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Women are funny creatures if you’re a man – a living, breathing contradiction. Most want the security, financial stability, manners and chivalry that come from being an upstanding member of society but also yearn for a bad boy to treat them wrong in all the right ways. Men simply aren’t built that way. Most of us are either responsible, hardworking and thoughtful or unmitigatedly selfish 24/7. Selfish, believe it or not, tends to work in the bedroom. Continue Reading…

Local search is an important part of marketing for any business large or small. It doesn’t matter if you have a store front or work out of your home. Many people today use the internet as a way to find everything they want or need. They don’t just use it for finding information. The use it to shop, look for a job, find a mate and more. However, people also search for local services such as doctors, places to eat, places to shop locally, local events and movies. The list could go on and on. Continue Reading…

One of the most frequent questions homeowners ask when considering an outdoor play set, swing set or jungle gym is how wood compares to metal. Traditionally when one thinks of metal, strength comes to mind. Wood, on the other hand, doesn’t inspire quite the same level of confidence in the minds of most. Let’s examine how wood compares to metal when it comes to outdoor play sets for kids. Continue Reading…

The prevailing culture of college financing is one of federal student loans with nominal interest rates, private lender loans with high interest rates and a mountain of debt upon graduating. But the outlook needn’t look so grim. Many students are finding that college can be accomplished without debt provided they are willing to make a few compromises. Whether you have a job, savings or a little help from your family, there are ways to keep borrowing to a minimum and quite possibly, get through school without having to borrow at all.

One of the biggest cost saving measures you can take is to consider a community college for the first two years of your postgraduate education. There are two benefits to this strategy. The first is obvious in that community college tuition per credit hour is usually a percentage of tuition per credit hour at a four year university. The second benefit is that community colleges are more likely to allow students the maximum credits for CLEP tests, which can save you up to a semester of tuition, books and attendance. That’s 1/8th of the total credit hours necessary for a bachelor degree, provided you’re able to pass the tests and obtain the maximum credits allowed.

The next cost saving measure isn’t applicable to everyone but can be a tremendously effective way to pay for college provided you’re undecided on a major. Most hospitals and a handful of other large employers offer some form of tuition reimbursement provided you enroll in an approved course of study. If you’re going to be working during college and you haven’t decided on a major, try getting an entry level job at a hospital or with a company that offers a good tuition reimbursement program. You’ll have to pay tuition out of pocket, but even if you borrow, the reimbursement will cover all or a good portion of your loans, which will be interest deferred as long as you’re in school. The negative here is that you may have to work full time in order to be eligible, which could mean being a part time college student, but with summer school you should be able to stay on or close to a four year track for graduation.

The final cost saving measure is one that more and more students are finding necessary in the current economy, which is to stay at home. Living expenses are high, and if you can avoid them while trying to obtain your degree, do so. Even though you may be at an age where gaining some independence feels like a necessity, the trade off in financial responsibility can be crippling to your wallet. Provided your family situation allows it, stay at home, eat at home and focus your energies on work and school rather than social pursuits. You’ll be glad you did once you graduate and can land a job that will afford you the ability to move out in style rather than in dorm room efficiency squalor.

For more articles on college scholarships or to register to win a $10,000 scholarship, visit the Scholarships4Moms blog.

Surgery is something that most people try to avoid, myself included.  The idea of someone cutting into you like a porterhouse just doesn’t sit well with the mind, but there are particular areas of the body that one really hates to imagine being compromised.  Foremost among them, the eye. 

Having said that, there are worse things in life.  Having to deal with contacts on a windy day in NYC (of which there are many annually) is a pain.  Add dry eyes from long wearing times, never being anywhere without drops, glasses on the nightstand and the inability to be as active as you’d like to be due to wearing some form of corrective lenses and suddenly, laser eye surgery doesn’t sound so bad. 

Of course, horror stories abound in the world of LASIK - not because they are abundant, but because you never hear of the hundreds of thousands of surgeries that go well.  “Go well” is subjective to the individual, however, and this individual doesn’t consider halos, poor night vision and compromised corneas a success.  But this is New York City, where access to the best of the best is always available.

In the world of NY LASIK, the choices are abundant, but my choice was to forgo LASIK altogether in favor of LASEK, a much safer surgical option that reshapes the surface of the eye and doesn’t cut a flap, which is where 99% of complications occur.  If you want LASEK in New York City, you want Dr. Chynn. 

Dr. Chynn is the only MD in NYC whose practice is LASEK only.  He stopped performing LASIK in 2003 (though almost everyone else still offers it) because of the potential for slight complications.  In his own words, “Any complication, however slight, is one complication too many”. 

So, I went in a few times.  They checked my eyes, double checked my eyes and went through a laborious pre-op to make sure I understood exactly what I needed to do during the surgery, which was basically follow directions and stay still.  It was over fairly quick and I felt nothing, but afterward…holy moley!  I could see.  I could see clearly, crisply and without corrective lenses.  As a lifelong wearer of both glasses and contacts, this was a great moment for me. 

A few days of healing and keeping my post-op appointments have left me with greater than 20/20 vision.  I couldn’t be happier.  If you’re considering LASIK, I urge you to reconsider and look into LASEK.  Your eyes will thank you for it. 

As paper documentation gets more scarce in the well established electronic age, many companies and corporations are stuck with the problem of what to do with the colossal mounds of hard copy accumulated through the years. Legal requirements mandate a period of recordkeeping for most business entities, but regardless of the law, most companies find it beneficial to maintain their records from previous years. Still, there are problems for businesses with extensive hard copy assets, especially when it comes to storage, information management, information security and the potential for loss or damage. Continue Reading…