About Golfing Zen: This is the second in a continuing series of
short essays dealing with the application of Eastern spiritual
philosophy to your golf game.

The surface intent is that, as you apply the ideas, your golf
and your enjoyment of the game will grow. However there is also
an underlying motive: as you are able to see gains on the
course, you’ll then be moved to alter your approach to life as
well.

Today’s Topic: The Fundamental Truth

In these articles, I’ll be simplifying as we talk about the
Eastern philosophies, and this topic title is a good example.
Buddhism actually opens its doors with The Four Noble Truths.

The first of those is that our experience is marked by
suffering. Living means to suffer. The Eastern term is dukka.

The second shows the source of dukka to be desire, and the third
shows how we can eliminate suffering: if it is desire that leads
to suffering then the obvious solution is to stop desiring.
Obvious, sure, but we would agree it isn’t easy.

This doesn’t mean we stop living, that we give up work, play,
relationships, learning and growth, or even that we forsake
goals. It does mean we stop agonizing about it all. Some things
we’ll never have. I won’t be the next Senator from Pennsylvania,
and I’m not going to make the PGA tour. That’s obvious enough,
but most of us continue to hunger after things that are
permanently outside our grasp, without admitting it to
ourselves.

Or, there are goals that we can eventually reach but that we
don’t have this minute. I’d like to have a retirement home in
Asheville, North Carolina. But I don’t, today, and if I obsess
about it, I can easily lose sight of the pleasures of my current
life. It’s a fundamental: hungering after something not yet here
contaminates our today.

So, the fundamental truth we’re talking about is this. Whatever
we have today is everything we need - today.

The last of the Noble Truths lays out how to let go of desire:
by following the Eightfold Path (understanding, thought, speech,
action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration). But
the Path a big subject and is for the future; I’ll certainly do
a piece on each of those steps along the Path in future articles.

For now, the connection to golf is obvious to any of us that
have suffered on the course. And who of us hasn’t suffered? Ever
throw a club? Dress yourself down — either out loud or within
your mind?

Beyond the momentary outbursts, is your enjoyment of the game in
general contaminated by not being good enough? Are you reluctant
to play with people that are better? Do you despair about lack
of improvement? Do you think about giving up?

The First Noble Truth within Buddhism is equally true on the
golf course; our golfing dukka comes from our excessive desire,
from our grasping after success. And here’s the real secret…
that comes from playing golf in an ego-driven state. If we’re
playing to re-enforce our own ego — either to others or to
ourselves — then we’re going to struggle.

The answer lies in a simple (granted, difficult) idea: we are,
today, only what we are today; our swing is what it is; our
mental game is what it is. Therefore — we’re perfect — today.
We can let ourselves focus on the beauty of the walk in the
park, on the companionship of friends. We can be alert, we can
pay attention, we can be mindful of everything we see and
experience, we can allow our game to be what it is, and we can
trust that we’re on a path that will take us to higher levels as
we continue move along. And that’s true!

I’ll be giving you lots of ‘tips’ or ‘thought exercises’ as we
move through these articles, and here’s one that applies to this
subject. You can reduce your grasping (and thereby, your
golf-course dukka) by detaching for the outcome. Laird Small,
the head pro at Pebble Beach, calls it “NATO:” Not Attached To
Outcome.

Here’s one way of doing that. Your golf-course job is to swing
the club in a graceful, rhythmic, and balanced way. The Golf
God’s job is to move the ball to a new point, for your next
test. Your job is only to be mindful of how well you perform
your task and to get out of the way and let the Golf God do his.
Try that, next time out.

Next Time: You Already Know.

With so many credit card companies offering credit cards, the
consumer market for credit cards has become one tough cookie to
crack. To stay competitive, credit card companies offer various
extra services, rewards programs and promos that would lure
consumers to sign up with their company.

Rewards program

Most credit cards have a some sort of rewards program running.
Rewards program in credit cards basically follow one set of
principle. The more you spend and the more you see your credit
card, the more points you will get. Often, there is a standard
equivalent for every amount spent. For instance, one point is
given for every, let’s say, 10 dollars purchase.

The points can be accumulated and later exchanged for a product
or cash, whichever is being offered. Some banks even send out
catalogs where their clients can see just what is being offered
in exchange for their points. Some credit card companies even
allow for half points-half cash scheme provided that it will be
charged to the account.

Rewards program is actually a great and effective way not only
to lure customers into the program but also to keep them there.
And what is more they are encouraged to use their credit cards
as often as possible.

Discounts in establishments

Some credit cards offer discounts when used in partner
establishments. Some credit card companies even offer up to 20
percent discount. This discount scheme can be usually found in
credit cards that target a specific niche market. For instance,
if a credit card company hopes to target the young
professionals, they would partner with establishments where
these people usually shop or eat at. Partner establishments can
range from a measly ten to as many as 50 stores.

Zero interest promos

To lure people to spend, credit card companies often tie up with
establishments and offer zero interest for a specific time
frame. The client can purchase the item and be able to use it
without paying for it immediately. The purchase will reflect in
the monthly statement after the zero interest period has ended.

This is often done with items that are very expensive such as
tech gadgets, electronic equipments and house furnishings to
encourage buyers to purchase item that they do not really need
or are not so very necessary to their house. Luxury items such
as jewelry are also sometimes covered by this scheme.

Free items

Credit card companies often offer free items when a client
decides to sign up with them. Free items vary, depending on the
type of account that a client will avail of and also depending
on how high the credit limit is as well as the monthly income.

Gold card clients for example will get a much more expensive
free item when they sign up while those that have signed up on
regular accounts will often get regular items.

Waived service charges

Credit card companies also reward their loyal customers,
especially those who have reached a certain amount purchased in
a year, by waiving some of the service charges that they incur.
For instance, customers who have good credit history with the
credit card company need not pay for the annual fee. The company
automatically waives the fee so that the client will stay on
with them.

Carl Cox makes it easy to find the credit cards and loans
that suits your needs, quickly & easily. Learn the essential
keys to credit at application secrets or view our
credit guide at average card credit

The fourth step of how to start an Internet business involves the layout of your site. When organizing it, two audiences must be considered. Obviously, visitors to the site are the first audience. You must also keep in mind the second audience, search engine robots. Both audiences are extremely important and, fortunately, both want the same thing.

Lean, Mean Layout

Your site needs to be clean and quick if you want to be successful. Slow, cluttered sites inevitably fail because visitors and spiders get distracted and leave before taking the action you want. Let’s take a closer look.

Visitors

The layout of your site should allow visitors to quickly find information and solutions. To achieve this, every page should be no more than two clicks from the home page. Have you ever been on a site where you have to hunt to find a particular page? Poor layouts are aggravating and hurt conversion rates.

Make things as easy as possible by interlinking between the site pages. Every page should have links to primary pages and as many other pages as possible. If you look at good site, links to primary pages are listed across the top and bottom of each page. Links to specific services or products are always listed on each page. It may sound like overkill, but make it as easy as possible for your clients to move around.

Spiders

Search engines use programs called “spiders” to surf the net and index sites. When a spider finds a page, it reads the code from top to bottom and left to right. If the code is clean, the spider will index the page and follow the links to the other pages of the site.

If the code isn’t clean, spiders stop indexing pages. If pages aren’t indexed, they do not appear in search engine results. What stops spiders? Following are the most common problems:

1. Bottlenecks - Make sure each page of your site links to every primary page at a minimum. You do not want a spider to get stuck on a page and miss others.

2. Dynamic Pages - Your pages need to be static or carefully designed. If dynamic, spiders often will not index them because they aren’t sure of the content.

3. Frames - Don’t use this antiquated design technique.

4. Poor URLs - A huge mistake is to put database parameters in the URL. The URL should contain only the domain name and keywords for the page. A good URL reads: http://www.marketingtitan.com/internet_marketing_services. A poor URL with parameters would read: http://www.marketingtitan.com/id#us57486&095783

5. Images - Don’t overuse images and don’t put text in images. Images slow down your site, so make them small and optimized. Robots do not read text inside of images, thus text needs to go outside of the images or ALT tags need to be used.

Evaluating The Layout

Once the site is designed, TEST IT! Surf the pages and see if you are able to flow through the site. Add internal links wherever possible. Finally, test the load times of your site on a 56k dial-up modem. If the site loads in under 20 seconds, you are headed in the correct direction.

Your site layout is important. Make sure it caters to the needs of the visitors, whether human or spider.

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

Plenty of breeds of organisations, including hotels, will probably wish to consider thinking of obtaining public liability insurance. A business could want this sort of protective insurance to cover a number of scenarios such as a client stumbling over a badly laid floor lining on your business property. Public business liability insurance could cover all legal costs and compensation awarded to a citizen of the public that has received a cut and damage resulted by you or your business. If you are looking for Public Liability Insurance, contact Insured Risks.

Small businesses who desire to obtain a public liability insurance policy should review the T’s & C’s as numerous could void your claim if there are certain conditions. The greatest advice to do is to confer with your public insurance advisor the policy in great detail.

The insurance corporation are a fantastic organization that supply business insurance at astonishing prices. Having public liability insurance is not a mandatory requirement for all businesses, but many commercial organisations will require you have this in order to supply your services to them. Insured Risks provide 3 levels of up to 4.5 millions pounds, & is wonderful for start up businesses such as tradesmen, or possibly large companies such as therapists,

Public liability insurance will often help to eradicate risk if you are running a business. The law does mention that if you cause damage to someone else or their house then you might often be told to pay the cost of damage. Public liability may protect your business from going down the drains should the worst happen.

Aaaahhhhh, fuller, younger looking, pouty lips. Full lips are definitely a sign of “youth” but what happens to our lips when we begin to mature? Lips become thinner, less attractive and pretty soon, one just might give up wearing lipstick because the top lip virtually disappears, especially when smiling. When this shrinking act is apparent in the mirror, usually vertical lines begin to invade the lips making a mature women look positively ancient.

Women aren’t the only ones who want softer, fuller lips. Men whose lips are thin and hard may portray a steely attitude in the boardroom; however, men with fuller lips look more attractive, boyish and younger.

Lips are soft tissue and as a man or woman begins to mature, volume dissipates which means tissue shrinks.

There are many modalities for revitalizing soft tissue in lips; the old standby - bovine collagen, Zyderm® and Zyplast® has competition. Restylane®, CosmoDerm® and ComoPlast® (human {cadaver} collagen), Radiance®, Artecoll® and others have entered the market of “fillers”. These new fillers do not require skin testing for allergic reactions and they are all injected. The procedure time varies from 3-10 minutes and some patients relate that these types of injections can be painful. These services can be relatively expensive because they’re not permanent fixes and these injections must be repeated every few months to maintain lip fullness. The most common side effect, as with any injection, is redness, bruising and swelling at the injection site that typically last less than three weeks.

A more permanent lip procedure that is widely used is Gortex. Strips of Gortex (threads of foam-like material) are inserted into the lips; the lips do become somewhat larger after the procedure is completed but some users complain that their lips feel hard, not soft and supple. Some of these implants cannot be removed if a problem arises because the lip tissue grows into and around the implant. Possible complications include infection, migration or extrusion of the implants and lip asymmetry is a concern.

Another somewhat permanent solution is fat injections; a patient’s own fat is removed from usually the tummy or buttocks, washed and then re-injected into the lips. While this is probably a fairly safe modality, the fat tends to reabsorb rather quickly, deflating the lips.

Recently over the counter glosses, lipsticks, and other types of topical preparations have been introduced promising fuller, poutier lips with more definition and volume. Many cosmetic companies have jumped on this bandwagon promising the users that their special ingredients will produce full, luscious lips after a few weeks of use. In fact, there have been over 200 new products introduced to the marketplace in the last two years ranging in price from $6.99 to almost $40. Instead of traffic stopping lips, some of these topical products have produced burns, mouth sores and empty pockets.

Some cosmetic companies do use natural components in their formulas but some of the formulas may be misleading. No product can deliver the look of a collagen injection in a topical. How these products work is through the use of an irritating ingredient such as niacin, cinnamon, caffeine or peppermint; these ingredients may cause some temporary swelling via dilation of the blood vessels along with mild inflammation, giving the illusion of fullness. Some preparations require the user to rub the lips briskly for several minutes and this friction results in some degree of temporary swelling.

Many women and men want fuller lips because poutier lips make them feel sexier and more alluring. Consumers are willing to spend a lot of money to have “the look”; but not everyone agrees that the topicals deliver what they have promised. Dr. Sam Most, Chief of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle asked seven women to use a certain topical whose website says their product increases actual lip volume and contour an average of 40.7 percent; Dr. Most said, “In subjects who used the product as directed over a long term there was no visible change in the lips.”

Is there an actual difference in using topical applications that promise full, pouty lips or is lipstick and a liner enough? Maybe Yoki Ono, a saleswoman at a Madison Avenue designer boutique, quoted in the NY Times, has the answer: “You might as well get some extra-spicy Buffalo wings and eat them.”

Or better yet, save yourself a bundle of cash and brush your lips with a baby’s toothbrush and petroleum jelly for about a minute, your lips will be fuller and soft - guaranteed!

Cynthia is widely recognized as an expert in all natural facial fitness with over thirty years experience in health & beauty related fields. She has appeared on The View, Fit TV, HGTV and other popular shows. This author, speaker and television personality is leading the crusade to keep men and women looking vibrantly younger through natural techniques without spending their children’s inheritance.

Cynthia Rowland, http://www.facialmagic.com

“Company’s coming and my place doesn’t look right…”

You know how it goes, you have visitors coming tonight. You’ve
cleaned every room in the house (well, maybe not the bedroom).
You’ve planned the menu, and…it’s just not quite right. Perhaps
you’ve been hankering for a change or maybe it strikes you out
of the air, the room needs Something, but what?

Here’s five fast tips for when that re-decorating demon strikes
and you haven’t the budget or time to do much.

You can likely do all of these ideas for significantly less than
$50, but because they are simple, I’ll explain along the way
what makes the difference.

1)Fresh Flowers You don’t need a $50 bouquet to make a room, but
a stale look will get an instant boost with a bit of living,
breathing, greenery. Consider a $20 tropical, large enough to
fill in an empty corner, and spend another $20 on a colorful
bunch of fresh cut flowers (if you shop well, you can even get
the vase). This will give your room instant punch!

2)Bowl of Fruit & Table Cloth If you’re at the market anyway,
don’t overlook the zest and color that a large bowl of fresh
fruit lends to the kitchen, dining room, or even the coffee
table. Great look that works well in all decors; fill a pottery
dish with a variety, or a tall glass vase with a single fruit
(ie: lemons or limes) or even line up a row of green apples
along the coffee or dining table for a contemporary feel. And
since fruit is inexpensive, give yourself a shot of change by
selecting a new table linen in the trendiest color of the season
to give your room a real lift or invest in a crisp white or
cream cloth for a classic look.

3)Baskets You don’t have to be a country girl (or guy) to
appreciate the cozy look of baskets. Even the most modern room
can benefit from a bit of wood or rattan. But the main purpose
here is to hide clutter. You’ll feel so refreshed if you add a
few baskets to fill with magazines, toys or hobby material. It’s
the easiest way to contain the everyday clutter that you can’t
stow away. And clearing space is always a good look!

4)Throw Cushions I’d bet you could find two throw cushions for
less than $50, so if you do, add a throw blanket as well. Cheap
and shamefully easy, this is the way to go if you’re ready to
make more of a statement. Great opportunity to bring some
contrast into a dull room, consider light pillows for a dark
room, dark pillows for a light one, and absolutely try adding a
trendy color to a neutral room. And at this price, you can
change it next season!

5)Paint Admittedly for the more ambitious, this is a fantastic
way to create a stunning look in little time. However, this is
an article on FAST ideas, so let’s not tackle the whole room
right now. If company’s coming this weekend, try a new look by
painting a feature wall a stunning but complementary color (ie:
the fireplace wall, that blank wall behind the couch…you get the
idea.) Or even tape off a smaller section (this is called color
blocking) to focus attention on a collection of pictures, or
behind a mirror, or around the fireplace.

To all those with the decorating fever, I wish you speedy
recovery and an enjoyable project!