Amy Currioman

Over the years I’ve learned some interesting things about tricks restaurants use on their customers. A long time ago I read some literature about how different colors effect different moods. For example, red, yellow and orange are “high energy” colors and are often used in fast food restaurants because the restaurants know that those colors will encourage the customers to eat quickly and leave (making room for more customers) and the “high end” restaurants will often use “calming” colors such as blues and greens to encourage their customers to linger longer (perhaps order more alcohol which is their big money maker) and order dessert, relaxing and enjoying their meal and the company they are keeping.

I was just reading an article on the Time.com website about “what makes you eat more food” and was surprised to read that one of the things that makes you eat more food in restaurants is that most restaurants turn their thermometers to cooler temperatures. When the body is cold, a natural reaction to warm up is to eat more food. So the restaurants are trying to get you to eat more food by making their customers cold!

Guest post by Dee Johnstone

I was really glad when the white lab coat that I ordered from the http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ arrived yesterday. I had ordered for my son to  wear as part of a Pokemon costume at the Pokemon tournaments that he has planned for the kids where he works.

He works at a residential school for “at risk children” ranging in age from six to fourteen, and he has a small group of kids assigned to him. They have a variety of issues (which is why they are there) but he has had really good luck getting the kids to settle down and learn to cooperate and follow rules by teaching them how to play Pokemon and holding tournaments once a week.

Every kid that plays wins cards, but the ones who win the games get extra cards. The kids love it. I’m really glad that he has found a way to incorporate his love of games into his work and that it is helping the kids to learn life skills.

When I was a lot younger I decided to invest in the stock market. The reason that I decided to do that was because my employer was offering a 401K plan where the money was invested solely in the company stock. Several years later I decided on a whim that I wanted to buy Disney Stock because I had just gone to Disney World and had a great time. I wanted to own a piece of Disney! At the time Disney Shareholders got special discounts (not anymore!) and a really nice magazine that came out a couple of times a year (again, not anymore!)

And a few years after that I read in the local newspaper that a Wal-Mart was going to build in a nearby town and the Motley Fool column in the newspaper suggested that Wal-Mart stock would be a good investment.  So I bought some Wal-Mart stock.  Not a lot, but I still bought some.

For the most part, the stocks that I have purchased have done relatively well, but a couple of months ago I met a financial advisor that suggested that I take some of my 401K money that was largely in the stock market and roll it over into an IRA that is full of annuities.  I really did not even understand how annuities work, but he sat down with me for about an hour and explained them, showed me some great Annuity Rates and convinced me that moving some of my money into annuities would be a smart thing to do at this point in time. I sure hope he’s right!

I frequently wonder what’s going to happen with the travel industry. I get the distinct impression that more people are struggling financially and are therefore less likely to travel simply because of that one factor. In addition to their financial struggles I am frequently exposed to news articles about how many people are feeling that the extra security measures taken by TSA are overzealous and inappropriate. Passengers are asked to walk through the special screening machine that basically lets the TSA agent see what you look like naked and a lot of people are unhappy with that. Others feel that there negative health consequences to be exposed to whatever radiation is used to create those images.

And I’m pretty frequently seeing/hearing news articles about particular passengers that have been upset over measures taken by TSA.  For example one woman was really upset that she was forced to remove her Breast Prosthesis; another woman was upset that her five year old child was patted down by an agent. I can understand all of these people being upset; I would be upset too.In But the fact is that the terrorists are crazy people and they will use children and women as suicide bombers and I think that’s going to hurt the travel industry for many years to come.

Guest post by Sandra Ouellette

I think that it is absolutely amazing how much technology has changed just in my own lifetime!  When I was in high school, personal computers were a thing of the future, and the Internet was probably still a gleam in some genius’s eye.  When I was looking at going to college, my parents refused to let me go to the college of my choice – they wanted me to live at home.  The college I wanted to go to was a five hour commute, one way!  Back then a girl needed her parent’s consent to go to college!  Needless to say, I didn’t get to go to the college I wanted to go to, and could not get the degree I wanted.

Oh, how things have changed since then!  Anyone can get access to many different University Degrees Online without any fear of commuting, or whether they have to live at home or on campus!  My fifty-year-old brother-in-law just got his Master of Public Health degree last spring, getting the degree from WaldenU.edu,  I’m proud of him for continuing his education on into his middle aged years!