The Robo Pope

Archive for January, 2009

Bankruptcy: Which Chapter Do I File?

There is more than one kind of bankruptcy. You should understand your options before deciding which chapter of bankruptcy you are going to file for, or if you are going to file for bankruptcy at all. Often the consequences of bankruptcy outweigh the benefits so it really is a very individualized decision and should be considered carefully. Bankruptcy should not be a rash decision.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy can be described as a liquidation proceeding. There is a certain amount of property that is exempt, but the rest of your property would be turned over to the bankruptcy trustee to be sold and divided amongst your creditors. There are some debts that can not be discharged but you will be free of all dischargeable debts within a few months after filing for bankruptcy. This provides for a fresh start and can be a great relief for those heavily burdened with debt that they just can’t manage any longer.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is more for people who want to reorganize their debt, but still pay it over a longer period of time. Generally you are going to be able to keep your non-exempt property when you file for chapter 13 bankruptcy instead of chapter 7 bankruptcy. You only want to file for chapter 13 bankruptcy if your income is such that you can afford your expenses as well as devote a portion of it to paying off the debt covered by your chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Make an informed decision about bankruptcy before you start talking with an attorney. There is plenty of information readily available about bankruptcy and by exploring all avenues you may come across information that causes you to reconsider exactly what you are doing with your bankruptcy. The information can be overwhelming and you should definitely consult an attorney about bankruptcy before making a final decision.

Timothy Gorman is a successful webmaster and publisher of Debt-Relief-Solutions.com. He provides more debt relief, consolidation and bankruptcy as an option information that you can research in your pajamas on his website.

What to Do When You “Have it All” and Still Aren’t Satisfied

For a few, life has improved amongst the terrorist threats and subsequent roller coaster of an economy. Some have bought second or even third homes, while others have elected for collection quality, top of the line automobiles. Others still have traveled the world, experiencing realism at a level the vast majority will never know. Why yes, luxury today is known well in certain circles and is in fact lavished with immoderations.

The question begging to be asked is, “What now?” How many yachts can one water-ski behind? Do you really want to go to the moon? When it is all said and done and you cannot find satisfaction with all the material things at your disposal:

Give of Yourself

People of affluence unaccustomed to a life dedicated to the service of those less fortunate will always have a void to fill. It is the scarcity mentality that says, “I must get all the money I can before I die.” It is the abundance mentality that counters, “I must pass on my knowledge and experience to give others an opportunity to obtain things far greater than my own accomplishments.”

Behave Consistent with How You Want Others to Remember You

Those who want to be remembered as having made a difference need to lead lives full of actions powerful enough to not only be cherished in their life, but also after they have passed on. Traditionally, these are service oriented acts. Become a mentor to today’s youth. Help as many others achieve their goals as you can.

Write Your Memoirs

When you have it all, tell it all. The story of your life should be recorded. This way, you only have to say it once and you will maximize the affect your experiences can have on all the people that read your book. Book writing is always a great project for those needing a new experience in their lives, especially for those willing to undertake its arduous course.

Challenge Yourself

More like, refine yourself. Take up Jiu-Jitsu. Learn yoga. Do something you have never done before. Study a new language. Study two. Fly a helicopter. Feed thousands of starving people.

Make a List of Long-Term Goals and Complete One Each Year

Aim for the horizon on this one. If you have ever thought of owning a sailing team, here is where that desire is to be recorded. It is far more difficult to achieve your innermost desires without writing them down. The human brain understands that you are serious when you take the time to write your goals down and review them on a daily basis. Let it all hang out.

Studies have shown that 90% of this great nation’s wealth is controlled by 10% of its population. Many find that statistic shocking, while others have come to accept its validity. Some of this 10% are wholly fulfilled by their life’s experiences, but there are those who yearn for a bit more. The upper crust possess within it a class of its own, a faction unsatisfied by the trappings their money affords them. Rather, they go through with their day-to-day affairs and wonder if they could get even more out of life. The answer is a resounding yes.

Field Of Dreams (DVD) Review

Receiving a 1990 Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, Field Of Dreams is as close to perfect as a movie can be (character “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s right-handed batting stance is about the only flaw that can be found). Director Phil Alden Robinson provides a Frank Capra-esque performance with his brilliant adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s remarkable book Shoeless Joe. A rare, family-friendly movie certain to captivate and inspire adults both young and old, Field of Dreams is an amazingly memorable film that transcended its sports theme and penetrated American pop culture. Even after almost two decades, variations of the famous whispering voice find their way into TV commercials, sketch comedies, and print headlines everywhere. Like Hoosiers, it provides the sports genre with a level of depth that such films oftentimes lack.

The film begins with the life narrative of Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), highlighting numerous events which shaped and defined his life - his father’s love of baseball (especially banned Hall-Of-Famer “Shoeless” Joe Jackson), estrangement from his father at a young age, the upheaval of the 1960s, and finally, Ray’s love affair with his wife Annie (Amy Madigan). In their mid-thirties, the couple takes a bold step when they purchase an Iowa corn farm and give birth to their first child, daughter Karin.

Following the narrative, the film moves to the present day where one of the most famous movie lines in cinema history is hoist upon the audience. While Ray tends to his cornfield, he hears a mysterious voice whisper, “If you build it, he will come…” Realizing he is the only one who hears the voice, Ray struggles with the idea that he may be going crazy. His thoughts are later reinforced when, late one night, he gazes out his bedroom window and envisions a baseball field emblazoned in the middle of his backyard. Under the impression that if he builds the baseball field, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) will come to play upon its surface, Ray acquires the blessing of his wife and sets out to make his dream a reality.

He plows up his cornfield and builds a full-size baseball diamond, but when an uneventful year passes by, Ray begins to question the wisdom of his decision. As he and Annie struggle to keep the farm afloat financially, Karin points out that a man is standing on daddy’s baseball field. The mystical appearance of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson sparks a chain of equally startling events as long-deceased icon ushers other ex-ballplayers from the depths of the mysterious corn to practice and play ball. More importantly, Ray starts to hear voices once again…

Following his dreams with reckless abandon and placing his faith in the voice, Ray is brought into contact with estranged writer Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) and a charming small town pediatrician named Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster). But ultimately, it’s the unlikely appearance of another individual that transforms Ray’s life when he learns the true meaning of the phrase “If you build it, he will come…”

With an emotional ending certain to touch even the most hardened of audience members, Field of Dreams is a cinematic masterpiece that combines American nostalgia, and love for life into an inspirational and memorable tale of a man bold enough to reach for his dreams. Amazingly, the film has zero explosions, zero sex scenes, and no profanity (unless you count stuff like “gosh darn”) yet the film enjoyed widespread commercial success. It’s a testament to the timeless nature of its story and the universal reach of its theme of family, faith, and redemption. Overall, unless your spirit is dead, you’re certain to be moved by this film…

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the Field Of Dreams (DVD).

Betting Saloon Taking a Risk: Beginners Guide to Pastimes of Chance Betting Enthusiasts Enjoy Contending in

On the assumption you haven’t got the picture on betting saloon wagering, feel free to read on —

A running definition of a gambling house is a house that presents betting. Here, clients may gamble at the slot-machines or trying out alternative betting pastimes. Gaming establishment games more often than not have logically determined probabilities informing them which promise the gaming organization grasps on to the upper hand against the gaming enthusiasts.

A large number gambling house games can incite you into being addicted very speedily. You have the good old one-armed bandit, a cash operated gadget with three plus discs that circumvolve if a lever attached to it is moved. The machine customarily renders correlating with a set arrangement of symbols discernible on the front panel of the contraption. Regretfully, gaming room games will convey the mirage of power, effectively deluding the gamester: the addressee is bestowed with choices, but in reality these cannot hope to really level the player’s fundamental odds. That is brought about by the the casino not paying out the full wager as expected. This mode is recurrently found in well known casino games such as stud poker, dice, roulette or blackjack.

Texas hold’em poker is really a highly trendy casino game. The bettors, studiously guarding their either fully or partially concealed cards, place stakes in the pot which is then paid out to the winning gamester enjoying the winning set of cards. (Obviously, the shameless bluffing hand may well prevail too.)

casino gambling

Analogous to stud poker, blackjack too is an incredibly trendy casino pastime. A considerable part of its renown is due to its particular mix of luck and smartness and choice making, not to forget a system named card counting. The aforementioned is a skill by which players will significantly change the probabilities of the card game for their own good both by wagering & strategy decisions in correlation to the cards shown.

Craps is another well known gambling hall wagering game involving the throw of two dice. Gamers risk their money on the result of 1 spin, or on a sequence of spins of two dice. In contrast to blackjack, there’s absolutely no possible bona fide winner strategy punters can make capital of to bend the odds.

Roulette is another crowd pulling game of luck — a croupier whirls a roulette wheel that accommodates a set of 37 (applies to classical roulette) or thirty-eight (American roulette) distinctively marked receptacles in which the pellet will then come to rest, thereby deciding the winning number and the other chances that go along with it. Assuming that the gamer bets on a particular number which actually wins meaning she’s indeed in luck, the promised premium will be thirty-five to one, the pledge proper being repaid. Ergo in total it’s multiplied by a factor of 36.

Learn The Five Key Debt Reduction Steps You Must Take Immediately!

Step 1. The purpose of this first step is to bring you back to reality. You must know exactly how much money you owe and to whom you owe it.

* Collect all of you unpaid bills and any other evidence of your outstanding debts.

* List each outstanding bill on the same sheet of paper. In separate columns, include the invoice or account number, amount due, name of the creditor, and the date the bill can be paid in full without incurring additional finance charges.

* Total the amount due column.

* Total the number of creditors.

* Total the number of bills.

Are you surprised or shocked? Of course, most will be shocked by the scope of their debt. Regardless of your reaction, you now (perhaps for the first time) have an exact accounting of your current debts. Debt help Considers this to be your guide, because it shows exactly how much money you currently owe, and by what date you must pay.

Step 2. This step employs a powerful visualization technique that actually enables you to visualize an end to your current debts.

* Mentally consolidate your bills. Do not think of your debt as a series of separate bills. Consider all your bills as one large bill to be repaid. As you diligently repay each component bill, your large bill becomes smaller.

* Mentally consolidate your payments. Do not consider your individual payments towards separate bills, consider them one large payment towards your one large bill.

* Debt help shows why you must continue making the same size payments regardless of how many bills are repaid. As bills are paid in full, more money is available to pay other bills, but only if your payments remain the same.

* You must pay your bills in the order of their higest monthly payments. This allows you to apply the most amount of money to the next bill and reduces your debts in the shortest amount of time.

If your large bill becomes smaller each time you make a payment while the size of your payments remains the same, the net result of this strategy is that each successive payment has a greater impact upon the size of your debt.

Debt Example: Say you have two bills, one for $250 and one for $750. Together they total $1000. You can afford to pay $500 per month. If you pay $250 towards each bill, the small bill will disappear after the first payment and the larger bill is reduced to $500. You still have $500 available for the next payment. If you maintain the same size payment, you will completely eliminate the remaining bill with the next payment.

Step 3. Now it is time for a course correction - you must alter your spending habits. Regardless of the cause, be it problem debt or chronic debt, you must be willing to change your spending habits and if necessary, seriously alter your lifestyle.

* Establish your long-term financial goals. It took months or years to reach your current level of debt. Since you cannot wish yourself out of debt nor can you count on winning the lottery, you must adopt, reasonable financial goals. The more you pratice meeting even limited financial goals. The more confident and in control of your life you will feel. This in turn enables you to meet longer-term goals successfully.

* Establish credible short-term goals. Short-term means tomorrow! Durning the next 24 hours you are not to incur any new debt.

* just get through one day, then another. You get the idea. The impact of this - trail by fire - is to immediately boost your confidence by preventing your debt from expanding. This prepares you for the serious commitment to complete debt reduction ahead of you.

* Establish realistic intermediate term goals. These goals should find you becoming comfortable with the basics of debt reduction. Your goals are to implement the plan, grow more confident as you watch your debts grow smaller and begin to realize that you can become debt free.

* Establish, well defined, long term goals. As you master these debt reduction techniques , you will be firmly committed to effecting, permanent chance in your financial condition. Not only can you see yourself debt free sooner, but also you can realistically see yourself accumulating wealth. You are in control of your financial well being. You are no longer a debtor - with debt help you are on the road to complete debt freedom!

* Prioritize your spending. Eliminate impulse purchases. Buying on impulse addresses your wants not your needs. Seek alternative methods to pay for goods and services:

* Barter: You may be able to barter anything of value including your time, for something of value to you.

* Learn to live with less. you must learn to live with the extremely limited financial resources you have available, instead of the unlimited ones you pretended you had. Remember, a sacrifice is a trade-off. You give up something now; you are rewarded later. Denial, on the other hand, has no reward. it is punishment.

Step 4. Remove access to any credit you may still have. During this entire debt reduction program you must learn to steer clear of bad habits. You should no more try to conquer debt while you have access to credit, than you would pilot a rowboat thru a hurracine.

* Lockup, return, revoke, cancel, desroy or otherwise make unavailable to you all the remaining sources of credit: credit cards, revolving lines of credit and credit extensions.

* If you feel you need to keep a credit card for identification purposes such as when you pay by check, then choose the card with the least available credit remaining on it.

* Become your own banker. Do not carry your checkbook on your person. Write yourself one check every week. This is your allowance. Cash the check and live on it.

* Every time you receive an offer of credit in the mail, immediately tear it up and throw it away. Do this even if you have to make a special trip to the incinerator or the dumpster in the middle of a blizzard!

Consumer credit is the most insidious type and the most Difficult to give up. As you know, you will be continually bombarded with new offers of easy, often pre-approved credit. You must ignore them at all cost. By this almost surgical removal of your access to credit you will come to realize the power of the word NO! And you will become more comfortable saying it.

Step 5. Use Cash Only!

* Pay cash for everything. If you do not have enough cash to pay for an item, you cannot afford it. Anticipate your expenses now, so that you will have enough cash on hand.

* Now if you do not have enough cash on hand, then cash a check at your bank or make a withdraw from your savings account. Either way, you will need to immediately deduct the amount from the remaining balance.

* If your account is overdrawn at the bank, please stop writing checks immediately. If you do not know how to balance your checkbook, do not write any checks until you learn how to do it. You must be absolutely sure there is enough money in the account to cover every check issued. Under no condition may you bounce a check. Aside from any criminal liability and negative credit reporting you may be subjected to, you will have to pay an overdraft charge. This may be as much as $50 and will be deducted automatcally from the balance in your account. You also amy be liable for a merchants return check fee. Which can be as high as $25 to $50 per check.

* Do not apply for overdraft protection at your bank. Because this is a line of credit with a high intrest rate, you will be tempted to abuse it.

Living on cash teaches you to prioritize your spending. Since you can no longer buy anything you want whenever you want it, you must focus on what you really need. Ask Yourself: Since I am paying cash, is this something I absolutely must have? Am I really willing to forego something else in order to pay for this item now? Learn not to feel denied. Instead, think of the sacrifices you are making to achieve your long-term debt reduction goals. In order to eliminate your debts, you must satisfy your needs not your wants. There will be time to buy what you want after you are in control of your finances.

Visit: www.debt-elimination-program-reviews.com

About the Author
http://www.debt-elimination-program-reviews.com is run by Vincent Dail. They review and then list some of the best debt elimination, programs, software and books available online!

Visit: http://www.debt-elimination-program-reviews.com

Debt Consolidation Solutions for People with Good Credit Rating

Borrowing against your home equity is one of the best ways to consolidate your debts and I’ll not argue against it. It is a known fact - because you’ll get to enjoy lower interest rates and better payment terms.

It is not the end of the world though, if you do not own a home. There are still ways out - the second best solution would be to make use of your good credit rating (if you still enjoy now) to help consolidate your debts.

Credit Card Balance Transfer
This is simply the process of transferring your high interest credit card balances to another credit card with lower interest. This is done so to reduce your monthly interest payment and can help to pay off your debts faster.

Things to Look Out for Before You Transfer Your Card Balances
Ask for fixed interest rate for your new credit card transferred balances - this ensure that you pay a fixed amount every month and help you in preparing and executing your budget plan.

Ask your credit card companies if they can waive the credit card balance transfer fees - savings on the transfer fees can be use to repay your balance. This is a fee which most banks can waive.

Ask all your existing credit card companies on their interest rates and payment terms if you transfer all your other card balances to them. (Remember to ask for lower interest and better repayment terms, since you are consolidating your card balances.) Compare all your options and choose the one which you are most comfortable with.

Debt consolidation with credit card balances transfer work best if you still enjoy good credit ratings. This is because offered interest rates and payment terms are heavily weighted on your current credit rating and score.

Nevertheless, this should not stop you for asking your credit card companies even if you have poor credit rating. It is still worthwhile to transfer your card balances if you can only save a little on your interest rate every month. Every little step helps when you are consolidating your debts.

Moses Wright is the webmaster of Bulletpedia.com. He provides more helpful information on debt and bill consolidation tips, personal finance credit help and personal finance loan help that you can research in the comfort of your home on his website.

Learn how to motivate yourself

“Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.”
~ Norman Augustine

I truly believe Augustine’s words are true and if you look at history you know it is true. There are many people in the world with amazing talents who realize only a small percentage of their potential. We all know people who live this truth.

We also know those epic stories, those modern-day legends surrounding the early failures of such supremely successful folks as Michael Jordan and Bill Gates. We can look a bit further back in time to Albert Einstein or even further back to Abraham Lincoln. What made each of these people so successful? Motivation.

We know this in our gut, but what can we do about it? How can we motivate ourselves? One of the most difficult aspects of achieving success is staying motivated over the long haul.

Motivation is not an accident or something that someone else can give you — you are the only one with the power to motivate you. Motivation cannot be an external force, it must come from within as the natural product of your desire to achieve something and your belief that you are capable to succeed at your goal.

Positive pleasure-oriented goals are much more powerful motivators than negative fear-based ones. Although each is successful separately, the right combination of both is the most powerful motivational force known to humankind.

Here are some tips and methods for motivating yourself:

~ Use a past defeat as a motivator. Remind yourself you have nowhere to go except up as you have already been at the bottom.

~ Give yourself the power of responsibility. Remind yourself the only thing stopping you is yourself.

~ Make a list of your achievements toward your long-term goal and remind yourself that intentions don’t count, only action’s.

~ Do it today. Remind yourself of someone you know who died suddenly and the fact that there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come.

~ Let success motivate you. Find a picture of what epitomizes success to you and then pull it out when you are in need of motivation.

Reflect and experiment until you find the right combination of motivators for your personality and your personal goals. I’ll leave you with this final motivating quote:

“What drives me? The thing that drives me most is the desire to find my limits–and extend them.” ~ Richard Marcinko

Now go push your own limits and succeed!

Deanna Mascle is an inspirational freelance writer. You can find more inspiration at Inspiration by Dawggone and her inspirational ezines Words of Inspiration Online and Daily Quote Online.

Build It And Build It Cheap!

There are several very good reasons why you should consider building your own web site versus having someone do it for you. It’s more cost efficient, you can make it much larger in content, you are more involved in how you want the pages to look, and I have actually enjoyed learning the dos and don’ts of website profiling. I have run into some definite don’ts as I thrashed my way through building the few that I have needed , but I envy the professionals that get paid to make websites. Although I’m sure that I’ve made mistakes on my sites, I’m pretty happy with the results so far.

I wanted to give all those considering building their own website a heads up on the parts I have mastered. I am hoping that my determination to build a quality site coupled with my cheapazz instincts will help alleviate some of your stress as you follow the same path of righteous web design. As a brief article, I can clearly not cover everything that you will need to know here, however, if you have questions feel free to email me at the address provided.

These are things that you will need to consider for your website.

1. Outline the type of plan you will need for your design:
What size site you need. Will a five page program work or do you need the server space for hundreds or even thousands of pages?

Are you selling products or services on your site?
Do you need a merchant account or Paypal to accept credit cards?
Are taxes an issue?

2. Find a name for your site.
Choose one that is easily remembered for return visitors.
If you can get a dot com as your domain you should consider this first. It is what the majority of people will automatically use to reach a website. I have actually watched people take my address directly off my business card and still type in a dot com rather than a dot net.

If you can’t get a dot com, try one with a matching URL under a main domain such as dot net or dot org. There are obviously others available, but these seem to be the most popular right now.

If you can get all the domains you should, you can use dot com as your primary and have the others redirected from dot net and dot org to the dot com address. The redirect URL’s are about $10 a year or less if you shop around.

3. Plan a General Layout:
Plan a basics of both the page and total site layout you want. The typical basic page may have a header at the top, two columns in the middle–one for content and the left for a menu, and than a footer at the bottom of the page.

If you will have many pages and they will have the same header, menu, footer, etc., and you plan to make changes on your site sometimes, you should consider an “includes” system. This system allows each area of a page to be a separate page in itself. If you make changes on one page with this system, it will show on every page. It’s slightly complicated and if interested there are many free tutorials all over the net.

With many pages you will have to consider your method of navigation, such as main menu’s and submenu’s. You need to know if you will use buttons, java, CCS, flash, or just plain html links. If some of this sounds foreign and unfamiliar, don’t worry, you’ll learn the basics pretty quickly.

If you are not quite sure yet what you are looking for, check around. There are many free or very cheap templates that you can use that can really make a difference on how professional your site looks. A quick search you produce an almost endless supply of templates.

There are many sites who will offer great deals on many things as long as you provide a link on your site to theirs and site templates are no exception. This is a great way to get things cheap or for free.

4. Factors to consider to reach your audience:
Will your customers use dial up or broadband, newer equipment with the latest operating systems or windows 98? These are important things to consider when you decide what graphics to use and the overall file size.

The browser that your audience will be more likely to use.
Do you have eye grabbing details for a broader spectrum of visitors, or will a specific and to the point website be better because your products/services are already targeted to a certain audience?

5. Find a server:
Find the deal that best meets your needs. There is a huge price difference in the hosting companies and plans, and this is something that should be researched to a certain extent as far as what you want for what you’re paying.

Questions to ask:

Is there a set up fee?
Will I have customer support with a actual contact phone number?
Do I have the option to upgrade to more space, more email accounts or add a store front?
What is the average up-time for their servers?

6. Software
You need software to build, edit, and upload your site from your computer to the server. I have only used Microsoft FrontPage ®. I like Frontpage® but then, I have nothing to compare it to. I use this because it came free with my computer, but if you look around there are sure to be free or relatively inexpensive programs that will work great for you.

Now you have a layout for your site and a place to put it, but what will you put on it? If you are concerned that you can’t provide enough info for a whole site, don’t worry. There is certainly not a shortage of free content available. In fact, it can be overwhelming and distracting searching for exactly what you need. Not all articles and info are as clearly stated as in my article–LOL. You can find everything from complex calculators to one-line random quotes.

Free maps to light bulbs to tooth picks—okay, I’m exaggerating, but it can be overwhelming. Many sites simply use their content to draw traffic to their site to promote their products or services, and there is definitely nothing wrong with that. Again, this is providing the content for links to their sites on your website. You can afford to be choosy though, the price is the same, so pick suitable material for your design that will compliment your website.

As one final note, I guess the most important thing I can say is, “Get started”. I have mentioned some conciderations and there are many many more, but don’t let any one of these slow you down. Look at these as caution zones and open toll-free road - not road blocks. Good luck…

EzineArticles Expert Author Brian Hawkins

Brian lives in Michigan with his wife and love of his life of 21 years. They have 4 Children and 2 Grandchildren. Brian works a more than full time job, has too many gray hairs and spends all of his free time working on too many sites. But he’s never been happier.
Entrepreneur, Online business consultant, Author. Site owner and administrator of: http://www.cheapazz.net and several other sites listed at http://csc4u.com

A must in professional looking brochures

A professional looking brochure invites many customers to your business. But a poor quality one invites criticism and ridicule. Which would you rather have?

Your brochure has the opportunity at representing your interests to the public. That is why it is so important to have them made into something that not only attracts much attention but also something that will make you proud.

What to do.

When preparing your brochure for printing, make certain that it has a clear format, design, and layout. This will give the printer a well-organized document for easy reproduction.

Write readable text, use an easy-to-read font style and size, and provide generous margins. A careless print piece will be difficult to manage. It may even require several layouts until both you and printer are satisfied with the result.

You will need to find a dependable printer before the project is ready for duplication. Check out the yellow pages. Look for various ads, and call for estimates.

You might want to visit the print shop personally to have an idea of how organized, clean, and busy it is. Ask to see samples of print jobs or obtain contact information for references.

If you know some printers in the neighborhood, stop for a visit and introduce yourself. You also can get recommendation from someone who has received satisfactory or excellent print work.

You can also search the Internet for quality print work. You may have to email or fax a master copy for duplication, but copies can be returned by mail, saving you transportation costs and time.

You probably will have to pay mailing costs, but these may be cheaper than fuel expenses. Give the printer enough time to prepare the order and make any necessary adjustments before the final deadline of your brochure project.

Try to get a written estimate, keeping in mind that slight adjustments may be necessary, depending on how the job goes.

After the brochures have been printed, count them to be sure you get the correct number. Examine print type to check for smudges or fading. Look at the margins on each one, unless you have a huge order, to ensure that they are even and consistent. If the printer also folded or trimmed your brochures, look for uneven edges.

If the job comes back in acceptable format, keep the printer’s contact information on hand for future jobs or referrals.

But if you encounter problems with the way your brochures turns out, and if the printer does not work willingly with you to resolve these problems, start looking for another one.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.losangelesprintingservice.com

Practicing Staying Present To The Now

Transformational Counseling is about assisting others to transform their life. Transformational Counseling is a process of assisting others to learn how to let go of the past and live fully in the present. To live fully in the present is to become awaken to what is truly real and to our own natural power. Much of our life is spent living in the past, and in the process, attempting to fix it, to make it something that it is or was not. It is from living in the past that we also attempt to create our future, the result always being a living of life as it was in the past. Transformation takes place when we learn to exist in and be present to the Now.

The practice of staying present to our natural power and to that which is real is becoming conscious to what is so, to the Now, to the present. What is so, the Now, has no meaning and exists outside of thought and language. As human beings we tend to give meaning to everything, including other people, ourselves and even life itself. It is in our meaning making that we leave the present and create our life from the past, a life that can be filled with a great deal of anxiety, fear and stress. What is so merely exists and it is in the experience of the Now that we begin to live a life of power and freedom, a life and way of being free from our past.

A specific technique that is very powerful for practicing staying present to the Now is meditation. It is in meditation that one creates the space to experience a very deep state of relaxation, a state that is very healing to both the mind and body. As we know, in meditation ones metabolism slows down, including heart rate and blood pressure. The consistent practice of meditation will reduce anxiety and stress. For some the practice of meditation allows them to access true Being. For others it is way of reconnecting to the Spirit within us. It is in the consistent practice of meditation that the subject and object distinction inherent in language, thought and meaning making collapses thereby resulting in our access to the present, to the Now.

The meditative process can be enhanced by the use of therapeutic relaxation music. Music has always been a very powerful modality for promoting a very deep state of relaxation and even healings. I have found that musical compositions that are harmonically slow, repetitious, with sustained voices, which are rhythmically, random in tempo assists an individual in experiencing a very deep state of relaxation. A second important component of the use of therapeutic relaxation music is the use of binaural audio tones that have been interwoven into the music. The binaural tones, through a process referred to as entrainment or frequency following, gently guides or directs the mind/body to generate more of the targeted frequency of brain wave activity for an even more profound state of relaxation.

The meditative process of practicing staying present to the Now is as follows:

1. Take a comfortable position in an upright sitting position.

2. Allow your legs and arms to be open.

3. Allow your eyes to focus upon a chosen object. The chosen object could be a candle light in a darkened room or any point that you choose.

4. As you focus on the chosen object, allow your muscles to slowly relax from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

5. Take three slow deep breathes in through your nose as you inhale. Hold each breath to the mental count of four. Slowly exhale each breath out through your mouth. Continue to breath at a slow pace after the three breaths.

6. Continue to focus on the chosen object. When your mind wanders to some thought or thoughts slowly and gently bring it back to your focused concentration upon the chosen object. Simply let go of the thoughts that arise. The thoughts are from the past. Stay focused to what is so.

7. Continue the practice for a prescribed period of time and then go about your daily activities. Each day that you practice you may even choose to lengthen the time you spend with this technique.

The ability to stay in the present, to access the Now, can be enhanced with the consistent practice of meditation. What this will necessitate is one making the practice of meditation apart of his or her daily schedule. With the consistent practice of meditation one will also create the ability to stay even more present to what is so even when not actively engaged in the meditative process. It is through a commitment to the practice of meditation on a daily basis that one will begin to live more fully in the Now.

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