Signing a contract to initiate and maintain wireless telephone service over a specified length of time is a bit like entering into a marriage contract. You have high hopes that things will work out with your new spouse; you hope that the marriage lasts forever. But should the marriage sour if, for instance, you find a new partner that you would rather be with, you and your original spouse must part ways. Because you must break the marriage contract, the divorce must be done in a legally-sanctioned manner. In extricating yourself from your spouse, the schism proves to be costly and time consuming. Attorneys gobble up your money in legal fees and your spouse may claim a settlement in the divorce.
Wireless telephone contracts work much the same way. If you find another carrier whose services are equal or superior to those of your current provider, you’ll want to “divorce” your original carrier. But if you part ways before the contract is up, you’ll find yourself slapped with penalties. And if you wish to avoid the penalties, you’ll be held hostage to your contract until it expires. It’s a losing situation.
By contrast, virgin mobile offers major savings as well as freedom of choice. Unlike other wireless carriers, Virgin Mobile is a prepaid cellular phone service. Instead of paying a predetermined fee for unlimited calling, with Virgin Mobile, you only pay for the calls that you actually make. How logical and cost-effective! Because you are not compelled to sign a contract, you can say, “Adios” to Virgin Mobile at any time, without fear of early-withdrawal penalties. However, you probably won’t want to leave, because Virgin Mobile offers more than great savings. They provide the same state-of-the-art technology, including 3G web and data, wireless plans, or mobile broadband as their contract-driven competitors. And, the phones themselves are very stylish.
Beyond all of this, the service is excellent. Virgin Mobile was purchased by Sprint and therefore, capitalizes upon Sprint’s superior coverage.
The icing on top of this cake is even more savings. Simply enter a promo code when you start your service, and reap even bigger savings.
Why stay with a partner you’ve outgrown? Why remain with a wireless service that demands fees for minutes you don’t use, a service that also penalizes you for exercising your right to choose another carrier? Why not check out Virgin Mobile today?
Nothing says “spring” like beautiful, healthy flowers. And nothing displays beautiful, healthy flowers better than stylish, well-crafted window boxes and flower boxes. If you want a windowbox that will show off your blooms to full advantage, a windowbox that mirrors your particular sense of style, you won’t find it among the shelves of the home improvement stores. You will find it at windowboxplanters.com.
With 71 styles to choose from, there is sure to be something in the company’s product line to suit your individual taste. Vinyl, aluminum, copper, steel, wrought iron, and fiberglass are the materials from which you may choose your windowbox, in designs spanning open-work metal, solids, and “carved.” Easy to install, some styles are customizable to fit any size window and some offer sub-irrigation systems. These ingenuously simple systems allow the roots of your plants to draw water from a hidden reservoir, encouraging the growth of hardy roots that support the growth of gorgeous flowers.
The company also carries many decorative corbels and sturdy brackets.
All products are extremely durable and manufactured to exacting standards. For example, the vinyl planters carry a 15-year limited warranty: a guarantee against yellowing and fading, an assurance that you will enjoy a handsome complement to your home, year after year.
A visit to the website illustrates the many ways in which the windowboxes can be used: in the traditional manner, or as unique accents to beautify the exterior of your home, sitting atop the balustrade of the railing on your front porch or deck, or even attached directly to your siding.
Confident that their prices are highly competitive and their products meticulously crafted, the company offers a 110% money back guarantee. Ordering is simple. The staff is knowledgeable and friendly, and available seven days a week. Spring is just around the corner. Welcome it with a beautiful windowbox!
In this cutthroat economy, companies are tripping all over themselves in attempts to woo new customers and retain existing accounts. They research, plan, and launch strategic marketing campaigns designed to edge out the competition through high impact websites and traditional media But, in analyzing statistics and trends, they forget the one, key rule of advertising.
They forget that their clientele is comprised of human beings, and that every human, regardless of demographics, loves to receive something useful free of charge. Many advertisers, therefore, overlook the immediate and long-term value of promotional items as enhancements to their marketing campaigns. Also known as “giveaways”, these vehicles help companies market their products and services on an ongoing basis.
Now you know this simple truth, you won’t be tempted to make the same mistake as so many of your competitors. You will, however, be searching for a company with a reputation for producing quality promotional products in a timely fashion, for a reasonable price. Search no further than www.promopeddler.com.
Perusal of their site will prove that promopeddler.com’s range of products is extensive, spanning promotional toys, promotional apparel, promotional bags, promotional desk calendars, promotional pens, promotional candy, and more. Arming your field sales force, retail personnel, and/or representatives at trade shows with your company’s giveaways is a sound investment. Every time your customers reach for a pen, glance at their calendar, insert their key into their front doors, or don T-shirts to go running, your company name will be there on those items: a prominent reminder that you have what your customers need in terms of goods or services — and that you appreciate their business enough to gift them with tokens of your thanks.
Promopeddler.com is happy to create and send you a free sample of any item that you design, or have them assist you in designing, so that you can examine it firsthand instead of simply viewing it online. There is no better time to get started on creating opportunities for new business. There is no better time to contact promopeddler.com.
“We live in interesting times.”
When U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy first spoke those words, he was referring to the 1960s, a time of great social strife and strides. Had the Senator lived to experience current times, his now-famous quote would be just as telling. In this fluctuating, often frightening economy, all the rules have changed. Businesses once deemed eternally safe now face uncertain risk. Business owners and professionals who once toiled in certain fields now seek to reinvent themselves in order to remain relevant in a rapidly changing, highly demanding job market. The same is true of practices long compelled to operate as businesses: clinical practices specializing in various aspects of medicine, dental practices, legal practices, accountancy practices, veterinarian practices, and more.
Should you — the professional, the investor, or group of investors — search for Practices for Sale, you can, if misguided or misinformed, easily fall prey to the unscrupulous, particularly in this shaky economy. It is imperative therefore, that buyers and sellers engage the services of a trusted practice valuation and brokerage firm, such as the Practice Sales Group of the U.K.
Unlike other such firms, Practice Sales Group assigns a team of professionals to your specific situation. Armed with knowledge of general market trends, the market trends impacting your particular field, and sound financial acumen, the firm performs its due diligence with the utmost of care. However, it does not restrict its analysis of your investment to mere numbers on a spreadsheet.
The team pays actual field visits to the practice that you seek to buy or sell, so that the resulting valuation is both extremely accurate and unbiased. And, they are skilled in matching the right practice with the right buyer. Practice Sales Group requires that fees for their services be paid in advance; however, if the purchase or sale of the practice in which you are interested is not consummated, the firm will refund your money. The company also provides appropriate advertising vehicles by which to market your practice, or advertise for the purchase of one.
Clearly, if you are seeking Accountancy Practices for Sale, Dental Practices for sale, or any other type of professional practice, you will want to turn to those with solid experience and an impeccable reputation in the field. You will want to turn to Practice Sales Group.
Long gone are the days when physicians served solely as diagnosticians and healers. In today’s highly competitive business environment, physicians require the managerial and communication skills essential to their career growth and indeed, the growth of the institutions with which they are affiliated. Oxford Medical, a leading, highly reputable provider of continuing education, understands this need and has responded to it with targeted courses.
Appropriately named, the site’s medical management course is critical for any practitioner seeking to expand his or her responsibilities into managing others. This 18-point CPD-accredited programme was created by the Royal Academy of Medical Colleges in cooperation with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement of the Medical Leadership and Competency Framework (MLCF). Included in this three-day course are the development of key communication skills, management of diversity, and more, as the site will explain.
The medical teaching course is designed to develop and enhance physicians’ teaching abilities: skills that enhance the value of healthcare practitioners, whether those practitioners are consultants or empowered to practice in specific healthcare facilities. Through this programme, working in small groups, medical professionals engage in a teach the teacher course, acquiring disciplines that will facilitate their transfer of knowledge to interns and nursing staff.
The consultant interview course is vital to physicians seeking consultancy positions. Such positions are highly competitive, and the detailed, extremely rigorous interview process can often serve as the determining factor in the decision to hire, or not hire, an applicant. This comprehensive consultant interview programme spans every phase of the interview process. Development of compelling resumes (curriculum vitae) and the actual interview is covered, including suggestions for establishing an environment of trust with the interviewers, and responding to difficult questions in a manner that transforms negatives into positives. It includes a mock interview as well as clear, concise instructional materials designed to help job candidates ace the interview.
For professional career growth, please examine Oxford Medical’s course offerings in greater detail by clicking through to their site.
In an environment in which technology changes and improves seemingly overnight, consumers are often left holding the bag … the bag containing their outdated technological devices, that is. The conundrum is what to do with those devices. The most ecologically sound solution is to recycle the technology, particularly mobile phones, which represent an enormous chunk of the techno-market. But since our mobile phones represent investments, many of us are hesitant to recycle them, or simply cannot afford to do so.
Savvy consumers, therefore, sell their outdated technology. The Internet abounds with various avenues through which mobile phone users can do this. However, research of myriad Internet sites can be confusing as well as time-consuming. That is why we are pleased to tell you about www.sellmymobile.com. From time to time, Write On New Jersey prepares sponsored reviews of products, services, and websites that we feel may benefit our readers. Sellmymobile.com is one such website. For those seeking to sell mobile phones at the highest possible price, Sellmymobile is an extremely valuable resource.
It compiles and compares purchasers of old mobile phones in a clear, concise — and most importantly, impartial — manner. Consumers can thus make well-informed decisions much faster than if they were to conduct their own research. The site furnishes both highest and lowest resale prices, and the difference between the two can be astounding. For instance, a used Blackberry Curve 8520 can sell for as high as 50 Pounds Sterling and as low as 5 Pounds Sterling! Why settle for the lowest price when you, the consumer, can do much better via sellmymobile’s unbiased comparisons? The process is ever so simple and you’ll receive your money from the sale of your old phone very quickly.
The site is the Top Rated site of its kind in the United Kingdom, and not only for the key information that it provides. It also ranks as Number One because it guarantees the prices listed on the site! If you should sell your old mobile phone via a purchaser listed on the site and then find, up to 24 hours later, that you could have received a better price elsewhere, sellmymobile will refund you the difference. Please visit Sellmymobile.com today to capitalize upon this win-win situation.
In a downward economy, financial service companies facing stringent competition are compelled to optimize every avenue leading to revenue growth. If you are a lender or a provider of credit reports, then, association as an advertiser with an international affiliate network is an avenue that you will wish to exploit. Accelerate your search by starting with Blue Global Media, a full-service, integrated Internet marketing solutions company. Once you are informed as to the company’s unique benefits, services, and professionalism, your search will end with Blue Global Media.
You will be ensured that state-of-the-art technology is provided, monitored, and enhanced by consummate IT professionals at Blue Global Media. That team enables fast and accurate tracking of your Internet sales leads as well as optimization of those leads. Optimization ensures that traffic to your site flows from potential clients who are seriously interested in your loan services. There are also monetary rewards for referral business.
Advertisers benefit with linkage to Blue Global’s global network of affiliates: the level of clientele representing the highest ROI. For advertisers, strategic marketing campaigns are created, continually monitored, and improved to increase the potential for increased profitability. “Increased profitability” refers to genuine, qualifiable probabilities for increasing revenue, not a pie-in-the-sky, hit-or-miss approach to Internet advertising.
For affiliates, Blue Global Media assures flexible payout options, with no minimum requirements, from a company with the highest integrity. By joining Blue Global’s payday affiliate program, you will capitalize upon a marketing program customized to your specific requirements, including training of your personnel in the use of the marketing tools.
Be you an affiliate or be you an advertiser, Blue Global Media offers total win-win situations. Please visit their website today for further details.
In the days before we’d inherited a mortgage, the hubby and I enjoyed traveling overseas. Our first foray, buoyed on the pages of Tom Fowler’s The Magus, was to Greece.
Our arrival in the Athens airport was not auspicious; two weeks earlier, terrorists had targeted that airport. Too late to secure a refund, we assumed that lightning would not strike twice in the same place. But as the metal detector shrieked at us like the Sirens of mythology, we were politely pulled aside by airport security. My husband had packed a tiny mustache scissors and these, apparently, constituted a potential threat. In typical New York fashion, I snatched up the scissors, brandishing them angrily in the security guard’s face, demanding if he were kidding. God rescues the idiots among us, so we were free to go, with the scissors in tow.
The lovely hotel room had a private bath that included a bidette. I stumbled upon it, and nearly into it, with all the wonder of Stanley beholding Dr. Livingston for the first time. Clueless as to its use, I made a transatlantic call to my grandmother, who’d been born in Italy and who knew about these things. She revealed the most basic of directions and told me I’d love that bidette. The ensuing scene, replete with a frenzied call to the concierge, resembled the Three Stooges film when the clueless trio assumed the job of plumbers and proceeded to flood their client’s home. My first and last time with a bidette!
After three days in Athens, we sailed the blue Aegean. As the sun blossomed in the sky each morn, we toured various islands, including Crete, the home of the legendary Minotaur, and Santorini, the rumored resting place of the lost civilization of Atlantis. But when we debarked from the skiff in an emerald cove to see the empty funicular upon the shores of Rhodos (“Rhodes”), my heart sank. We were ordered to either board the funicular or take a donkey ride up the mountain … provided the donkeys didn’t decide to mate on the way up (a popular spectator sport in Greece, apparently). Allergic to equines, not keen to watch Dominic and Doris do the horizontal, er, vertical mambo, and deathly afraid of heights, I crept into the funicular and hugged the floor. Literally.
From that position, as the car creaked slowly up the side of the mountain, as I was certain that the cable would snap any moment, plunging us down to a horrific death, I confessed every sin I’d ever committed — and what I’d planned to do to make up for each one. Unfortunately, I had an audience … dang pesky American tourists along for the ride! … who so enjoyed the impromptu entertainment that they begged me step up to the mic for Amateur Comics Night on board the ship that night.
Fearing the funicular on the return trip like most people fear a root canal without anesthesia, we were told that we could simply walk down to the beach! Going, the dreaded funicular was optional! Good thing the Greeks were unschooled in Italian curses, or I’d have set American-Greek relations back a few hundred years.
That night, we set sail for the island of Lesbos, where we were unable to debark due to extremely rough waters. An unexpected storm tore through our path, rocking the cruise ship a helluva lot worse than any runaway train down the New York City subway tracks. The dining room was only one-third full when we arrived, with my husband already green at the gills. One look at the bread basket and he nearly lost it. A minute later, he was high-tailing it back to our cabin, with a lot of other passengers, just as green, hot on his heels.
Me? I ate and loved the entire, delicious meal. The waiter eyed me as if I’d suddenly sprouted another head upon my shoulders, sort of like a child of Zeus. “What’s for dessert?” I quipped, wiping my lips daintily as other passengers tossed their cookies ’round the dining room … and not the kind of cookies that came on a dessert tray. I was enjoying the pleasant swaying motion of the ship, whose deck was now positioned skyward, at a 45-degree angle. As glasses, dinnerware, and wine bottles slid off tables, as passengers slid beneath them, I asked the waiter, “Can you please make up a tray for my husband? He missed his dinner; I’ll take it to him.” Again, I got that odd look; I knew not why.
I negotiated the roiling deck uphill, balancing the tray like a pro and taking perverse pleasure in the obstacle course of scattered silverware, spilled wine, and doubled-over passengers. I should probably insert here that I excelled at gymnastics in high school, due to my petite frame and height. As my center of gravity is lower than most humans’, I never get seasick and very much enjoy a rocking ocean when I’m sailing upon one.
It took a few tries to steady the key in the lock of our cabin, as the door shifted along with the sea. Once successful, I proffered the sumptuous tray to my husband, who was hanging out of our berth like a parched man off a camel in the desert. “Look what I brought you!” I chirped. “The entire dinner!” He barely made it to the head intact and to this day, calls me a sadist for my innocent act of kindness. To the sound of his upchucking, I fell into a blissful sleep, rocked as if in the cradle. I still swear that that was the best night’s sleep of my entire life!
Our last day was spent on the beautiful, laid back isle of Mykonos … which the guides had failed to warn us boasted a topless beach. “Cool!” I breathed, untying the top of my bikini under the hot sun. “What the hell are you doing!?!” my husband thundered. “No one on this beach knows us,” I pointed out reasonably. “If I’m ever going to go topless, now’s the time.” He gave me so much grief that I abandoned the idea, even as the eyes roll around in his head like errant pinballs at the sight of all the nubile, unbounded flesh. “I’m sorry, I’m oblivious, I swear, I won’t look any more!” he promised. But when we patronized a small food stand on the beach, the words that rolled off his tongue like butter were, “I’ll take two burgers, two Cokes, and two tits!” In revenge, I managed to go topless for not quite 60 seconds before he tossed his towel over me like Sir Walter Raleigh throwing his cape over a noxious puddle.
En route back home, we got stopped again in the Athens airport. This time, it was my box of Borghese® eye shadows that set off the alarms. The very same guard eyed me with deep trepidation, easing the cover off the makeup case as he would the top of Pandora’s Box. Nothing inimical in there but twenty gorgeous shades of sparking eye shadow (hey, this was the late ’80′s!). “I don’t understand,” he admitted in his thick accent. “Me either,” I shrugged, and then, it dawned on us both. The metals in the eye makeup had set off the alarms; they’d been overlooked the first time, in light of the tiny moustache scissors! “Lady,” the guard muttered, closing the box with a shudder and handing it back to me, “You’re dangerous!”
“You don’t know the half of it,” my husband muttered under his breath.
With the start of a New Year, many of us have made resolutions to achieve goals that may have seemed illusive or even impossible in the past. Among these are resolutions to maintain healthier lifestyles. Inherent in this goal is the need to lose weight through a proper dietary plan, and medical science has done much to validate these objectives. Numerous formal studies conducted by reputable hospitals, licensed physicians, and pharmaceutical companies have established definitive links between obesity and a wide range of adverse medical conditions. These include and are not limited to diabetes, hypertension and stroke, and cardiac problems.
In addition to these maladies, those who are overweight often experience prejudice, particularly in the job market. Given the current unemployment rate and the very real health risks associated with obesity, the objective to lose weight in the New Year is extremely compelling. The problem, however, is how to achieve the goal.
While dieting offers a pathway, the current plethora of diets is often confusing. Is one diet truly more effective than the other? What are the requirements of each diet? And how does one choose the plan that best fits one’s own needs? Thankfully, there is a website that provides comprehensive information, for the average consumer, concerning the most popular diets. That site is puntofape.com
If you, dear reader, are interested in exploring Dieta Atkins (the Atkins Diet), the site will assist you with a mere click of the mouse. Before the emergence of most of the current diets, Doctor Atkins had configured and later redesigned his plan primarily around the intake of protein and certain fruits and vegetables. In existence for more than 30 years, Dieta Atkins has been exceptionally popular with several generations of dieters, who have found the plan successful.
If you prefer an eating plan that is less restrictive, yet proven to be effective, educate yourself concerning dieta mediterranea (the Mediterranean Diet). Since the days of the ancient Romans and earlier, this eating plan is simple, exceptionally healthy, and beneficial in terms of weight loss. Proteins, with emphasis on fish and poultry, are combined with “good carbs” such as legumes and whole grains, most vegetables, and many fruits to form the basis of a highly effective, easy-to-follow eating plan that will assist you in losing weight and maintaining good health.
For those of you who desire a more rapid weight loss plan, the site furnishes information concerning dieta Fricker (the Fricker Diet). Included is a primer about how this diet impacts your metabolism to help you drop pounds relatively quickly.
Along with the data concerning these diets, the site also provides helpful tips concerning fitness and exercise, general nutrition, and much more. Please visit puntofrape.com today and educate yourself as to how to take the first step toward a slimmer, healthier you.
My little niece, now 22 years old, has always run to extremes. In her academic career, she’s consistently ranked among the top 5% of her class, even in Physics, her “bear” subject. Jaimie* even earned a partial scholarship to Columbia University, to pursue her Master’s degree, but in typical Jaimie fashion, chose a much smaller, non-Ivy League school closer to home. Her clothing, makeup, accessories, and techno-gadgets, ever since I can remember, are the prettiest, the best, the most current. Anything else, she’s eschewed with the snobbery mustered only by the young and uber-confident. About six years ago, my niece latched onto another extreme in her eating habits.
Red meat has not touched her lips in all that time. Fat is avoided at all costs, unless it is “good fat,” such as that provided by salmon, tuna, or halibut (and she won’t eat much of the latter two, due to the threat of mercury). She shops at the wonderful and costly Whole Foods® whenever possible, though there is but one such store in her area, and even that is located a distance from her home. Jaimie’s daily, no bad carbs diet consists of the following, in this exact order:
1. Oatmeal with skim milk, nuts, and fruits (no sweetener of any kind, not even Agave nectar).
2. An organic apple with all-natural almond butter
3. A cup of plain Greek yogurt with fresh or dried blueberries
4. Another piece of fruit of her choosing, organic, of course
5. Multitudinous vegetables for dinner with approximately 3 ounces of lean protein
On New Year’s Eve, I watched my niece, who is 5’6″ without an ounce of discernable fat on her frame, who enjoys running, and who is not, thank God, anorexic, gobble two cookies and then beat herself up about it. I told her to forgive herself, for it was a small discretion committed on a holiday. I said this as I popped the pills that I am compelled to take nightly, to counteract allergies, asthma, and another health issue that, if not properly managed, can be significant.
At three o’clock on the morn of the brand new year, after kissing my niece and the rest of the family goodbye, I arrived home to a small miracle. My older kitty, who has not been doing well, was not only eating on her own, unassisted, she was eating the healthiest food of all: her new, lower-protein kibble that she has been unable to manage of late. My husband and I had consulted a homeopathic vet for her earlier that same day, a vet who’d put our girl on all-natural whey protein and who showed us an easier way to give her the necessary fluids via IV.
I awoke on January 1st thinking that none of this could be a coincidence, including the date on the calendar portending a new start.
Maybe Jaimie isn’t such an extremist, after all; surely, she will be healthier than her aunt as well as a lot of others who are not as conscious of their diet and exercise. And methinks the homeopathic vet is on to something, particularly considering that the state-of-the-art veterinary service we’d consulted previously had sent my husband and me home to sit a deathwatch on our beloved cat.
I am the first one to use and promote homeopathic products (i.e., salt or honey to close small wounds, a Netty Pot® to clear stuffy sinuses, red wine to stave off macular degeneration). But I could be better about my overall diet, and in fact, I was, when I was diagnosed early this year with the afore-mentioned condition. I actually love healthy foods but don’t eat enough of them.
In the manner of many Italian-Americans, I’d cooked three fish salads for this New Year’s Eve celebration, knowing that they and their leftovers would be both tasty and extremely healthy. But my husband had picked up small trays of eggplant rollatini and stuffed shells at a local salameria, so that I would not have to cook for New Year’s Day. As I scooped out the rich food to warm it up, I pulled off all of the external mozzarella, thinking, “That stuff is going right into our arteries.” By the time I was done with the mozzarella, I didn’t even want to eat the food, but neither did I want to waste our hard-earned money.
“There’s a healthier way to do both dishes,” I thought, “and I’m going to find them.” Small changes, over time, will yield big results. Rarely do I make New Year’s resolutions, for rarely do I keep them. But with Jaimie and our rallying kitty for inspiration, I made the resolution to treat my husband and myself better this year in terms of the foods that we consume and the amount of exercise in which we engage. I think we can do it. And I think we’re going to have a happier, much healthier New Year for it … ancient Mayan prophesies notwithstanding! 
* A pseudonym, to protect my niece’s privacy.