One Sec Tech

Source: Associated Press

In this city known for producing laws both path-breaking and contentious, legislators have forcefully stepped into another debate — this time over the potential danger of cell phone use.

With the Board of Supervisors‘ 10-1 vote in favor of an ordinance Mayor Gavin Newsom has indicated he will sign, San Francisco has waded into the as-yet unresolved debate over the relationship between long-term use of cell phones and health problems such as brain tumors.

It would be the country’s first law requiring cell phone retailers to disclose the phones’ specific absorption rate, or SAR, to customers.

SAR measures the maximum amount of radiation absorbed by a person using a handset. The Federal Communications Commission limits SAR to an average of 1.6 watts per kilogram of body tissue, but information about radiation levels is not usually readily available when people purchase phones at stores.

“From our perspective, this is a very reasonable and quite modest measure that will provide greater transparency and information to consumers for whom this is an area of interest or concern,” said Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker, who noted that the mayor is an iPhone user. “We’re playing a role that we’ve often played, which is to be at the forefront of a debate.”

The city has produced reams of novel legislation and other regulations, banning plastic grocery bags, ending municipal use of bottled water, making composting mandatory, and requiring the posting of nutrition information in restaurants.

Still after a number of scientific inquiries into this issue, no conclusions have been reached.

A major U.N. study released last month, for instance, found no clear link between cell phones and the risk of developing brain cancer.

Industry representatives see that as a reason to oppose a law like this.

“They’re just responding to unfounded concern,” said John Walls, a spokesman for industry trade group CTIA-The Wireless Association. He said the law “could very likely confuse and mislead consumers.”

But advocates said they see the ordinance primarily as an effort to inform consumers.

Renee Sharp, the California director of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, also said she hoped the law would dissuade consumers from buying relatively high radiation phones until their effect on the human body is fully understood. The advocacy group provided reports and other counsel to the city’s Department of the Environment as they developed the policy.

“We’re also hoping it will spur greater debate about whether the current federal standards are adequate or not,” Sharp said. “We certainly don’t think that people are not going to buy cell phones because of radiation.”

Industry officials would not speculate on the impact to their business, but many of the nation’s most popular cell phones have relatively high SAR levels.

This is because many of those popular phones are smart phones, which have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth receivers, as well as basic cellular capability, that add to their total SAR rating, according to Walls.

Under the law, larger chains will have to place SAR notices starting in February, while other stores will have until 2012.

While the supervisors were largely unanimous, reaction outside of City Hall and across the country was mixed.

“This is a response to public fear, not actual evidence of a risk,” said David Ropeik, a Harvard University instructor who studies risk perception. “That’s all precaution based on suggestions of risk that come as much from our innate alarm bells as from conclusive evidence. And precaution argues, ‘Don’t wait until the evidence is conclusive,’ which is a fine idea except sometimes there’s no smoke underneath the fire.”

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My Take: Let’s face it: California is a pretty crazy state when it comes to laws. This is the home of Los Angeles court reporting on every star’s every move; Laser skin treatment California residents love to showoff and of course home to the would-be next biggest thing in Hollywood. Why not a cell phone emissions law? Can you see the LA CA court reporting service going crazy on these cases in court? I wonder if the botox doctor I’ve been seeing can transmit SAR phone levels to me if he uses his phone on a regular basis?

Speaking of cell phones, if you live in the Big Apple you can hire a New York business transcription company to handle a lot of your telecommunications issues, including digital transcription of audio, video webcasts and tape cassettes for corporate transcription and other uses. New York transcription services can take a big load off of your business.

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Splitting the Costs

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SOURCE: CNN

Personality differences, such as shyness and overtness are now being explored biologically in the brain.

A new study in the journal Psychological Science finds that several personality traits are associated with definite brain regions. Scientists from the University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, Yale University, and The Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico, collaborated on the study.

Participants were 116 people, half of whom were male, and all between 18 and 40 years old. They were given a personality test and then underwent magnetic resonance imaging.

The researchers found evidence in the brain for four of the “Big Five personality traits”: extroversion,
neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. They looked at the volumes of various brain regions to see how greater or smaller volumes might be connected to personality traits.

A brain region involved in processing reward information, called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, seemed to be associated with how extroverted participants were. Extroverted people tend to be more sociable and talkative.

Brain regions associated with threat, punishment, and negative affect seemed to have something to do with how neurotic participants were. Neuroticism includes elements of irritability, anxiety, and being self-conscious.

Brain areas dealing with information about the intentions and mental states of other people were associated with agreeableness. Cooperation, compassion and politeness are part of agreeableness.

The lateral prefrontal cortex, involved in planning and the voluntary control of behavior, seemed to be associated with conscientiousness. People who are highly conscientious tend to be self-disciplined and orderly, rather than impulsive.

The one major personality trait that did not have an association with a brain area volume in this study was openness/intellect, which includes people who are creative, philosophical, imaginative, and intellectually engaged. This is also the only trait that has been associated with intelligence in previous research. Further study would be needed to determine how biology might be related to this trait.

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MY TAKE: Shocked to find out that there is no MRI activity to show where intellectual personality traits are stored. I suppose someone will work on it and perhaps one day we’ll be able to use more hard drive recovery in the brain to understand what makes a person smarter than another?

Data recovery obviously isn’t just about computers. The MRI technology used on these studies is fascinating to say the least. But that’s about as deep into brain tech as I want to venture. I’m limited as it is in the real time hard category to the ability of being able to download horror movies online. I like Netflix movies download streaming options because I can watch them from my laptop anywhere I go. But don’t ask me how to fix my laptop if it acts up. That’s where my computer repair guy comes in handy. There are some great computer service companies out there who will come to your house and virtually get you back up and running in no time. I wish I’d had the interest a long time ago in this field I’d be making money hand over fist.

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Levels of Minecraft Play

One of the neat things about Minecraft is that a player must always be vigilant against potential disasters and to accommodate different levels of play, Minecraft server hosting allows for three different difficulties or modes. In the easiest mode a player will have access to as many blocks as he or she wants and will not have to actually mine for resources. In a harder version of the game, there are more monsters and a larger variety of blocks available for play. Then there is a very difficult mode that makes just about everything harder for the player.

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Just about everyone who wants to enter the United States must obtain a visa and for students who are between the ages of fourteen and seventy-nine, an international student visa is usually required under most circumstances. Visas for children and the elderly who are younger and older than the accepted age range can usually obtain a visa without an interview. Since the waiting time for a visa is often significant. It is advisable that anyone who wants to obtain a student visa for schooling do so at an early date lest they risk being in application limbo and missing the start of the school year.

Applications for Machine Vision

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Construction Advice

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Source: Associated PressObtaining final approval for a mortgage short sale in Arizona is getting easier, according to Valley short sale negotiator Nick Olheiser.

Olheiser, who works for Pruven Real Estate & Investments in Glendale, credits a government program that was launched in April to help speed up short sales.

“It’s a little simpler now,” he said.

Olheiser said his clients began qualifying for the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, or HAFA, about a month ago.

Phoenix AZ foreclosures have also resulted in a glut of homes for rent in the Glendale area and beyond. In addition, Phoenix homes for sale are on the rise and a good majority of them are short sale properties.

The program, he said, has helped banks improve their ability to process short sales.

Valley real estate experts said short sales, in which a lender allows a homeowner to sell a home for less than their mortgage is worth, are notoriously time consuming and difficult.

“We’ve seen short sales take as long as 13 to 15 months to go through”, Olheiser said.

The HAFA program gives lenders who approve a short sale within 45 days a $1,500 fee.

Homeowners receive $3,000 in moving expenses.

Still, Olheiser said, short sales are challenging.

“Something that you see that can be a complication even today with the banks is this jumbling of paperwork, losing, moving files. It can be difficult to get them information and get them to look at it,” he said.

Olheiser said banks often want more money for homes than buyers offer, especially if a second mortgage is involved.

“If the buyer is unwilling to come up with their offer, it’s pretty much a dead deal, if you can’t get the second lien to approve,” he said.

HAFA was established to help homeowners who can’t qualify or complete loan modifications avoid foreclosures.

Homeowners on the verge of foreclosure can also request to take part in HAFA.

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My Take: I have a friend who runs two property management companies and he says the same thing is happening in Minnesota and the Midwest. People are taking advantage of short sale opportunities in order to get out from under their upside down mortgage loans. They can’t necessarily walk away with any money, but they can avoid a foreclosure, which makes buying another home down the road a lot easier.

By the way, I learned something new about new homes. Technology has advanced so far that construction firms who build new homes now have some pretty advanced programs to work with, such as onscreen takeoff software which lets them look over blueprints online and virtually design homes before ever pulling out a hammer. There are also several construction estimation software programs out there that allow would-be owners, real estate agents, architects and builders to all view blueprints and plans simultaneously online.

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Drunk Driving Arrest?

Need to hire a drunk driving attorney Redwood City? You can find a good Redwood City CA DUI attorney by clicking here.

Source: Manhattan News

Two robbery suspects recently struck and killed An 83-year-old nun crossing the street with their getaway car while fleeing police.

Sister Mary Celine Graham and her aide, 58-year-old Patricia Cruz, were among six people injured when the fleeing blue Chrysler Pacifica collided with a silver Honda Odyssey and went into a tailspin at the corner of West 122nd Street.

Witnesses said the Pacifica was being chased by two police cruisers, an NYPD van and a police scooter in the moments before the 9:40 a.m. crash.

Sister Graham, who became a nun with the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary at age 22, spent her life taking care of preschool students including those at the St. Benedict’s Day Nursery in Harlem and the Camp St. Edward in Staten Island, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York said. She’d  recently begun suffering Parkinsons disease,

The scene at 122nd Street and Lenox Avenue after a deadly crash that killed one and injured at least four others. (DNAinfo/Jill Colvin)

She was declared dead on arrival at Harlem Hospital. Her bent cane was discovered lying on the ground next to her, a witness said.

“It was terrible — all you saw was bodies lying all over the place,” a witness, Julie Wells, 58, said after the crash.

Police arrested William Robbins, 18 after the crash. He was not immediately charged. Police were still searching for two other suspects who escaped on Tuesday afternoon.

The drama began on Lenox Avenue, between 122nd Street and 123rd streets, earlier that morning when a 21-year-old Columbia University student called police from his cell phone to say that he’d been robbed at gunpoint by three men who took off in a blue car, according to police.

Minutes later, police spotted the car on Lenox Avenue, near 141st Street, a detective at the scene said. They pulled the car over and arrested the driver on the street.

The scene of a car crash on Lenox Avenue Tuesday morning. (DNAinfo/Jill Colvin)

But before officers could detain the two men sitting in the back, one of the suspects jumped into the front seat and spun the car around with the third suspect still in the backseat, police said.

As the robbery suspects sped down Lenox Avenue toward the scene of the original robbery, they drove into the Honda Odyssey, which was turning right from West 122nd Street. A street sweeping vehicle was also in the middle of the intersection.

The driver of the Honda, a 55-year-old mom, had to be cut out of her car. The mom and her 15-year-old son were taken to St. Luke’s Hospital, where they were listed in a stable condition.

Sr. Graham was remembered as a “selfless” nun whose entire life was devoted to others.

“She was a Franciscan Handmaid to her toes, in her selfless dedication to serving ‘her children’,” Sister Loretta Theresa Richards, the order’s superior, said in a statement. “She was always trying to make things better for somebody else.”

Sr. Graham’s nursing aide, Patricia Cruz, of Brooklyn, was recovering at Harlem Hospital with bruised kidneys and internal bleeding, her family said.

Cruz asked her family “to pray for her,” and does not yet know that her companion of a decade was killed during the crash, because the family fears it would upset her too much, Cruz’ relatives said.

Cruz’ husband blamed police for setting off the chain of events that injured his wife.

“If they weren’t chasing him, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Candelario Cruz, 58.

New rules for speeding in neighborhoods garner serious fines. As do those for truckers and some of these have learned to drive big trucks from the best Truck driving school.

Another pedestrian injured in the crash, a 26-year old electrician named Steven Phan, was also recovering at Harlem Hospital. Phan’s brother said he was stable and had a broken leg.

One pedestrian refused treatment at the scene.

Ava Arrington, 53, was home in her apartment on Lenox Avenue when she said she heard sirens. Less than five seconds later, she heard the crash.

“It was metal and glass crunching,” she said.

Arrington looked out her window and saw the two smashed cars, along with two people motionless on the ground in the street. She also saw a black cane with a straight handle on the pavement beside them.

“Oh my goodness, it was horrific. I heard people screaming, ‘Oh my God, Oh my God!’” she said. “It looked very, very bad. Nobody was moving.”

“It’s so sad.”

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My Take: No point in saying anything about learn to drive lessons here. family attorneys aside, this poor woman would not have stood a chance going as fast as these guys were. I suspect that she’d have a team of personal injury attorneys and others from across the state clamoring for her case if she’d survived.

New York accounting services firms and every other small business out there needs to be prepared by the way for higher fees for speeding. Not only New York income tax accountants and drivers of all ages, but even elderly drivers will be subject to very stiff fines for speeding and other infractions that used to be handled with a warning.

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Speeders

Got a speeding ticket Ottawa style? If you did and you hit someone, you will most likely want to find and hire a Toronto criminal lawyer as soon as possible. Hitting someone while driving takes a moving violation into criminal offense territory, especially if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Source: PC World
Adobe Systems announced plans to release the final version of Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones but don’t expect to be able to use it right away.

Flash Player 10.1 is designed to offer a consistent user experience across laptops, desktops, tablets, phones and televisions. The player for desktops became available June 10.

Users of phones running Android 2.2 will be the first to get the player, said Anup Muraka, director of technology strategy at Adobe. The trouble is that version 2.2 has so far only been pushed out to review units of one phone model, the Nexus One. All Nexus One phones, Motorola’s Droid and other Android models are expected to get the operating system soon.

Adobe also is releasing the final version of the player to partners including Research In Motion, Palm, Symbian and Microsoft; however, it’s unclear yet which phones currently on the market might get it.

“We have to work with each platform company to figure out which phones can support it,” said Muraka. If existing phones can handle it, Adobe will work with the phone makers to determine how to distribute the player to users.

“We may not see a huge number of these devices available on Tuesday, but the pipeline for Christmas, CES, Mobile World Congress next year is really exciting,” he said. The Consumer Electronics Show and Mobile World Congress are two large conferences early in the year where many phone makers announce new products.

The software can be pushed out to users over the air or it can be made available in application stores where users can choose to download it, he said.

Once software testing services are complete, there are other plans for the player.

It will also be possible for an operating system provider to display a pop-up for users who visit a Web site that requires Flash Player 10.1, explaining that they need the player and letting them download it immediately, he said. That would work similarly to the way computer operating systems allow people to download the most recent Flash Players when they visit sites that require it. listed a number of high-profile companies that support the newest version of the Flash Player including Dell, Samsung, Google, RIM, HTC, Arm, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel and Texas Instruments. Content partners that said they’re happy for the new release include Turner, Viacom, HBO, MSNBC and Photobucket.

Otherwise, Flash Player 10.1 will be built into new phones that may appear by the end of the year or early next, Muraka said.

Flash Player 10.1 for mobile phones will support multitouch, gestures, soft keyboards and other input methods like accelerometers, he said. It will incorporate some other new features aimed at simplifying viewing Web pages on small devices. For instance, double tapping on a Flash object on a page will automatically zoom in on the object, he said.

Still, he cautioned that Flash Player 10.1 doesn’t have loads of new features. “This release is redesigned from the ground up to build a new foundation that not just scales across the Mac, Windows and Linux, but for the first time supports a wide range of mobile and emerging TV platforms,” he said. “While there may not be the usual long list of new features, that foundation is critical to upcoming growth and features coming in future versions.”

Adobe

One company notably absent is Apple, which has publicly derided Adobe and is pushing the next-generation HTML 5 instead. Many content producers have been willing to recreate or format their content for display on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But many haven’t, as is evident in a comment made by Forrester Research analyst Jeffrey Hammond in a blog post about Flash Player 10.1. He tested it on his Nexus One and wrote: “I think it’s great to not have to deal with ‘little blue cubes’ on the sites I visit every day.” Instead of content, iPhone users see blue boxes on pages designed with Flash.

Still, Apple’s stance throws a wrench in Adobe’s strategy. “[Adobe] realized there was an opportunity in the market and they got ahead of the game and positioned themselves to be the cross-platform form factor across mobile and desktop,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC. “They thought it was just a matter of implementing those variations but it turned out it’s not just that. The owners of the platforms like [Apple's CEO Steve] Jobs have to say we’ll use it, and he didn’t,” he said.

However, all of the major platforms except the iPhone are supporting Flash Player 10.1. That means that developers who wish to make their content available to most smartphones will be able to use Flash to cover most devices, creating separate content or applications for iPhone users.

Adobe’s battle with Apple points to the challenges that software makers face in the mobile market, a challenge that not just Adobe faces. “It’s not like in the desktop world where they could do all the work themselves and release it,” said Hilwa. “They have to work hand in hand with the device makers. That’s the nature of mobile software. It’s gated through the device makers so it’s a much more complicated integration story.”

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My Take: I’m no techie junkie, but I have some knowledge of software consulting use. I would love to be able to use my smart phone for much more than a business answering service. I can pay answering services companies to handle my calls, but I pay them to help me watch movies or stream videos on my phone.

Speaking of my phone, have you been through a metal detection security site at the airport recently? I have. My cell phone was confiscated by the metal detector manager, the one in charge of waving the wand over me. I was able to get the phone back once it was opened up and searched, but it was an hour delay and I nearly missed my flight. Be warned: if your smart phone looks like it could be opened and big enough to store something inside, it could be searched.

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Hiring a Lawyer

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Source: Nashville Business Journal

A New York real estate investor has pumped some heavy commercial financing into the Portland, OR area, purchasing five local shopping centers in transactions valued at $90.1 million.

Purchase, N.Y.-based Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. (Nasdaq: ROIC) said Monday it closed a deal to purchase Vancouver Market Center for $11.19 million. The all-cash deal closed June 17.

It also entered a contract to purchase four shopping centers in the greater Portland area for approximately $79 million.

Vancouver Market Center is anchored by an Albertsons grocery store and includes approximately 118,466 square feet. Its overall occupancy rate is 96%.

The deals under contract include:

• Cascade Summit Shopping Center. The 94,924-square-foot shopping center in West Linn is anchored by a Safeway grocery store and is 95.1 percent occupied. The buyer will assume the current $7.2 million loan on the property.
• Heritage Market Center is a 107,471-square-foot retail center in Vancouver and is anchored by a Safeway grocery. It is 94.1 per cent occupied. The $20 million sale includes $8.3 million in cash and assumption of a $11.6 million loan.
• Happy Valley Town Center is a 135,422-square-foot shopping center anchored by new Seasons Market. The center is 89.6 percent occupied. The all-cash price is approximately $40.5 million.
• Oregon City Point is a 33,305 square foot retail center near the entrance to Clackamas Community College. It is 80.8 percent occupied. The all-cash price is $12.1 million.

Retail Opportunity Investments owns and operates shopping centers in densely populated middle- and upper-income markets. Its portfolio includes eight shopping centers with a total of 739,000 square feet.

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My Take: In a time when commercial real estate loans, small business funding, and the high cost of payroll services just to keep the lights on are keeping realtors and investors out of the commercial real estate sector, this is good news. This guy obviously didn’t get a small business loan, and likely doesn’t have to worry about how to cover the costs of payroll solutions or other things small business owners do. But, one thing is for certain, with the rising scrutiny of commercial mortgage loans going on these days, his deal was likely carefully watched by the commercial real estate community and the lending sector. Lets hope it doesn’t fall through. Oregon’s commercial sector needs a shot in the arm.

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Atlanta Diamond Buyers and Versatility

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Source: AFP

Clergy are facing a retirement security crisis: many haven’t planned ahead.

They generally are looked up to by their parishioners as wise and frugal. Their pay, although modest, is enough to get by on. And they typically are provided with housing during their careers.

Yet many find themselves in a financial quandary as they approach or reach retirement, squeezed by challenges that sometimes exceed those of other professionals. Often lacking home equity and a pension, some are struggling to get by and others are staying on the job longer.

The root of the problem is not just limited pay or retirement compensation, according to the Rev. Dr. Bert White, a retired Methodist clergyman and lecturer at Boston University. It’s a lack of financial literacy among people who really need to take control of their personal finances or risk ending up in dire straits.

“Clergy are so focused on the hereafter, but we should know more about planning for life after work,” White says.

The Rev. Richard Matthews, 72, a retired Methodist minister from Gilford, N.H., finds himself in a financial plight he never imagined possible.

After 46 years in the ministry, he receives just $1,200 a month in retirement income, most from Social Security. He is on food stamps and had to turn his thermostat down to 52 last winter so he could afford to pay his heating bill.

Matthews’ annual pay package was about $75,000 when he retired from full-time duty in 2005 — about half in salary and the rest for housing and other benefits. Yet his pension income is only about $300 a month.

Stock investments once worth $200,000 were eroded in the market meltdowns of 2000 and 2008, and he had to use most of what was left to pay off a mortgage after selling his home at a loss this year.

“I went into this profession not expecting to become a wealthy person,” he says. “I went into this expecting that I would be cared for by the church and the congregations that I served, only to find that when we get to the end of the road … I’m no longer cared for. That’s very difficult to swallow.”

Matthews admits to some bitterness at both the church for his meager pension and at “greedy” hedge funds that mismanaged his money. He is moving later this month to Sweden, where he founded and headed a church for 10 years, so he can afford health insurance.

A senior minister at a small to medium-sized U.S. church receives average pay of $70,300, according to a survey by the National Association of Church Business Administration. About 13 percent of respondents reported not receiving any retirement benefits at all, while churches are making very small contributions to the retirement plans of many others, according to the inter-denominational Christian organization .

“As ministers start approaching retirement, they all of a sudden say ‘Wow, I’m behind,’” says Simeon May, the group’s CEO. “Especially if they’re in an independent situation or a small church, they could find themselves in real trouble.”

The problem is particularly acute in New England, where the population is older and most churches are small and struggling financially as congregations shrink. Many are unable to fund pastors’ pensions just as many are nearing retirement.

The Rev. Peter Beckwith, 55, pastor at South Gorham Baptist Church in Gorham, Maine, considers himself an exception to the rule in that his thriving church has an excellent retirement plan. But he says many of his peers effectively receive less than the minimum wage, because their pay package includes money that they must pay out for expenses such as work-related travel and other professional expenses.

Retired clergy in the region and their spouses sometimes have trouble putting food on the table and are dealing with foreclosure and unaffordable medical bills — “some really sad situations,” according to Lisa O’Donoghue, director of clergy family services for the Preachers’ Aid Society of New England.

An aversion to financial matters coupled with a trust in God to take care of things can be counterproductive when it comes to planning for retirement, she notes.

What they need, however is a good retirement calculator. There are plenty of online resources these days, including senior Web sites, dedicated to providing up-to-date information for retiring seniors on everything from how to find reputable visiting physicians to hiring an estate planner. But not all clergy will take advantage of the information, let alone see savings as a necessity until later on in life.

The Rev. John Wimberly, pastor of the Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., is on track to retire in two years at 65 thanks to a good pension and diligent saving. He and his wife even have a second home in Mexico. But a lot of his peers are pushing back retirement or simply are in denial about retirement planning.

“Moderate to progressive clergy in particular tend to look at money like it’s going to tempt us, and become a big problem,” Wimberly says. “Then they get to retirement and they haven’t saved.”

A pervasive attitude toward retirement within the profession has long been that God will take care of it, ministers and others say.

When White was being ordained 40 years ago, his bishop told him “Bert, you won’t ever make any money as a clergyman but you’ll always have a great retirement plan.”

“I said, ‘Oh, really?’” the minister recalls. “He said, ‘Yeah, it’s eternal life after you die.’”

It’s important, though, for clergy to have their earthly affairs in order. White plans to deliver that message at a financial literacy and retirement planning seminar he is organizing on June 23 at the Boston University School of Management.

Their unpreparedness has a ripple effect that extends to the parishioners they counsel, from the pulpit or in private, and beyond the church.

“Clergy people have a profound multiplier effect,” says Zvi Bodie, professor of finance at Boston University, who will be speaking to the clergy about investing. “Everybody goes to them for advice about everything, including finances. So it’s particularly important to make sure that they have basic financial understanding.”

Much like they give counsel, he says, clergy shouldn’t be afraid to seek help with their own retirement security from a financial planner.

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My Take: I’ve worked for a church and I know they are not free to run. Things cost money, including book carts for services. Ditto for kids desks for Sunday school. And of course every church has a staff and they are usually all paid a salary. The young minister or priest may not be thinking about how to pay for that home medical care later on in retirement, but they need to. Church salaries are not among the highest in the world.

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Physician’s Friend

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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

There is a whole new tribe of charitable givers out there, and they are not who you think they are.

They are a new breed of philanthropists coming together on an online site launched this month, an EBay-like portal that auctions people’s skills — juggling, hula-hooping, pie-baking — and connections to raise money for their favorite charities. In its first weeks, allthis.com has drawn do-gooders from across California and a few other states. They are professionals, young people and stay-at-home moms. And although they might not all have the means to write a check to a charity, they can teach you how to roast a perfect chicken or get you a dinner with the prince of Bali.

The offers are as varied as the causes: Learn to speak Punjabi for as little as $200 to help the mentally ill, lunch with Google super-lawyer David Drummond for $10,000 to promote jazz, have your bathroom painted for $25 to aid a volunteer center.

Whoever has placed the highest bid when the timed auction closes wins the prize.

The companies range from makers of San Diego wedding centerpieces and brides maid dresses to companies who pick up wrecked cars and even  truck accident lawyers.

Money collected from bidders is sent directly to the charities, said Paul Weinstein, one of three Internet start-up entrepreneurs who came up with the site idea a year ago. Five percent goes to allthis.com, and if an offer is not fulfilled, he said, all the money is returned to the bidder.

“Everybody has something to give,” said Weinstein, who lives in the Bay Area. “Now you can take whatever you do, whatever you’re good at, and turn it into cash for your favorite charity.”

The idea has inspired nonprofits from San Diego to San Francisco to find out the hidden talents of staff members and volunteers. Most are looking for any way they can to boost revenue in a tough economy with growing needs and diminishing grants. Starting next week, charities that raise at least $500 will be awarded another $500 from the site.

So far, almost 400 auctions have been listed, including some from celebrities including Ben Stiller (who will record a greeting on your voicemail to help rebuild Haiti — starting bid, $200) and Rihanna (who will give you one of her concert corsets to help children in need — starting bid, $150).

It seemed obvious to Salnik, a research and development director for a solar company, what he could offer to help cancer research. He did not spend three years on match.com hunting for a mate for nothing.

So for $200, the Moscow native says, he will show you how to conquer online dating — how to read profiles, hide imperfections and learn women’s tricks. In essence, he will help you score love.

“Or at least someone you can tolerate for an hour or a day,” Salnik said.

South of Los Angeles, Sue Carter, executive director of the Volunteer Center of San Diego, wasted no time mobilizing her troops to make their pitches.

One staffer knew karate. She could teach a women’s self-defense class. Another person had connections in Bali. She could set up dinner at the Peliatan Palace with the prince. (As for getting to Indonesia, that would be up to the winning bidder.) Soon, a belly dancer, a hypnotist, a comedian and a professional football player were on board offering their talents.

As of Friday, seven popular auctions promised to deliver almost $1,000 to the center.

That beat the $1.23 and a few minutes of effort it cost to place each bid online, Carter said. “We thought this was a great twist to get more people to participate.”

Weinstein and his partners have big ambitions. They say they hope the site one day becomes as recognized as EBay and as successful as Bill Gates’ charities. Equipped with a team of about 12 staffers based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, they want the idea to spread beyond California, to go nationwide, with nonprofits getting out the word to volunteers.

Out in Wilmington, N.C., the buzz reached Kathleen O’Neil last week. The 38-year-old marketing consultant was encouraged by a friend not just to donate by bidding but to market her consulting skills on the site.

Surfing through the hodgepodge of listings, O’Neil soon found herself lured in by an auction: A Bay Area artist offered to paint a portrait of any pet, for a starting bid of $75. The money would go to the artist’s local humane society.

O’Neil won the auction, among the first to close on the site, and in six to eight weeks she will have a painting of her 2-year-old, black-and-white whippet, Oliver.

“This was money I planned to spend anyway,” she said. “And now I know it went to a good place.”

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MY TAKE: What a great idea! The next time you spend a bunch of money on San Diego CA wedding chair covers or pay to have your damaged cars towed away, or visit a prom dress store for something your daughter or your niece will likely wear just once, you can at least know that the money spent will be used, if only partially, to aid someone or some organization in need. That goes for you, too Mr. NJ DUI lawyer and you personal injury attorney out there. And ditto for you, Mr. Monmouth County traffic tickets lawyer. You know you have the money to spend, why not spend it in a way that will show you care about your community and the world at large.

OTHER RESOURCES:

SOURC: CNN

Travel + Leisure gives you seven ways to sleep better in your next hotel room.

Go where there are empty rooms

During the economic downturn, certain destinations have had lower occupancy rates, particularly those with high room counts: Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York, Hawaii and Orlando, Florida. “Hotels that can’t sell expensive suites bump people up so they can resell the standard rooms, which are in higher demand,” explains Nicole Hockin, a spokesperson for Hotels.com. Likewise, look to resorts in the off- and shoulder seasons, when fewer suites are booked.

Book the right way

A luxury travel agent who’s affiliated with a network such as Virtuoso or Ensemble Travel can sometimes get you bumped up to the next room category.

Go standby

Hyatt recently partnered with E-standby to allow guests booking on Hyatt.com to pay a small fee — as little as $30 — for the chance at a space-available upgrade. Hilton Worldwide has a similar program.

Be card savvy

At many hotels, booking with a Centurion or Platinum card from American Express (Travel + Leisure’s parent company) can get you a better room, in some cases automatically. Charging everyday purchases on a hotel-affiliated credit card can help you earn upgrades, too — regardless of whether you’re actually staying at the hotel.

Use your connections

Look beyond AAA and AARP memberships to affiliations you might not expect. Lexus and Saks First cardholders are sometimes eligible for upgrades at Fairmont hotels. If you bank with Merrill Lynch, UBS or HSBC, you can often book an upgraded Ritz-Carlton package though the banks’ member benefits programs. Occasionally, hotels partner with airlines in ways that benefit you, too. Business- and first-class passengers on Singapore Airlines flights, for example, get automatic upgrades at Raffles hotels.

Check in later

The later you check in after noon (when most hotels require guests to check out), the better your chances for securing an upgrade, especially if you’re staying only one night. “Later in the day, rooms aren’t likely to be sold anyway,” says travel guru John E. DiScala, founder of JohnnyJet.com. Plus, it’s more likely that housekeeping has turned over rooms.

Be loyal

Many hotel chains give priority to their loyalty program members based on how often they stay at their hotels. Make sure you use your loyalty member number every time you book, particularly at large chains such as Starwood, Omni, and Loews. (See Great Hotel Loyalty Programs for more on loyalty programs.)

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MY TAKE: I’m all for upgrades. Working for a personal injury law firm outside Los Angeles, I don’t get a lot of perks and I work long hours. But when I’m travelling and away from my colleges, who are mostly  personal injury attorneys, I want luxury and I want to relax. I love the ideas offered here and I’m going to try them next time I travel.

One thing I’d like to see less of at hotels is the maids leaving their Rolling tool cart or whatever they are called outside in the hallways. It seems to me that they should put them in the rooms, not leave the service carts out in the halls. I often have found them to be distracting and would like to see fewer of them in hotel hallways.

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Other Resources

iFixes

Playstation repair providers can help you fix a broken iPod, LCD screen or battery. Whether your iPod is on the fritz, your iPod battery is not charging fully or you dropped it and now have a cracked LCD screen, it can be fixed. Ditto for iPhone repair options. Before you buy a new one, see if you can fix the one you’ve got.

Source: AFP

A sea turtle found a waterproof camera in the Caribbean, somehow activated the device, filmed itself and is now a YouTube hot item ticket.

Back in May US Coast Guard agent Paul Schultz found a digital camera in a waterproof case on a beach in Key West, Florida, and posted images he found on its memory chip on the Internet in an attempt to find its owner.

In a video clip dated January 2010 “a turtle came across the camera, and it’s really hard to tell how, but it turns the camera on and recorded itself swimming with the camera,” Schultz told AFP.

“When I saw the video, I thought first that someone was getting attacked by a sea creature,” Schultz said.

“I thought that a diver was getting attacked,” he said. However, he later realized that the camera was just hitching a ride with a sea turtle.

“The last thing the camera owner did was shoot a video underwater, and then it goes right into the next video with the camera turning around in the water,” Schultz said.

The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E43sg-Ytt58.

Schultz eventually found the owner, a Dutch navy sailor who lost the camera when he was diving off the island of Aruba in November.

As the crow flies, Aruba, off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, is some 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) from Key West, Florida.

But the camera likely took a roundabout journey on the Loop Current, which would have taken it from Aruba to the coast of central America, past Belize and the Yucatan peninsula, around the western coast of Cuba, into the Gulf Stream and on to the Florida Keys.

“I’m totally amazed about this,” Schultz said.

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My Take:  Talk about cargo handling gone wrong.  And I don’t mean air cargo security mishaps. This diver really must have been happy to find his camera again and then to get himself a video shot by a sea turtle.  It’s  not that great of a video in terms of content, but the concept behind the thing s pretty good.  It’s a little like a kid at a childcare center got a hold of a video camera and shot the ground, but it’s still pretty fun.

By the way: If you are like most people you know how hard it is to find licensed daycare facilities that keep to their promises and provide good learning environments for young kids.  If you are having difficulty finding one click here for help.

Other Resources: 

Work Space

If you’re garage floor is keeping you from turning your garage into an extra hang-out room, consider replacing your flooring with some great garage tile products.  They come in all sorts of colors and textures now so you can get pretty creative.

Company Gifts
Custom team tee shirts for your clients are pretty cliché.  If you want to make an impact the next time you’re shopping for corporate gifts, do something really unique and very “green” and dedicate a tree in their company’s name.  Click here to link to a great site that can help you out.