU are responsible for cleaning out every last inch of that unit. You'll likely end up with three piles.

Trash: This is stuff you'll have to haul to the dump and pay a fee to remove.

To Sell: This is all the other stuff that is in fair to excellent condition that you will need to possibly clean, place a value on and decide on a venue in which to resell it.

To Be Appraised: If you're lucky you may come across items for which you need some research to determine a value and selling venue.

For more information about selling venues and other legitimate side-income opportunities, check out my latest eBook at http://www.ihavebeenserved.com/MakeMoneyNow.html

Cheating Spouse: 7 Legitimate Motives for Spying

Should you spy on your cheating husband or wife? You believe you see signs of a cheating spouse. The need to know whether your spouse is cheating and EXACTLY what kind of cheating is taking place is often strong. There are a number of reasons why the drive to spy is powerful. Here are seven:

1. Trust is a big reason, not of your partner, but yourself. Probably for some time you have sensed something is different or questioned the change of behavior in your partner. Perhaps you confronted your cheating husband or cheating wife and it was met with denial. This created a huge dilemma for you because a part of you was screaming, Hey, this doesn't fit! I don't believe it! To deny this part of you, which KNOWS the truth, creates a tremendous internal turmoil. If the truth as you suspect it is confirmed, you can take a deep breath and at least know that you can trust yourself. You are NOT CRAZY! Spying is a way to confirm your suspicions and trust more fully your gut feelings.

2. Spying on cheating husbands or cheating wives often helps the person feel connected to the partner who seems to be steadily moving away. It is a way of maintaining contact and having some sort of connection to this stranger who once was well known. Isn't it like the game of hide-and-seek we used to play as children? Sometimes there, sometimes gone. At least it is a game, and a game is at least some contact, some involvement. You miss the connection and try to find someway to maintain the ties.

3. Spying on a cheating spouse may be an honest attempt to bring resolution to the relationship. You want to know the truth. You sense something does not fit. You suspect there is a breach of something. You want to know what you are up against. You are not willing to stand pat and wait. You are a person of action. You want some sort of movement. You want to get on with the relationship. You want to get on with your life. You know that it is difficult maintaining your sanity when there might be this huge elephant that no one is talking about. You want to know the truth, face the truth, deal with the truth and be free.

4. Cheating husbands or cheating wives often, unfortunately, lead to the demise of marital relationships. If you strongly suspect this to be true for your situation you will want to protect yourself legally. If there is betrayal, lying and deception regarding a third party, other forms of deception may exist financially or in other areas of the relationship. Having "evidence" does have some impact in some court systems. Whether you need to protect yourself legally depends on the kind of affair facing you and the character of your spouse. Please read through my "7 Reasons For an Affair" to determine the situation that faces you. If your spouse is someone who can't say no, doesn't want to say no or is acting out rage, please make sure to take protective steps.

5. You may want to protect yourself medically if you suspect you have a cheating husband or wife. You might be concerned about sexually transmitted diseases. Your health may be at stake. And, of course, you need to know. Shame, guilt or self-absorption may be so powerful in your partner that it gets in the way of responsibly informing you of the medical dangers when another partner is sexually brought into your relationship.

6. Seeing signs of a cheating spouse often mean secrets. Secrets are work! There is not much written about the impact of a secret in a relationship, but believe me, in over two decades of working with strained relationships day in and day out, keeping a secret has a powerful impact. It is the proverbial elephant sitting in the room that no one dare talk about. People take extraordinary measures to tip toe around it, but it IS there. Emotionally, you can't miss it. Secrets are a drain. If the secret persists, its impact is felt in subtle but insidious ways. People become physically ill, sometimes seriously so. People become depressed. People start doing crazy things. Children start acting out, stop achieving, become listless or exhibit a host of other symptoms. Children, or the next generation, often carry the emotional load. You want to spy because you don't want to live with a secret. You want to discover the truth. You want to feel the freeing power of the exposed secret and the opportunity it offers for healing, resolution, a rich relationship and a productive life.

7. Some of us like drama. Soap opera scenarios and adrenaline based lives are a hallmark of our society. We get juiced or pumped up entering into emotional relational triangles that offer intrigue. Without adrenaline, life seems boring or mundane. Perhaps an unspoken reason for an affair may be to fan the fire? Or, you may spy on your cheating spouse to keep the sense of being alive a part of your life.

Travel Europe - How to Travel Europe on a Cheap Budget

We all want to travel Europe on a cheap budget these days.

Budget and discount price airlines have sprung up in almost every European country in the last few years - all of them fighting furiously with each other to offer the best value cheap airfare deals. But do we really benefit from these discount European travel prices or do the drawbacks of trying to travel Europe cheaply outweigh the advantages? Do the budget low price airfares blind us to the extra hassle that the cheap price might be hiding? Lets look at some current cheap European travel deals and see what we find.

Almost every European country now has at least one no frills budget airline. Easy Jet and Ryan Air are becoming well known and popular in Great Britain and in Ireland. Germany has four or five low cost airlines and cheap airfare specialists. Meanwhile, in Sweden, SAS have just launched their own budget offshoot called Snowflake.

At first glance the fares that these airlines charge can seem ridiculously low; Ryan Air have given their flights away almost for free in the past - although you still have to pay the airport tax of around twenty UK pounds. But where's the catch? Is there a catch? Can you really travel Europe by air without spending a fortune?

Here's the deal if you want to travel Europe on a cheap budget:

Firstly, the low fares airlines in Europe nearly always use out of town provincial airports - often about forty or fifty miles from the respective city centres. This can add up to two hours of travel time to your journey at each end. You also have to pay for the bus or train connection to get from your airport to the city centre. Make sure you add this price in to the cost of your ticket when comparing prices between cheap airfare deals and the prices charged by the mainstream airlines. In most cases the main airlines fly you into the city centre airport and thus cut your travel time and the cost of any extra transport.

If you're unlucky enough to miss a flight then you could literally be stuck in a very rural airport overnight with all the food outlets closed down and no way to get back to the town or the city.

Secondly, you only get what you pay for. The European budget airlines may offer no in-flight service for food and drinks. Or, if they do, they will charge you for it at a premium rate. Coffee, sandwiches and beer may be very pricey indeed. To be fair, many of the flights are only of an hour or two's duration so snacks and drinks may not be such a big deal.

Thirdly - figure out the total travel time and compare that to the costs. For example: it takes five hours to go from the very centre of Glasgow in Scotland to the very centre of London by train and it costs around twenty five UK pounds each way.

Now - you might pick up a cheap flight from Glasgow to London, only to find that both of your airports are forty miles from the city centre. That immediately adds three hours to your travel time, not counting the waiting around at the airports, baggage handling and all the extra hassle that goes with it. You will also have to pay separately for the bus or train journey from airport to city centre and vice versa. Unless your airfare is extremely cheap you might well spend more money in the long run for a less comfortable journey. Check it all out carefully in advance if you can.

Fourthly, the quoted cheap airfare ticket prices are only for APEX travellers. You might have to pay a lot extra if you need to change your flight time. Cheap airfare prices are also usually only available if you buy well in advance - buying the day before or on the day will add a big premium to the price. The baggage allowance is also on the mean side - often no more than 15kg or 20kg per person. Any more than that and you will face a very hefty premium on your cheap price ticket.

In summary - you can travel Europe cheaply by choosing your discount airline package carefully. But do try to weigh up all the extra hidden costs as you compare flight ticket prices. You should also factor in the extra travel time that arriving at a provincial airport may bring.

Please remember: Don't get too hung up on it all!

Travel in Europe is fun - however you do it.