Dining In
Dine-In Delivery is a locally-owned and operated business that delivers food from local restaurants straight to your door. Do you have a craving for Ponte Vecchio’s spinach rotola or filet medalions from Texas Roadhouse, but don’t have the time or energy to dine out? After reviewing the menus of participating restaurants online, patrons can place their orders for lunch or dinner, which are generally delivered hot and fresh within an hour. Whether ordering for one or several, you can stay at home or the office, save on gas and let your food come to you. For more information, call (309) 694-4181 or visit dineindeliverypeoria.com.
SHIP Your Baggage
If you’ve gotten on an airplane recently, you’re familiar with the new fees for checking baggage. These days, most airlines are charging $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second, and it only goes up from there. Because of this, many people have taken to shipping their baggage via FedEx ground service, which, as Peter Greenberg of The Contrarian Traveler notes, can save you some money. Not only that, but if you’re taking several bags, shipping luggage directly to your hotel will allow you to skip baggage claim, saving valuable time as well.
24/7 Learning
Do you know of a young scholar who would benefit from 24/7access to a library? Are you constantly seeking to know more? Questia is the world’s largest online library for students and educators, comprised of over 72,000 full-text books, two million articles and a complete reference set. It offers tools to help highlight text and take notes electronically, as well as create footnotes and bibliographies in different styles. Users can subscribe to one of six specific collections or the entire library. For pricing and more information, visit questia.com.
Call, Email or Text?
As easy and convenient as they may be, email and text messaging can’t be our only forms of communication. Sometimes it’s inappropriate to send messages through email or texting—an actual phone call is in order!
If you have to communicate a lot of details or you don’t have a contact’s phone number, an email is generally an acceptable form of communication. But because some people rarely check their email and it isn’t entirely reliable, it may not always be the way to go. Phone calls are absolutely necessary when relaying important information.
It is inconsiderate to cancel appointments or meetings with people at the last minute via email unless you know them very well. It’s possible that they won’t get your message before leaving the office and end up sitting around waiting for you.
Some businesses have incorporated text messaging in an attempt to improve communication among employees. If an employee is on the phone with a customer and has a question for another employee, for example, he or she could text that person the question. Text messaging can also help foster quick communication when employees are out of the office.
Emails, phone calls and text messages all have their places, but it’s important to consider the situation, especially when communicating via email and text messages.
Celebrating Financial Literacy
April is Financial Literacy Month, and the experts at Money Management International have created a list of 30 steps that lead to financial wellness. The steps, as well as more information on Financial Literacy Month, can be found at financialliteracymonth.com.
The first and most important step is developing and following a financial plan that examines your attitudes about money. The site financialliteracymonth.com offers a quick self-assessment to motivate you to accurately assess your current financial situation. Other steps include: getting copies of and cleaning up your credit report, completing a quick debt test, setting priorities, paying down debt, securing your financial future, saving money, tracking expenses, and more.
If you’re interested in educating your kids on financial literacy, WTVP has a great television show that can help. Biz Kid$ is a public television series in which kids teach kids about money and business. The show is entertaining and silly at times, but informative, focusing on topics like what a recession is, how to manage credit, what the stock market is, and new jobs for a green economy. The show also profiles young entrepreneurs and includes a curriculum for classrooms.
Linda Miller, vice president for programming at WTVP, says, “We are thrilled to have it in the WTVP schedule, especially at this time in this economic environment. Anything that will raise awareness among young people about how important it is to understand money and use economic good sense is a very good thing,” and this is just what the show does. The series airs Sundays at 5:30pm on WTVP.
Wait, Don’t Stretch that Way!
Be careful when you stretch to touch your toes before your daily run—it might actually be dangerous for you. According to a recent article in The New York Times, static stretching (holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds), is not only not beneficial to workouts, it might be dangerous. A recent University of Nevada study found that static stretching was actually less beneficial than not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this type of stretching can actually weaken muscle strength by as much as 30 percent.
David Shoehalter, head track and field coach at Yale University, explains that static stretching tells your body that you are done exercising, not about to begin. Shoehalter suggests that athletes actually perform static stretches after a workout, to help the body calm down.
In order to correctly warm up, you need to loosen muscles and tendons to increase your motion and warm up your body. The warm-up should be light and not vigorous. Dynamic warm-ups such as light jogging wake your body up and prepare it for a full workout. According to the New York Times article, the initial warm-up should begin using about 40 percent of your maximum heart rate, and progress to about 60 percent. This part of your workout should take five to 10 minutes and include a five-minute recovery.
The verdict is still out as to whether or not static stretching can seriously hurt you, but experts have determined that at best, it doesn’t help you unless you do it at the end of your workout. Instead of stretching slowly in place before you begin your workout, try jogging for a few minutes. Then, when you’re done exercising, reach down to your toes and cool down.
The New Age of Internet Users
According to surveys done through 2008 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more members of older generations are online now than in the past. In fact, the biggest increase in internet use since 2005 is in the 70- to 75-year-old age group. Forty-five percent of that group are online now, compared to 26 percent in 2005.
Email is the most popular internet activity—especially in this age group, with 74 percent of internet users over the age of 64 using web-based email. Health questions are the third-most popular use of internet time for this older generation, after email and online searches.
Younger users are more interested in the Internet as a means of entertainment. Seventy-eight percent of 12- to 17-year-olds use the Internet to play games online, while about half of Generation Y (ages 18 to 32) plays online games.
Generation X (ages 33 to 44) is the group most likely to bank and shop online, with 80 percent making purchases over the Internet. Seventy-one percent of users age 18 to 32 buy online, in addition to 38 percent of teens, 56 percent of users 64 to 72, and 47 percent of users age 73 and older.
While different generations may use the Internet for different reasons, it’s a fact that it has become a vital part of the lives of people of all ages.
Teen Driving: Tougher Laws Save Lives
Teen driving deaths decreased substantially in Tazewell County and across the state in the past year as a result of new restrictions which went into place on January 1, 2008. The Teen Driving Bill was created with the intent of reducing traffic accidents, the leading cause of teen fatalities in the United States. Since earlier curfews, restrictions on unrelated family members in cars driven by teens, and other rules were implemented, the number of teen driving fatalities was reduced to 92 last year, down substantially from 155 in 2007, according to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
The Illinois Department of Transportation, Ford Motor Company Fund and Secretary White also launched a statewide effort to reduce teen crashes in the state with Operation Teen Safe Driving. The campaign, the first of its kind in the nation, gets high school students directly involved by engaging them in competitions to design community-based driving safety programs targeted at their peers. The campaign was designed to build on the momentum from the new teen driving laws.
A study completed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that states with more restrictive teen driving laws lose the fewest teens to fatalities. When states have at least five laws on the books, 16-year-old drivers are 38 percent less involved in fatal accidents and 40 percent less apt to be in injury-causing accidents.
More information on teen driving laws is available at cyberdriveillinois.com. iBi
