The first message that she was dying came by bicycle. Sean Patrick rode up the steep trail on Smuggler Mountain, Aspen, Colorado, on a cool, pre-fall day in 1995. She had spent many summer afternoons biking through the Aspen groves, enjoying the late sun shining patchwork on the trail. Normally energized from the strenuous workout and her daily 15- to 22-mile rides, Patrick was shocked when she became so out of breath that she had to get off the bike to avoid throwing up.

“It was radical,” she says. “I couldn’t get up.” At first she thought she had over trained or suffered from exhaustion from too much traveling. Confirming her ideas, Patrick’s doctor suggested that she slow down and get a hobby. “If you can’t’ slow down,” he said to her, “I can always give you a prescription for Valium.”

After weeks of still not being able to ride or rock climb-her favorite sport-Patrick returned to her doctor, who did blood work, but found nothing obviously wrong. He told her not to worry. It wasn’t until 1997 that she finally found out that she had a rare form of ovarian cancer called Micropapillary Serous Carcinoma. After the late discovery, Patrick endured seven surgeries and, at one point in 2001 after being flown to a hospital via flight for life, doctors told her she wouldn’t live past six weeks.

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Patrick did live, and she says, in large part it was due to her experiences in the mountains. She was strong from regularly biking and lifting weights, and she was mentally balanced after decades of rock climbing. The wilderness and leadership skills she gleaned in places like the Rocky Mountains prepared her for the greatest challenge of her life-surviving that six-week ordeal in the hospital.

While on her deathbed in the ICU, a doctor inserted a blood gas line in her body, and it hurt like hell, she says. “I snapped and got angry, and at that moment I came back into my body.” She likens the feeling to being really scared after a rock climbing fall or when she has been stuck on the side of a mountain on a ledge in a thunderstorm. “I would get scared and then angry, and that would act as a catalyst to get moving. I knew if I did not keep moving in the face of my disease that I would not make it.”

Since her extraordinary recovery six years ago, Patrick continues to move rapidly forward. Not only does she still climb and play in the mountains-she topped out on the Grand Teton after 22 hours of climbing through blizzard conditions in 2004-but she also decided to make it her mission to raise awareness and money for the cancer that almost killed her. “My life’s goal is to prevent as many women as possible from going through what I experienced,” she says.

In the last few years Patrick has helped create an ovarian cancer website for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, and she regularly travels around the country on speaking engagements. Patrick’s crowning achievement is the non-profit HERA Foundation (Health, Empowerment, Research, Advocacy), which she created in 2002. She organizes Climb For Life events around the country and in Mexico, which bring women and men together to rock climb, do yoga, watch climbing slide shows and films, and, most importantly, learn about and raise money for ovarian cancer.

Friend and Climb for Life volunteer, Deanne Pranke says that Patrick’s climbing events have been incredibly inspirational for thousands of people. “Sean has brought ovarian cancer out in the open and empowered many women such as myself to take charge of our health and educate our loved ones and friends about this kind of cancer.”

Adds Patrick, “The need for perseverance forces women to reach deep inside themselves when they feel like they can’t go further. The lessons you learn from climbing and taking care of yourself in the wilderness translate into successful life strategies on a day to day basis.” In fact, Patrick has never seen a sport as empowering as climbing is for women. “Often when I’ve seen women get to the top of a route in the gym, the transformation on their face is phenomenal,” she explains.

——————————————————

Sean Patrick’s wide smile greets the climbers as they stream into the third-floor room of REI Denver, spring 2004. Running her hand through a shock of white blonde hair, she says she’s nervous when speaking publicly, but her voice is steady and vibrant as she talks about ovarian cancer and the HERA Climb for Life REI Road Tour (now in its third year), sponsored by REI, Black Diamond, and HERA. She speaks to the audience with the fluency of someone who possesses a vast knowledge of the disease and the politics surrounding it.

After her diagnosis, Patrick became a “research maven,” reading everything she could find on the subject and hounding doctors all over the country. With her energetic and insistent attitude, she’s penetrated the wall of scientific jargon to understand her disease. What she learned inspired her to reach out to others.

Since its inception, she says, the foundation has provided doctors with research grants; provided seed grants to a number of small communities, which have allowed them to offer immediate assistance to aid patients with travel, hotel rooms, and childcare while they are undergoing treatment; and established awareness programs throughout the United States.

Patrick has also convinced thousands of women and men to work with her. Among those women are famous alpinist Kitty Calhoun and Salt Lake City, Utah, resident Hillary Silberman. Both women worked with Patrick to create a video highlighting the HERA Foundation and ovarian cancer.

According to Silberman, making the video and volunteering for HERA changed her life. Silberman’s mother died in 2003 from ovarian cancer, and she says that she felt helpless in the face of her mother’s illness. “My involvement with HERA gave me the tools to work with to deal with my mother’s death as well as people to connect with who understand where I’m coming from.”

By being involved and being proactive, Silberman explains, she has done something positive for others by presenting them with information. “I have also done something positive for myself by beginning to think about what I needed to do to protect myself and get early detection.”

With cancer affecting most of the female members of her family, Silberman is at a high risk for contracting the disease, although she doesn’t currently have it. Her nurse practitioner tried to convince her not to worry, but Patrick and the Climb for Life events convinced Silberman to follow through on her own to seek the medical services she needs for early detection. “The feeling of strength, perseverance and tenaciousness that climbing engenders made me not give up when professionals were telling me not to worry.”

——————————————————

As with most female-specific diseases, says Patrick, ovarian cancer has typically been ignored by the medical industry. Despite the fact that it kills women of all ages and more women than all the other gynecological cancers combined, many doctors are ignorant of its symptoms and think the disease affects only the elderly. This, explains Patrick, partially results from the medical field’s traditional focus on men and male-specific diseases.

For example, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that “although coronary heart disease (CHD) causes more than 250,000 deaths in women each year, much of the research in the last 20 years on CHD has either excluded women entirely or included only limited numbers of women.”

Additionally, doctors treat women different than men in hospitals. According to a fall 2001 study published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, “women’s pain reports are taken less seriously than men’s, and women receive less aggressive treatment than men for their pain.” Also, women were “more likely to have their pain reports discounted as ‘emotional’ and therefore, ‘not real.’”

“I have had several experiences with this kind of dismissive treatment by both male and female doctors,” says Patrick. “It is a flaw in how medicine is taught-women complain, men don’t, so they take men’s complaints more seriously. To get the best treatment, you have to find a doctor-male or female (one is not better than another in being more empathetic)-that sees you as a person and not a statistical group.”

Although Patrick seeks to change the way doctors view ovarian cancer and other women-specific diseases, she believes it’s more imperative to encourage women to take control of their own health. Ovarian cancer is not a silent killer, she says, “the disease has symptoms, and it’s important that women are made aware of what they are. Women who go to the doctor with gastrointestinal symptoms must make sure that ovarian cancer is ruled out.”

Through climbing, Patrick believes that women can be taught to stand up for themselves. Not only do these events teach women self-reliance, but they are also “places where we can turn our passion for climbing into a passion for making a difference.”

“I think success in climbing no matter what level you climb at-5.4 to 5.14-translates to successful life strategies,” Patrick says. “I want women who are empowered by the mountains to take this back into everyday life, and as it relates to the medical community, I want them to trust their intuition despite their doctor’s contention that they may not have a problem. In climbing and in life, trust yourself.”

For more information on ovarian cancer and the HERA Foundation, please visit the HERA Foundation Website at www.theherafoundation.org. Climb For Life events are held regularly around the country. The next 2007 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration has started.

Lizzy Scully
Writer
lizzy@girlsed.org

To find out more about registering or volunteering for the June 15-17, 2007 event, please visit: http://www.climb4lifeco.kintera.org/.

There are a variety of reasons to travel. It can be to relax, to have fun, or simply to have a change of pace. Traveling can also be about relationships. Traveling with a companion/lover is often viewed as the best way to see new things as you have dedicated time for one another. But what if you aren’t in a relationship?

While traveling alone has its advantages, the truth is that traveling without your honey often just doesn’t cut it. And finding a holiday romance while on vacation generally doesn’t happen, so you end up not traveling at all.

=======================

Your concerns might also be larger than not just having a travel companion/lover. In the selection of one’s life-mate department, you say you dropped the ball? And it turned out to be a major disillusionment, as you couldn’t just simply turn around and get another relationship?

You went through endless angst replaying the minutiae of what she said and what you said. It was depressing. Also depressing is the realization that getting “good” at relationships is like anything else: it requires practice — practice that is often in short supply.

=======================

There’s a solution for the problems of not having a travel companion, not being in a current relationship, and not getting the needed practice at relationships. It’s called Thailand. And thrown in as a bonus, you also get tales to regale both friends and strangers with.

Think of Thailand as an accelerated relationship course. Within a space of just a few days you can find yourself going from a night of fast sex to having a full-blown girlfriend. It’s not unusual that over a span of, say, one or two weeks (or even less!) you connect with a girl as you have with no other girl before; that you may very well be having the time of your life.

If relationship experiences are what you desire, Thailand is hard to beat. In Thailand you are king. Screw up your relationship? Not great but not a disaster either. You can get solace the next day (actually even sooner than that).

=======================

For a modest cost, you can have a holiday that is especially memorable, perhaps even life-changing. Not only can you have all the girls you ever dreamed about, you can have a great time. Be it dancing, drinking, looking at sexy girls, sharing camaraderie, or relaxing at an open-air bar playing pool while having a sweet young thing cooing over you and ministering to your needs by applying cool moist towels to your hot neck and fevered brow.

Have experiences you’ve read about only happening to others in works of fiction. The difference this time though, is that you’re the main character. For real. And you don’t need to be a young stud muffin or have charismatic charm (it certainly doesn’t hurt to have these qualities, but it isn’t necessary). You can simply be you. The only real requirement is for you to want to have a good time. You will be surprised to find just how far a ready smile will take you.

=======================

Thailand is all about having fun — a place where every night is Saturday night. You may even discover a new you, that you are really an extrovert at heart; that you can say hello to a perfect stranger and receive a civil reply (This, from other fellow travelers. As for the girls, they will be far more than merely civil…)

What is amazing is the different level of attention you receive over in Thailand. In the West, you might go to a club for the evening. You approach girls or they approach you, but half of the time you either don’t click or you don’t find them attractive. If you do find them attractive then you might swap numbers and talk for awhile or, if you’re in especially good form that night, take them home, have sex, and that’s it.

=======================

The girls in Thailand actually want to please, they want to massage you, they want to interact with the emphasis on having fun. I know what you’re thinking, of course you’re going to get attention, these girls are after your money and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it whether your 22 or 72. Be that as it may, it’s not that simple.

Women’s lib hasn’t made it over to Thailand. The women aren’t loud or brash; they are feminine and attentive. Treat your girl with respect and attention, be aware of face and of what’s important to your girl, and she will not be able to do enough for you.

She will put toothpaste on your toothbrush and wash your back. In bed she will wrap herself around you. Maybe even more than that. She might not allow you to put food on your plate in a buffet, insisting on doing it for you. Or she might trim your already-shortened fingernails and clean your ears (you haven’t lived until you have truly wax-free ears). She wants you to understand that she appreciates you. Thai women take care of their men and it’s intoxicating.

Basically, the way things work with the girls is that if you give them what they want — and we’re not talking money here - if you are fun, entertaining, and understand face, the girls will repay you many times over. On the other hand, if you view them as whores — well, how do you think you’ll be repaid?

Or, to put it another way, if you pay in the coin of the realm (i.e., face), you’ll be richly rewarded with squeals of delight.

The sum of what Thailand offers is hard to beat: a rich, complex adventure fueled by randomness. Sit back and enjoy the ride. One of the many nice things about Thailand is that it is entirely “Up to you” (you’ll hear this phrase a lot). Many men, either by intent or by chance, end up having relationships to some degree with the women they meet. It’s easy to the point of being natural.

Get ready for a great ride.

http://www.whythailand.net

Have you ever entered a writing contest? Have you ever placed in the top 3? Or won the whole contest outright? Maybe you’ve thought about entering a contests but been too afraid to try. Or maybe you didn’t know where to start looking.

Well, writing contests can be a valuable tool for aspiring writers. They can be a great way to get feedback on your writing from external readers/judges/editors/agents. And they can be an equally great way to start building a writing resume, to begin promoting one’s name as a published author.

But where to start? How to choose the right contest for you? How to prepare the perfect entry?

Here are a few things to keep in mind, both before you enter a contest and after you receive the judges’ final decision.

1. Choose contests based upon their end results. Consider what you’re hoping to get out of entering a contest. Is it prize money? Is it publication? Is it the chance to get your work in front of an editor or agent? Or is it simply the chance to have an external reader review your work? Think about your end goal, and choose your contests appropriately. The Writing Show First Chapter Contest awards 750 words of feedback from industry professionals. The FirstGlance Films Screenplay Competition sends its top 3 winners to be read by Hollywood producers. The 2007 Marjorie Wilson Best Poem contest awards $2500.00 to its top winner. You get the idea.

2. Choose contests for which your work qualifies. This seems like a no-brainer, but you might be surprised. Don’t enter a 10K word short story into a flash fiction contest. Don’t enter a novel into a screenplay writing contest. Don’t enter your paranormal erotica opening into a contest run by Avalon (a “sweet” publisher) just because you see the word “romance” in their guidelines.

3. Choose contests for which the odds are in your favor. This one’s a little harder to figure out, but if you do a little digging, you can uncover contests for which either the number of entries is limited, improving your odds, or the number of prizes given includes more than the top 3. The Short Story Award for New Writers, for example, is a contest open only to writers whose fiction has never appeared in a publication with a circulation over 5,000. The WOW-Women on Writing Quarterly Contest names 3 top winners, 7 runners-up, and 25 honorable mentions…and every one of those writers receives a prize and a mention on the WOW website.

Once you’ve chosen a contest to enter, how do you increase your chances of winning or placing?

1. Follow all the rules. Carefully. If they want 3 copies of your opening chapters, make sure to include 3. If they ask you to secure the pages using a binder clip, don’t use a rubber band. Make sure you’ve put the information they want into the header or footer of each page. If they ask for a SASE, make sure to include enough postage to cover the costs of returning your entries. Also, check their rules for deadlines: most will say the entry must be postmarked by a certain date, but others will say the entry must be received by a certain date. There’s a difference!

2. Revise, revise, revise. Before submitting your entry, make sure it’s your best work. Read over as many times as it takes. Share with your writers’ groups or critique partners to get objective feedback. Don’t let careless errors undermine your chances of winning.

3. Read prior winning entries. Many organizations will include the top winners on their websites. A winning entry in one short story contest might look very different from a winning entry in another.

A few last thoughts on writing contests:

Consider the judges’ feedback carefully. If you can expect comments from the contest judges, be careful how you read those comments. Don’t just take the positive ones that praise your brilliance as a writer and disregard the rest. Sometimes the negative/constructive criticism can be just as helpful in revealing areas of our writing that need work. However, if 3 or 4 judges from a couple different contests tell you that your dialogue is fresh and realistic, and 1 judge tells you that your dialogue is stilted and untrue, you may want to take that single comment with a grain of salt. Most of all, don’t let contest feedback get you down. Remember that these judges are people, with their own values and biases and opinions, just like you. And speaking of that…

Sign up to judge a contest. Really! Many local writers’ groups run contests, with their members doing first-reads on entries. You do not necessarily need to be a published author, or past winner, to judge. All you have to do is read with a careful eye and open mind. By judging, you get a glimpse of the other side. You learn about how other writers put entries together. You discover how difficult it is to put a number on certain elements of a creative endeavor. And ultimately, you become a better writer yourself for the experience.

Don’t let contests keep you from finishing your work. Many novel-writing contests, especially in the romance genre, ask for the first 3 chapters. As a result, it becomes easy to polish those first 3 chapters over and over again, until you have a near-perfect entry. But what happens to the rest of the novel? What if you win a contest, and the final judge, your dream agent, requests the full manuscript for review? What if all you have are the first 3 chapters? Unfortunately, I know a few authors who have turned into “contest junkies.” They become obsessed with the idea of entering as many contests as they can, and they often final or win because they’ve put so much time into their entry. However, they have no complete works to speak of. Ideally, writing contests are a means to an end, a way to motivate you to keep writing while giving you some feedback along the way.

Good luck!

Allie Boniface
Author of ONE NIGHT IN BOSTON
http://www.allieboniface.com
http://www.allieboniface.blogspot.com

This article will give you a few nuggets of information related to marketing your business using Guerrilla
tactics.

As a new business owner, one of the first things on your list of priorities will be how to best market your product to consumers who will use, enjoy, and tell others about it. As with most aspects of any business, there are many avenues to take. Unfortunately, many business owners take a wrong turn in terms of the way they approach potential customers.

It costs them valuable time, wasted energy, unnecessary stress, and often large amounts of cash they can’t afford. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial to find the best marketing system from the beginning.

I would like to introduce you to Guerrilla Marketing 101. The benefits are much too numerous to even
mention in this short communication. One aspect I will speak on briefly is the basics of planning your
initial marketing strategy.

You have probably heard of this kind of marketing but only in the context of being mentioned with big companies.

You already know how vital that is. So let me quickly give you just a few tips right from Guerrilla Marketing
101 itself. When it comes to your business, there are some major things you will need to consider when
planning your marketing campaign.

-Location is something you’ll definitely need to think about if you’ll be running a business outside of
your home. Parking space, walk-in customers, and ease of access to other shopping areas is key. If your
business is web based from home, is your website search engine optimized? Does it rank high enough to
be found and is your website user friendly? Again, all things to contemplate.

-What will your target market be? What other kinds of businesses or individuals will most likely use your
product?

-The nature of your product will also play an important role in the way you’ll need to market your business.

-How is your product unique from others? How can it be best represented as being distinctly different from competitors?

These are only a few points discussed in this very unique marketing system. Your competition is not going to wait for you to learn these marketing skills first. Don’t sit on this information and let them beat you out. You have nothing to lose but profits. Make sure you really digest this information so you have a firm grasp of the concepts!

You can get more quality informations in this 5-part minicourse “How To Formulate A Successful Internet Marketing Strategy”. http://www.revolutionarymarketingstrategies.com

What is a dry drunk, and the ‘dry drunk syndrome’? as it is sometimes called? It can best be described as someone who fits one of two conditions. The first is someone who has given up drinking and drugging and not made any internal or emotional changes, they stay the same but the substance use has stopped. Or in the second case what was once someone abstinent and on a progressive path of recovery has slowly returned to chaotic and unrealistic thinking.

Being active in your addiction sets up many trains of thought, attitudes, feelings, and actions that are problematic. Simply removing the alcohol or drugs without changing these underlying factors will produce a dry drunk syndrome. The dry drunk really refers to a condition and not the person. It is important to recognize a reversion back to our old ways of thinking and acting, or lack of progress in moving forward in recovery.

The dry drunk can be a precursor to the beginnings of relapse, the AA Big Book describes this condition as being “restless, irritable, and discontented”. This set of attitudes can apply to anyone who is chemically dependent, or even those were not. Here are some of the attitudes common with the dry drunk syndrome.

Grandiosity - Grandiosity basically means a return to a self-centered, the world revolves around me attitude. In 12 Step literatures this is the concept of being “self-centered in the extreme”. It does not have to necessarily mean that I believe I am the best; it can also be seeking attention through playing the victim or sitting on the pity pot.

Impulsivity - A common attitude or observable behavior of people with addiction problems is poor impulse control. We tend to do what we want when we want, with little regard for self harm or hurting others around us. Impulsivity can be linked with grandiosity to engage in behaviors designed to make us the center of attention.

Being judgmental - This is a very destructive attitude for people in recovery. When we judge a person as being better than or less than, we are setting up a situation where we inflate our egos feeling better than other people. On the other hand if we judge ourselves to be on the short end we can feel bitter and generate low self-esteem. Being judgmental is a low self-esteem generator.

Complacency - This is not only an attitude of somebody in dry drunk syndrome, but is a red flag warning sign of someone who is well into the relapse process. An important facet of being in active recovery is just that, being active, and moving forward. It is not how fast you are going but rather the direction in which you are headed. If you become lazy or disinterested and stop being proactive about your recovery, the natural to a tendency is to fall back into addictive behaviors. Your re-engagement in them is just a short step away.

Once you are lured into any of these attitudes, they start to affect how you think. Once your thinking is affected and you start to buy into self-centered thoughts, chances are you’ll engage in the actions stemming from these self-centered thoughts.

Here are some destructive patterns and actions that can result from dry drunk thinking:

1. We become restless and irritable and discontent.

2. We become bored, dissatisfied, and easily distracted from productive tasks.

3. Our emotions and feelings get listless and dull, nothing excites us anymore.

4. We start to the engage in the euphoric recall that is yearning for the good old days of active using and for getting the pain and shame of use.

5. We start to engage in magical thinking we get on realistic and fanciful expectations and dreams.

6. The last thing we want you is engaged in introspection to improve ourselves.

7. We start to become unfulfilled and have the feeling that nothing will ever satisfy our yearning or fill the hole in the soul.

Looking back at the list of attitudes and thought distortions listed above, it is easy to see how the dry drunk syndrome is simply nothing more then reverting back to the way it was when we were active in our use. If you are starting to notice some of the attitudes discussed creeping back into your life, is target time to start paying attention to the possibility of relapse and start turning your life in sobriety and recovery around. The dry drunk syndrome is a bright red flashing warning sign for relapse.

Pick up your Free Recovery Rolodex, Over 88 pages of self help and recovery tips, resources and links to enhance your life in addiction recovery.The author, Bill Urell MA.CAAP-II, is an addictions therapist at a leading drug and alcohol rehab. He teaches healthy life styles and life skills. Join our growing community. Tell your story! Visit: http://www.AddictionRecoveryBasics.com/

So what are the most popular convertible baby cribs? First of
all, you need to know what a convertible crib is. A convertible
crib is a crib that converts into a toddler bed and then to a
full size bed.

One thing that makes convertible cribs popular is the different
styles. There are many different styles from the traditional
Jenny Lind to the sleigh style of the Ellis 4 in 1.

One popular feature is the storage drawer under the bed. I don’t
know about you, but when I had my babies, we received a lot of
stuffed animals and blankets. This drawer is perfect for them or
anything else that needs stored.

Most of the convertible cribs have 3 to 4 position mattress
support so the mattress can be adjusted with your babies’ growth.

Convertible cribs also come in different finishes to suit your
liking. From natural to cherry, and the ever popular white. The
finishes are all non-toxic so you know your baby will be safe
while they are sleeping.

Other convertible cribs come with a changing table that can be
converted into a night stand. This is very convenient for those
who do not have a lot of space in the nursery.

All the convertible cribs are safety compliant and meet all the
requirements. You can be assured that your baby is safe in
these cribs.

When looking at cribs, a convertible crib is an excellent choice
as it grows with your child and starts from being “their” most
popular convertible crib to “their” most popular full size bed.

Are you looking for a baby crib? Learn more about the most
popular convertible baby cribs as well as other
cribs for your new bundle of joy at
http://www.bestbabycribsonline.com

Parents know that it can sometimes be difficult to find quality activities for their children. You can take them to the zoo, take them to the playground or take them to the local Chuck E Cheese. These activities are great but if you are looking for something different to do you should try taking your kids to the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum. Its a great family friendly place where your kids can actually learn. Keep reading and learn a little more about it.

The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum provides its visitors with a place where they can learn through the use of interactive hands on exhibits. The best way for children to learn is by having fun and this museum does a great jog of entertaining your children. One of the exhibits that they will love is the “Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles” exhibit. It allows kids to play with lights and shapes in a world of bubbles. It is a very popular attraction. Another popular exhibit is the “Bees” exhibit. Here kids can see into the lives of bees. They get to watch as bees live their lives making honey, beeswax and taking care of the queen. Its an interesting and educational exhibit. This just scratches the surface of the exhibits at the museum. There are many more permanent ones and the museum also plays host to traveling and temporary exhibits. This means that there is almost always something new to see or do. So if you have some extra time to spend in Grand Rapids with your children take them to the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum.

If you would like to visit the museum you can find it at 22 Sheldon Ave in Grand Rapids. For more information or to learn about current hours and exhibits you can call the information line at 616-235-4726. Have fun.

Go to the authors website to learn about carpet cleaning companies in Grand Rapids. Learn about your local cleaners.

To maintain high success in your Do It Yourself Auto

repairs, you need to develop some right attitude, which

should be your guiding principles. Learn the ultimate

seven abilities you need for an enduring auto repair

success.

Position Yourself For Success
Most problems and failures encountered by car owners in

Do It Yourself auto repairs come as a result of not

identifying their own weakness and work upon them to

prepare themselves adequately for auto repair success.

The seven points below serves as the ultimate abilities

every car owner must possess to achieve constant Do

It Yourself auto repair success.

1. Cast away Fear:


This will go a long way to

solve a lot of problems you encounter as a Do It

Yourselfer. Fear comes as a result of ignorance, cast it

away by familiarizing yourself thoroughly with your car

through your owner’s and repair manuals. The more you know the more confident you become.



2. Avoid Procrastination:

Success in Do It Yourself

auto repairs will actually come by you picking your

tools and start working. Don’t wait to be motivated,

just start after adequate and careful planning, always

follow your manual as a guide.

3. Be Focused:


Don’t be distracted, if you want

to carry out Do It Yourself auto repairs on your car

break for example, don’t end up working on your car

radiator, or any other part after adequate preparation.

Plan your work and follow your plan. Your ability to

focus well on a particular problem is a virtue that will

help you get problems solved quickly.

4. Be Teachable:

No man is an island, for your Do

It Yourself auto repairs success to be established, you

need to learn from others; friends, neighbors, auto

repair sites, mechanics, etc.

Your ability to be able to receive knowledge from

others and utilize it will be of a good help.



5. Learn From Your Mistakes:

Mistakes are

inevitable in Do It Yourself auto repair works, but

they can be exploited to bring success. Always study your

mistakes, analyze them and see how you can turn them

around for success.

You can also learn from the mistakes, failures and

experiences of others, you can avoid their pitfalls and

achieve success faster.
Read testimonies, observations,

reports and remarks of other car owners as regards their

own Do It Yourself auto repairs in auto repair sites and

learn.

6. Persevere:


Whatever happens, don’t give up.

You may not get it right at first but with perseverance

you cannot but get it, all you need is the right

information, the right help.

Perseverance will develop in you the ability of

getting solution to a particular problem at all cost

without quitting.

Every Do It Yourselfer need it.

7. Update Your Knowledge:

Finally, keep yourself

up to date on the latest in Do It Yourself auto

repairs, especially as regards your type of car, read

ezines, register with quality auto repair sites, get

latest info from your car manufacturer, etc.

All of the points above will work together to make you a

seasoned Do It Yourselfer. And you get to the point

where Do It Yourself auto repairs become almost a

second nature.

Right attitudes bring right results.

Tope Olawumi is a seasoned auto infopreneur.

Visit his site at http://www.all-about-auto-part.com/Do-It-Yourself-Auto-Repair.html for more info on; how to be a better Do It Yourselfer, and how to
carry out successful Do It Yourself auto repairs.

You can also subscribe to his blog at http://www.all-about-auto-part.com/Auto-part-blog.html

Houston Fannie Mae mortgages are a good choice for many financing needs. Fannie Mae is a private company that was created to insure a good supply of mortgage funds. Recent changes in the mortgage industry may result in more importance for the programs Fannie Mae offers.

The first change is for the sub-prime mortgage market. For a time sub-prime lenders were very lenient in providing loans for customers with credit problems. Home values were rising rapidly so lenders could usually recover loans even if the customer defaulted. Now a cooling home market and increased foreclosure rate has resulted in a big pull-back in sub prime loans. Lenders are now asking for more down and better scores for these loans. Fannie Mae has an “Expanded Approval” program to help borrowers that have had credit problems. The rate is usually much better than typical sub-prime rates. Those that already have a sub prime loan at a high rate might benefit by refinancing to this type of loan.

Another area that some mortgage lenders are tightening up on is for zero down and small down payment loans. At on time almost everyone could get a zero down loan. Now many lenders are asking for 5% or more down, even with good credit. Fannie Mae has programs like the “Texas MyCommunity Mortgage” and the “Flexible 97 & 100″ for customers that want a zero or small down payment mortgage.

A number of other programs are also available. More information is available at our Houston Fannie Mae mortgage site. Texas residents can also call our office at 281-537-7800.

Texas Capital Mortgage - Low rates for good and bad credit loans. http://Texas-Capital-Mortgage.com

Also visit our reverse mortgage site at http://Reverse-Mortgage-Houston.com

For someone who fears sharks or whose life is affected by Selachophobia (uncontrollable fear of sharks), the idea of fishing sharks into extinction may seem like a good idea. On the other hand, marine biologists have good reasons to disagree with such a desire. Here’s why!

When you think about sharks, the Jaws theme song haunts your mind, shark movies come back to life before your eyes and articles on shark attacks put you in the panic mode. Your adrenaline level is high and your heartbeat is rising at alarming speed. The last thing on your mind is about saving sharks. After all, what is the use of keeping these killing machines around? Right?

Wrong! In fact, by forcing sharks into extinction, you are basically sentencing life in the ocean to a death sentence. Why? Simple, predators such as sharks are needed to keep the balance of the ecosystem up to par. With the absence of sharks, the ecosystem will be crashing and will never recover.

A good example of this is the current over-fishing of sharks on the east coast of the United States. That situation is directly responsible for the alarming diminution of scallops, which happen to be a favorite delicacy for rays. Since sharks are rays natural predator, the fact they are victims of over-fishing means that the population of rays grows fast. This means that more rays eat more scallops but the scallop population can keep up for the demand.

If the over-fishing of sharks continues, soon other species will be threatened by extinction. One thing leading to the other, the ecosystem will be destroyed. So now that you are aware of this piece of information, can we get rid of all sharks without problems resulting from it or is it another shark tale? Well, obviously, it is another one of these shark tales.

Another one of the shark tales is the one that says that all sharks are man eaters. When people usually think about sharks, they think of shark species such as: the great white shark, the bull shark, the tiger shark and the blue shark. And when you consider that they are not only carnivorous but also have been involved in shark attacks on humans, it can be scary. But when you consider that these species are a few amongst the 350 shark species, of which 80% are either too small or unable to make humans part of their meal, the fear gradually subsides leaving its spot to facts instead of another one of these shark tales.

When all things considered, 56 fatal shark attacks on an annual basis is horrific but you have more chances to die in a car accident and we don’t destroy all vehicles. So is it really fair to wish upon the extinction of all sharks? Would you be willing to face the consequences of such an action on the ecosystem? Now you be the judge!

My name is Sylvie Leochko. I am fascinated by sharks so I have decided to share the information that I have collected through research with people on the Internet. I you wish to learn more about sharks and other sharks tales, I invite you to browse this page: http://www.sharks.findoutnow.org/shark-tales.html .