New Patty Griffin Album

Build Your Own Bed Bug Detector!

Itching for a good after-school science experiment? Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey have created a homemade bedbug trap using a plastic cat-food dish, an insulated jug and some dry-ice pellets. According to Wan-Tien Tsai, who reported her findings in December at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, the dry-ice-and-thermos combo captured the bloodsucking critters in an infested apartment just as effectively as, if not more so than, equipment used by professional exterminators.
The most important part of this MacGyverized contraption is an insulated one-third-gallon jug — like the kind sold in camping-supply stores — filled with 2½ lb. of frozen carbon dioxide, which costs about $1 per lb. (and should be handled only with gloves). As the dry-ice pellets slowly evaporate, the open thermos spout lets the CO2 — which falsely signals bedbugs that a breathing, blood-filled meal is nearby — seep out overnight. That's usually enough time to entice the nocturnal insects into the other key component of the trap: the overturned food-and-water dish on which the thermos sits. The bugs climb the outer surface of the dish, which can be scuffed with sandpaper for better traction, and get stuck in its moat, made slippery-smooth with a dusting of talcum powder.
This trap was designed to give consumers a cheap way to determine if they have — or, in many cases, still have — a bedbug problem that requires a proper extermination. Bedbugs have made a serious comeback in North America over the past few years, especially in big cities like Toronto and San Francisco. And they are notoriously hard to get rid of. As evidence, amid the enthusiastic talk on Bedbugger.com about the Rutgers invention, one commenter noted, "Dude, I am so going to try this once a month or so."

If You Haven't Seen It...

Crazy Ways Smokers Kicked the Habit!

Bury the evidence
"I once wrapped packs of cigarettes in a plastic bag and buried them in a flower pot on the back porch so that I would have to dig them up, extract a cigarette, and rebury the pack every time I wanted a smoke. That was 18 years ago!" — Pat Owens, Valley Stream, N.Y.

Eyes on the prize
"I quit smoking on a dare in February 2002. My friend bet me I couldn’t quit and—the competitive type I am—I took up his bet. The bet was I had to quit for one month and if I made it, I got steak at [the renowned] Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn. Funny story is, it took so long to get my dinner—nine months!—that I made him take me for a second dinner at a different steakhouse!" — Eric Katzman, Queens, N.Y.

Pay a fine
"Two of my very good friends agreed to quit smoking or pay the other person $1,000 if they could not. Being honest, competitive, and broke, it worked! Neither one of them has had a cigarette since." — Mike P., Newport, R.I.

Kill the craving
"My cousin smoked for 20 years. She quit in an interesting way—she started eating Milkbone dog biscuits! She chewed on them to kill the craving and she quit." — Chris T., New York, N.Y.

Make a deal
"In exchange for giving up the costly habit of buying a pack of cigarettes each day, I made a deal with myself that I would be free, anytime in my life, to buy a lottery ticket, with no feelings of guilt. I’ve never smoked a cigarette since that night over 25 years ago, and it’s safe to say I never will do so. I would like to say that one of the lottery tickets has won me a million dollars, but that has not happened—at least not yet!" — Liz Rubin, North Potomac, Md.

Kick back a baking soda cocktail
"I read a newspaper article quoting a doctor who said to quit smoking, mix a tablespoon of baking soda in an 8-ounce glass of water and drink it, twice a day for the first week, then once a day for a second week. I had been smoking a carton a week then, or about 30 cigarettes a day. I drank two glasses on Sunday and Monday. It tasted like a flat Alka-Seltzer. On Sunday and Monday I smoked two cigarettes. On Tuesday I think I smoked one cigarette and then quit altogether. I continued to drink the baking soda concoction for the rest of that week. I don’t think I even needed it the second week. I have not had a cigarette in 20 years." ­— Joanne Fanizza, Farmingdale, N.Y.

Hypnotize yourself
"I am a licensed psychologist in New Jersey. Back in 1976, I already had my doctorate, had some training in hypnosis, and smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day. At a New Year’s Eve party, a friend asked how my hypnosis skills were coming along and if I could stop her from smoking. We spent about an hour with her in a trance. The next week, my friend and I spoke on the phone, and she was smoking. In that moment I realized I had not had one cigarette the entire week. I had hypnotized myself! Once or twice I had the urge, but now I can’t even think of it; I have not had one cigarette in more than 30 years." — Sheila Sidney Bender, PhD, Florham Park, N.J.

Start small
"I made a deal with myself so I could quit. I could have one cigarette a week if I stopped my pack-a-day habit. Last summer I only smoked two cigarettes and during the fall I didn’t smoke at all. I guess I’m done!" — Kevin Gerard Kilpatrick, San Diego, Calif.

Erin Burns Says...

Time = Money

It's remarkable how much money you can save by simply planning your day ahead of time. If you know that you're day consists of going from one job to another, you may be tempted to swing the nearest bodega for a quick sandwich and bag of chips. But if you simply plan your day in advance, you can bring a sandwich and apple from home with you and save yourself both time and money.


The same principal applies to that morning run to Starbuck's. Many of us grab a latte to start our day on the right foot, not realizing that $4 spent on coffee 5 days a week for 52 weeks a year adds up to $1,040!!! If you invest that coffee money into a good growth stock mutual fund that averages only a 10% rate of return from age 30 to age 70, you will have $510,140.75!!! That's over a half million dollars by just making your own coffee in the morning!!!


Becoming financially sound and retiring with dignity isn't rocket science, you just need to plan ahead of time with the little things.


Erin Burns, CFC
http://www.financialadvicefortheartist.com/

9 Years Later!

Michelle Obama vs. Childhood Obesity

WASHINGTON - By now, it is abundantly clear that Michelle Obama loves french fries.

The first lady talks about this "guilty pleasure" all the time, trying to ward off any notion that she is a nutrition nanny even as she cajoles Americans to eat better.
Now, her conversation with the public about the nation's health and fitness is about to get a lot more pointed.
After laying the groundwork for nearly a year, she launches a campaign on Tuesday against childhood obesity that she hopes will change the way millions of Americans eat, exercise, look and feel.
To succeed, she will have to take on powerful forces that have left one-third of children overweight:
busy parents who hit the fast-food drive-thru rather than cook a balanced dinner.
schools where cafeteria meals compete with vending machines and a la carte lines stocked with soda and candy bars.
food companies that spend billions hawking fatty snacks to children.
poor neighborhoods where nary a banana nor a head of broccoli can be found on store shelves.
the screens — computer, TV, video — that keep kids off their bikes.
The first lady's goal is ambitious: to put America on track to solve the childhood obesity problem in a generation. It's a far cry from the days when Dolley Madison, the first first lady to associate herself with a specific cause, helped to found a District of Columbia home for orphaned girls.
"Thank God it's not going to be solely up to me," Obama said recently, stressing that the solution will require stepped-up effort from parents, schools, businesses, nonprofit groups, health professionals and governments.
To underscore that point, she's bringing together Cabinet members, mayors, sports and entertainment figures, business leaders and more to announce the details of the administration's effort. That will involve promoting healthier schools, increasing physical activity for kids, improving access to healthy foods and giving people more nutrition information.
Health advocates couldn't be happier to have a popular first lady adopting childhood obesity as her cause. They're also keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve.
"You don't just go from epidemic obesity to epidemic leanness," says obesity expert Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center.
Still, Katz says, Obama can provide the inspiration to help "shift the massive momentum of our society in the right direction."
32 pecent of kids overweight
Lofty goals have come and gone before.
A decade ago, the government's "Healthy People" program set a 2010 target that just 5 percent of children would be overweight or obese. The most updated government figures, released last month, weighed in at 32 percent for 2007-2008. The childhood obesity rate has at least held steady in recent years, but at levels that still leave today's children on track to die younger than their parents.
The first lady has prepared for the obesity campaign by falling asleep over briefing papers, consulting with legislators, Cabinet members and policy experts, and speaking about the challenges that overstressed parents face in doing right by their children. And, famously, by hula hooping on the South Lawn to promote the need to get kids moving.
Touchy subject
She says she spent the past year figuring out how to talk about all of this "in a way that doesn't make already overstressed, anxious parents feel even more guilty about a very hard thing." That's where the french fries come in, part of the first lady's message that nobody's perfect and that there's plenty of wiggle room in a healthy diet.
Obama caught some criticism by talking openly about having to watch the weight of her own daughters, a sign of just how touchy the subject can be.
Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association, said Obama's focus will help generate the "noise" needed to change attitudes. But he said lots of organizations need to be involved to make substantive changes such as reducing fatty snacks and sodas in schools, providing better nutrition labeling of processed foods and more.
"Anything she can do would be helpful because the burden of the problem is just that profound," Yancy said.
Her challenge will be to give her message more bite than last year's gentle prodding, without coming on too strong and sounding like a national scold. She'll have to find creative ways to keep the message fresh so people don't tune out.
"It has to be a pretty aggressive bully pulpit," says Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based public health research organization. "It has to be much more than cajoling, and how do we solve this problem together."
Levi said the first lady, who speaks as a mother as well as a public figure, can have a huge impact by helping change parents' and kids' attitudes toward food and exercise. But an effective campaign against childhood obesity also will require more money to carry out programs to help families turn changed attitudes into action.
"We already have in place a constellation of programs that together can provide the opportunity to make the changes in schools and communities that would make a difference," he said. "The problem is that they are not fully funded."
Ideas abound for addressing the problem:
increase federal money to make healthier school lunches for poor kids.
improve nutrition standards for school lunches; get the chips and doughnuts out of school vending machines.expand time for school recess and physical education.
use federal incentives to encourage low-income families to buy healthier foods.
prod food makers to stop targeting children with ads for high-calorie treats on TV and in online video games.
get more restaurants to print nutrition information on menus.
do more medical screening for obesity in children.
improve food labeling.
provide more behavior counseling to overweight kids.
The list goes on.
The school lunch program, which is up for an overhaul by Congress this year, is one sure area of focus, and the administration is working with legislators on how to revise it. There should be some extra money available: President Barack Obama's proposed budget calls for an additional $1 billion a year for child nutrition programs. Last year's economic stimulus package included $500 million for one-time grants to help states and communities tackle smoking, obesity and various preventable health problems.
Dora Rivas, president of the School Nutrition Association and director of food services for the Dallas public schools, said Michelle Obama can be a "great motivator" for parents and kids. But, she said, schools need more federal dollars to work more fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains into lunches, and to keep up with the growing numbers of children who qualify for free or reduced-cost meals.
Katz, the Yale obesity expert, said that while more money always helps, much can be done through sheer will and low-cost ingenuity to help build more physical activity into daily life and to motivate people to eat better.
As people demand better food, companies will respond with better choices, he says.
Like the first lady, though, Katz identified "food deserts" — poor areas where it's hard to find stores that offer healthy foods — as a particularly tough problem, one that will require addressing broader social inequities in society.
The first lady said last month she won't be satisfied unless she knows she's made a difference.
"That's the legacy I want," she said. "I want to leave something behind that we can say, because of this time that this person spent here, this thing has changed."