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"Is Your Computer Killing You? Ten ways that the computer can hurt your body, mind, and the environment, and what you can do to minimize the damage," by Lee Hamrick InformationWeek, January 19, 2006 --- http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177101554 

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How does the Vatican stand on this new device for birth control?
A study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don't. "If there's no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles," said Serenella Salomoni whose team of psychologists questioned 523 Italian couples to see what effect television had on their sex lives. On average, Italians who live without TV in the bedroom have sex twice a week, or eight times a month. This drops to an average of four times a month for those with a TV, the study found.
"TV in the bedroom halves your sex life - study," Yahoo News, January 16, 2006 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060116/od_nm/sex_tv_dc
Jensen Comment
If couples cannot agree on what shows to watch, it really helps birth control to have separate bedrooms with separate TV sets.

Correlation is not causation
But correlation does not necessarily imply causation. It may be that people with humdrum sex lives need something to do in the bedroom, so they get a TV set. Or perhaps there is a complex web of cause and effect: As people get older, their sex drives diminish, while at the same time their wealth expands, so they can afford more consumer electronics.
Carol Muller, Opinion Journal, January 17, 2006
Jensen Comment
The kid hides Playboy under the mattress while his poppa hides an iPod under the pillow in the next room.  All this while momma is watching the Italian equivalent of the Leno and Letterman shows.

Here's what happened (in Ireland) long before television and pubs were invented
The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland. His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research. "It's another link between profligacy and power," Bradley said. "We're the first generation on the planet where if you're successful you don't (always) have more children."
"Scientists discover most fertile Irish male," Sify News, January 18, 2006 --- http://snipurl.com/FertileMale
Jensen Comment
It is also rumored that a lot of Texas Aggies can be traced back to a black sheep in the family.

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The Playboy Bunny --- Literally
British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases.
"Stem cell experts seek rabbit-human embryo," PhysOrg, January 13, 2006 --- http://weblog.physorg.com/news4436.html

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"Protests Put Netflix Settlement On Hold," by Caroline E. Mayer, The Washington Post, January 18, 2006; Page D01--- http://snipurl.com/NetFlixSettlement

A proposed class-action settlement involving Netflix customers may be rewritten in response to complaints that the agreement does little for consumers while rewarding the company and the lawyers who filed the suit.

A hearing over the $4 million settlement had been scheduled in California Superior Court today but was postponed for a month.

Plaintiff attorneys, who were slated to receive $2.5 million in the proposed settlement, said the delay enables both sides to review more than 50 objections, including one by the Federal Trade Commission and another by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a national public-interest law firm. Netflix Inc. declined to comment on the delay.

In the past few years, both the FTC and the trial lawyers group have been actively protesting class-action settlements that bring little value to consumers, usually coupons with little monetary value, but pay off handsomely for lawyers.

The settlement stems from a September 2004 lawsuit on behalf of more than 6 million former and current customers. The lawsuit accused Netflix of misleading consumers by promising DVD delivery within one business day after an order was processed. In reality, the lawsuit said, it would often take as long as four to six business days for customers to receive requested DVDs. That meant customers could watch fewer videos than promised under Netflix's monthly membership plans, which allow customers to have only a certain number of DVDs checked out at one time. The most popular plan, at $17.99 a month, allows customers to check out three DVDs at a time. Once a DVD is returned by post-paid mail, Netflix sends out a new one.

The lawsuit also alleged that customers who were heavy users, those who viewed and returned their movies quickly, received lower delivery priority.

Continued in article

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Big Student is Watching Your Every Move

"The New Class Monitors," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, January 18, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/18/ucla

In a move that some professors see as a new low in efforts to monitor their classroom activities, a conservative group is offering students at the University of California at Los Angeles money to tape lectures and turn over materials distributed by professors.

While several conservative groups invite students at various colleges to file reports about professors, these students have not been paid. Faculty members at UCLA said that the pay may violate the intellectual property rights of professors — and that the tactic is an attempt to intimidate scholars.

“Paying students to inform on professors is right out of the Stalinist playbook,” said John McCumber, a professor of Germanic languages at UCLA who is among the faculty members who have already been criticized on UCLAprofs.com, the Web site offering to pay for reports on faculty members.

The Web site is a project of the Bruin Alumni Association, which is working to encourage alumni of UCLA to hold back their donations to protest the actions of liberal professors. The association has been working for several months — sending thousands of booklets to UCLA alumni and compiling a list of the “Dirty Thirty,” those professors it finds most objectionable. Scholars at the top of the list earn five power fists in the group’s ranking system.

While there are similar groups of conservative alumni at other campuses, the offers to pay students — which started less than a week ago — sets this effort apart and worries experts on academic freedom.

“Asking students to spy is utterly repugnant,” said Jonathan Knight, director of the Department of Academic Freedom and Governance at the American Association of University Professors. “It’s hard to conceive of a practice more unlikely to obtain accurate, useful, reliable information about what happens in a classroom than having to pay students for the information.”

Andrew Jones, founder and president of the Bruin Alumni Association, said that his approach to paying students would protect professors from false information. “I felt we needed to professionalize the process” of gathering information about classroom presentations, he said. Too many reports about professors who focus on political issues rather than their course subjects “end up in a lot of he said, she said,” but having “solid evidence” will prevent that, Jones said.

“If we are going to be making accusations of professional malfeasance, then I wanted to have real solid independent proof,” he said.

Continued in article

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Stem cell research:  spinal cord injury patients could see potential treatments by the year's end.
A scathing report on stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk is depressing indeed, particularly for patients he promised to treat. But as badly as 2006 began, spinal cord injury patients could see potential treatments by the year's end.
Steven Edwards, "The State of Stem Cells, 2006," Wired News, January 2006 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,70004-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_13

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"New Anti-Blindness Drug:  A new drug heading for approval dramatically improves sight in macular degeneration patients,"  by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, January 13, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/wtr_16145,319,p1.html

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"Software to Help You Download From iPods, Share iTunes on 1 PC," by Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2006; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/personal_technology.html

This week, Apple Computer announced that it sold a staggering 14 million iPod music players over the recently ended holiday quarter -- more than 100 every minute. But as popular and well-designed as the iPod is, it's not perfect. There are a couple of aspects of the way it works, or doesn't work, that are becoming increasingly annoying as people acquire both more iPods and more computers.

First, you cannot use an iPod, out of the box, to copy your music collection to multiple computers you may own. Millions of iPod owners have more than one computer, and it's perfectly legal to copy the music you own to more than one computer. But the iPod won't help you do this.

Second, in families with multiple iPods sharing a single computer, the iPod's companion software, iTunes, doesn't allow you to have multiple music libraries. With multiple libraries, each user could see only his or her own music, and could synchronize his or her iPod with that personal music library.

Apple is aware of these shortcomings, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it solve the second one, multiple libraries, this year. But the first, the inability to use the iPod to copy music to multiple computers, is tougher. Apple was forced to cripple the iPod in this manner at the insistence of the record labels, which feared that it might be used to copy music too widely. So a fix probably requires negotiations with the labels, whose obsession with piracy has caused them to treat their own customers like criminals.

Luckily, there are solutions to both problems available today, through third-party software or workarounds. Here's a guide to those solutions.

First, here's how to use an iPod to copy music to multiple computers. You just have to download and install one of a number of small utility programs designed specifically to let you copy the music on the iPod to a computer. There are lots of these, for both Windows and Macintosh computers.

For Windows users, I suggest CopyPod, available for $20 with a two-week free trial, at www.copypod.net. For Mac users, I like PodWorks, available for $8 with a limited-function 30-day free trial at www.scifihifi.com/podworks. Another, similar program, which comes in versions for both Windows and Mac, is PodUtil, available for £10 ($17.66), with an unlimited free trial, at www.kennettnet.co.uk.

Once you have installed one of these utilities on your second computer, just plug in your iPod, filled with the music from the first computer. When iTunes pops up, be sure to decline when the program asks if you want to synchronize your iPod to the second computer. If you don't decline, iTunes will wipe out your iPod's contents and replace it with any music on the second computer.

Next, quit iTunes and launch the music-copying utility, if it didn't launch automatically when you plugged in your iPod. It will scan your iPod, displaying all the music stored there, and allow you to copy some or all of the music onto the second computer. If you have a lot of music on the iPod, this could take awhile.

When you're done, just quit the utility program, disconnect the iPod, and relaunch iTunes. In some cases, the utility will already have populated iTunes with the copied music. In other cases, you'll have to use the "Add to Library" command in the iTunes File menu to bring in the music you have just copied.

How about the multiple-libraries problem? This one can be solved with some workarounds, as well as third-party software.

Continued in article

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Apple finally wants to take on the PC
And while high-powered hardware is crucial, equally high-powered software is as well. Jobs also announced the company's upgraded software bundles for its do-it-yourself movie/music studio, iLife, and Apple's counterpart to Microsoft Office, iWork. The presentation itself was created using Keynote software in iWork, and Jobs displayed three-dimensional pie charts in this new version. For the most part, though, Jobs focused on iLife, spending more than a quarter of his presentation time demonstrating new features, such as "photocasting," a trick that allows friends and family to automatically receive updates of certain photos as soon as they're filed in iPhoto. Another addition is the podcasting studio within the application Garage Band, and iWeb, an application that easily publishes blogs, photos, videos, and podcasts to the Internet.
Kate Greene, "Mac's Faith-Based Initiative," MIT's Technology Review, January 13, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16147,294,p1.html
 

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Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

Specialized search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#SpecializedSearchEngines

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If you aren’t (cynical) now, you will by the time you finish the new Bebchuk and Fried paper on executive compensation.  They paint a fairly gloomy picture of managers exerting their power to “extract rents and to camouflage the extent of their rent extraction.”  Rather than designed to solve agency cost problems, the paper makes the case that executive pay can by an agency cost in and of itself.  Let’s hope things aren’t this bad. 
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=364220

They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Steal a lot and they make you king.
There's only one step down from here, baby,
It's called the land of permanent bliss.
What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?
Lyrics of a Bob Dylan song forwarded by Damian Gadal [DGADAL@CI.SANTA-BARBARA.CA.US] 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 13, 2006

TITLE: SEC to propose overhaul of Rules on Executive Pay
REPORTER: Kara Scannell
DATE: Jan 10, 2006
PAGE: A1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113686357913042428.html 
TOPICS: Accounting, Disclosure, Disclosure Requirements, Executive compensation, Securities and Exchange Commission

SUMMARY: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, responding to rising criticism of soaring--and partially hidden--executive pay, is poised to propose the most sweeping overhaul of pay disclosure rules in 14 years, seeking to push companies to divulge much more about their top executives' perquisites, retirement benefits and total compensation.'

QUESTIONS:
1.) According to the description in the article, what are the problems and issues associated with current disclosure requirements for executive compensation? Where are those disclosures made? What entity establishes the requirements for those disclosures?

2.) What benefit will come from placing "the monetary value of stock-option grants...side by side with salary and bonus information"? How are those "monetary values" of stock option grants determined?

3.) The article refers to a new FASB accounting standard related to stock options. Summarize the requirements of that new standard. Will the changes described in this article impact those requirements? Explain.

4.) Is the SEC hoping to curb executive compensation with this new proposal? Explain your answer: if yes, indicate how disclosure might play a role in this process; if no, indicate how this disclosure change is independent of any desire to curb compensation.

5.) Shering-Plough's chief executive, Fred Hassan, stated that his company's managements believes that "transparency is good for shareholders...particularly if additional disclosures allow shareholders to look at the compensation in the context of management's performance..." Describe one way in which you might undertake an analysis from an investor's point of view to use disclosures about executive compensation in this way.

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Assign group members to access corporate financial statements and proxy filings by industry, by student choice of company of interest, or any other method of choosing. Access the SEC's web site to obtain electronic access to both the most recent quarterly filing and the proxy statement. Ask students to describe the information found in these corporate filings and explain where they find the information. Make comparisons by company or across industry lines in amounts and types of executive compensation.

Access filings on the SEC web using the following steps described for Google, Inc.:

Access www.sec.gov 
Click on Search for Company Filings Under General-Purpose Searches, click on Companies & Other Filers In the box for Company name, type Google and click "Find companies" Click on the third CIK, 0001288776 In the box for Form Type, type DEF 14A (for proxy statements) and 10-Q (for quarterly reports)

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

Bob Jensen's threads on executive compensation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation

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Here we don't go again on United Airlines
When all we really want to do is get there on schedule with our luggage
Now United is gambling on a flight plan that takes it in the opposite direction of the rest of the U.S. industry. Determined not to be another clone of low-cost, low-fare juggernaut Southwest Airlines, United is making an all-out effort to raise revenue by pampering its best business travelers -- and keeping them on United whether they are flying to a meeting on the coast, or taking the family to Orlando. That means accepting higher costs, the very problem that drove it into bankruptcy in the first place.
Susan Carey, "As Airlines Pull Out of Dive, United Charts Its Own Course," The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2006; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113711845331145633.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

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Memoirs:  Does truth really matter or is it better to fudge in order to sell millions of copies?
On Jan. 8, however, the Smoking Gun ( www.thesmokinggun.com  ) a website specializing in digging up public records, posted a lengthy report that challenges some of the facts in Frey's book. Among other things, the website's staff found a lack of evidence that Frey had a relationship with a girl who died in a train accident when he was in high school--Frey even wrote that he was blamed for the accident, which did much to stoke his dark-star mojo. The Smoking Gun found Frey's claim that he engaged in a melee with police officers in 1992 to have been fabricated. What is most disturbing, in a way (since a major plot point hangs thereon), is that the report questions the book's claim that Frey spent three months in an Ohio jail after rehab. The site even quotes Frey as having said in an interview, "I was in for a significantly shorter period of time than three months."
"The Trouble With Memoirs: An author is accused of making up key parts of his best-selling life story," Time Magazine, January 15, 2006 --- http://snipurl.com/MemoirTruth

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"Tailor-Made Cartography with Google Maps," by Robert Siegel, NPR, January 13, 2006 ---
 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5151938

Google's popular mapping service has inspired people to add their own information to maps. The resulting "mashups" are maps overlaid with clickable icons that provide a unique look at fast-food restaurant locations, crime statistics and other data sets.

Robert Siegel talks to Mike Pegg, whose Google Maps Mania Web log tracks the latest mashups, by category.

Topics include transit (Boston subway stations), current events (BBC world news), and weather and Earth (meteor impact sites).

Some are clearly designed to be useful for everyday life: New York pizza places, Washington, D.C., home prices, and Chicago crime locations. Others are more for fun: find the nearest pub or brewery, peek in on Webcams, or look for a convenient jogging route.

"One of my favorites is a mashup in Dublin, Ireland, which takes the real-time locations of a commuter train and plots it onto the map, and it actually shows that train moving," Pegg says.

Another popular mashup lets users see where they would end up if they drilled through the Earth to the other side. For example, click on Wichita, Kan., and you come out in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

"I think we're destined to see big things from this, both as the maps improve and as people's imaginations just continue to go wild with this," Pegg says.

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Can Wikipedia Survive Its Own Success?
It's not easy being Wikipedia, a free web encyclopedia created and edited by anonymous contributors. Just ask founder Jimmy Wales, who has seen his creation come under fire in just a few short months as the site fends off vandalism and charges of inaccurate entries. But Wikipedia, founded in 2001 as a non-profit organization, has become a big enough presence that it raises a number of interesting questions, including: Just how accurate is free content, given recent events at Wikipedia? Does the aggregate 'wisdom of the crowd' trump the expertise of knowledgeable individuals? Does Wikipedia's policing mechanism work? And does the controversy over Wikipedia merely reflect further tension between old and new media? Wharton experts, along with Wales, offer some answers.
"Can Wikipedia Survive Its Own Success?," Knowledge@Wharton,  University of Pennsylvania, January 2006 --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1361

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Meet the Mayor of Brussels: She's a Muslim (without a head cover)
Faouzia Hariche (38) is the acting mayor (or “bourgmestre” – burgomaster, from the Dutch burgemeester) of Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of the European Union. Ms Hariche was born in Algeria in 1967. She moved to Belgium when she was seven years old. Though Brussels was historically a Dutch-speaking city and is also considered to be the capital of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, the city was forcibly “frenchified” after the establishment of Belgium in 1830 by French radicals who used French-speaking Wallonia, Belgium’s southern half, as a power base to conquer Flanders.
"Meet the Mayor of Brussels: She's a Muslim," Brussels Journal, January 16, 2006 --- http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/671

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Museum of Yo-Yo History --- http://www.theyoyomuseum.com/

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AIG Expected to Pay $1 Billion-Plus to Settle Probes
AIG is expected to pay more than $1 billion to settle state and federal civil-fraud charges alleging the giant insurer used improper accounting to polish its earnings. Former CEO Hank Greenberg is not included in the accord.
Ian McDonald and Monica Langley, "AIG Expected to Pay $1 Billion-Plus to Settle Probes:  Huge Penalty Would Resolve Fraud Case Against Insurer But Wouldn't Cover Ex-CEO," The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2006; Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113712355453045791.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Bob Jensen's threads on insurance company frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#MutualFunds

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NEW E&Y REPORT ON SHARE-BASED PAYMENT – FASB STATEMENT NO. 123 --- Accounting Education News, January 12, 2006 --- http://accountingeducation.com/index.cfm?page=newsdetails&id=142123

On December 16, 2004, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued FASB Statement No. 123 (revised 2004), Share-Based Payment, which is a revision of FASB Statement No. 123, Accounting for Stock-Based Compensation. Statement 123(R) supersedes APB Opinion No. 25, Accounting for Stock Issued to Employees and its interpretations, and amends FASB Statement No. 95, Statement of Cash Flows.

While the Statement builds on many of the concepts in Statement 123, there are significant differences between the requirements of Statement 123(R) and Statement 123. Further, because of the short time between issuance of the Statement and its required implementation (annual periods beginning after June 15, 2005 for most public companies), it is critical that issuers of options and other share-based payments to employees quickly gain a thorough understanding of those requirements and be prepared to implement them within an effective internal control framework. Because of the length and complexity of Statement 123(R), efforts to understand and implement the Statement should have already begun.

Ernst & Young have designed a publication as a resource to help you become familiar with Statement 123(R) and assess the impact that Statement 123(R) will have on your company’s financial statements. Chapter 1 provides a high-level overview of Statement 123(R) and describes considerations for compensation plan design and implementation of the new Statement. The implementation discussion includes a description of certain requirements of Statement 123(R) that are catching many preparers by surprise. The remainder of this publication describes the requirements of Statement 123(R) in considerable detail. Throughout this publication they have included the actual text from Statement 123(R) and other standards (presented in shaded boxes) followed by their interpretations of that guidance (EY comments made within the guidance are included in bracketed text).

Bob Jensen's threads on FAS 123 are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

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The Worst Jobs in History --- http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/W/worstjobs/

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The worst name in America's history
Fuk King Kwok was waiting for his driver's license to be printed when his name was called and a chuckling Illinois secretary of state employee offered some advice. "She [said] this is a dangerous name," the Chinese immigrant recalled. "She [said] the name translated is not so good, maybe I should change [it]. The word I hear is not so good."
Steve Patterson, "Name change should stop the snickers," Chicago Sun-Times, January 16, 2006 --- http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-namechange16.html
Jensen Comment
The Cantonese word for happiness is fuk (pronounced fook).  As Johnnie Cash once said:  "Bill or George! Anything but Fuk! I still hate that name!" --- http://www.toptown.com/hp/66/sue.htm

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Forwarded by Paula

[1] Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have remained a virgin." - Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

[2] I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: "No good in a bed, but fine against a wall." - Eleanor Roosevelt

[3] Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement. - Mark Twain

[4] The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible. - George Burns

[5] Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year. - Victor Borge

[6] Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

[7] What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...Mighty scarce. - Mark Twain

[8] By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

[9] I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. - Groucho Marx

[10] My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. - Jimmy Durante

[11] The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things. - Jilly Cooper

[12] I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. - Zsa Zs! a Gabor< BR> [13] Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. - Alex Levine

[14] Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain

[15] My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. Ed Furgol

[16] Money can't buy you happiness... but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. - Spike Milligan

[17] What's the use of happiness? It can' t buy you money. - Henny Youngman

[18] I am opposed to millionaires... but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. - Mark Twain

[19] Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was shut up. - Joe Namath

[20] Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. - Herbert Henry Asquith

[21] I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap. - Bob Hope

[22] I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it. WC Fields

[23] We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress. - Will Rogers

[24] Don't worry about avoiding temptation... as you grow older, it will avoid you. - Winston Churchill

[25] Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty, but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. - Phyllis Diller

[26] By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere. - Billy Crystal 

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Forwarded by Auntie Bev

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

01. Try everything twice. On Madam's tombstone (of Whelan and Madam), she said she wanted this epitaph: "Tried everything twice...loved it both times!"

02. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. (Keep this In mind if you are one of those grouches).

03. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain get idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's!

04. Enjoy the simple things.

05. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and Lots of time with HIM/HER.

06. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life is ourself. LIVE while you are alive.

07. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

08. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

09. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county or to a foreign country, but NOT a guilt trip.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them at every opportunity.