Posts Tagged ‘attention’
Communications Equipment in the Wilderness
For Hunting, fishing, hiking, boating or cycling in all kinds of weather
Communication in the wilderness is a matter of survival, as well as convenience. Before even leaving home, communications must begin. In fact, our first two communications tips do not even require equipment or gadgets.
“Make sure that somebody knows when you leave, when you expect to return (or get to your destination),” advises Chad Brown, owner of Farm & Field fishing and hunting equipment, a website geared to hunting, fishing and farming. “Provide as much information about your route as possible.
Things can happen. Rocks can fall on your head while hiking. Boats can tip over while fishing. Firearms can malfunction while hunting. Somebody needs to know that you are late in arriving…and where to send search parties to go fishing for you. In fact, this is the same advice I used to give drivers in winter weather when I was spokesperson for CAA Ontario.
The second tip is to never head into the wilderness alone. Just as one should never go swimming without a swimming buddy, nor should one go long-distance cycling or hiking, nor hunting, camping or fishing in a remote area without a buddy.
My wife’s uncle took the business end of large falling branch on his skull while out in the forest, knocking him unconscious and cracking his skull down the middle. Eventually his skull will heal, but only because he had companions to get him into town. Otherwise, he might still not be found.
Here is another report, this one from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation about a fall from a tree stand: “The subject had no communications equipment with him. No phone or radio. If the subject had left word of where he would be and approximate hour of return, a response may have been quicker. Cause of Death: The subject suffered a broken shoulder, multiple broken ribs on one side, a punctured lung, and a punctured spleen.”
This is fishing gear?
Assuming you are still conscious, it helps to have some communications equipment while out hunting, fishing or camping. Of course, there is the ever popular cell phone, which brings instant communications to almost everywhere in the world. Except maybe your wilderness trek.
But there are many places where cell phone range covers your fishing lake or hunting woods. The best part about a cell phone is that, even by your favorite wilderness stream, you can have utterly normal conversations with pretty well anybody.
“Yes, nice weather we are having lately. OK, darling, on my way back into town I’ll pick up some milk and peanut butter and…wait! Was that an orca?!? Gotta go.” Click.
Not only that, with a cell phone you can even catch up on your email while crouching in your tent or scaling a cliff, with an email to phone service.
A two-way radio is a much surer piece of equipment, because it does not depend on the cellular phone network to connect. The downside is that you get to speak to a much narrower range of people: other two-way radio owners.
“Hi there, Big Bear, do you read me? Can you get a-hold of my wife to see if I have to pick up milk and peanut butter on my way back into town? Do you copy? Oh yeah, you got the weather forecast there, by any chance?”
Before you leave on any outdoors trip, it is wise to check your weather forecast. But the weather forecast can change quickly, so a cell phone or radio serves another purpose.
“Whaddaya mean thunderstorms and hail?!? I just got here, darling, I don’t want to come home just yet. Oh…alright…”
Of course, you could just have someone email the weather forecast to you on your cell phone.
Chad Brown also suggests another piece of hunting equipment – keeping a very loud whistle hanging from your neck. If you are trapped under a tree, pinned down by a boulder, or wrestling a grizzly bear, you might not have the reach or the attention span to dial a number. If anybody is within earshot, they will come running…if not to help you, at least to capture the scene for America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Our final tip might seem obvious, but make sure you know where to call. Have the emergency number taped to the back of the cell phone (ignore your wife’s idea of tattooing it to your forehead; where would you find a mirror in the middle of a ravine?) and make sure you know what frequency to call for help on the two-way radio.
There you have it. You are prepared to go out into the wild and communicate. Make sure to prepare, to have the right hunting equipment or fishing gear for communicating, and know how to use them in an emergency.
And if the animals don’t understand what you are trying to communicate to them, you might not be any worse off than in the city.
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer and a website marketing consultant who loves the outdoors.
Fashion After 40
With so many designers and trends targeting the svelte body of the twenty-something, is it possible to look fashionable as the years pass and your body begins to tell the tale?
Absolutely!
In fact, with a little ingenuity and sleigh-of-hand, it’s easy to be fashionable and stylish regardless of how many candles are on your birthday cake.
Now let’s be frank: unless you work out religiously, you probably don’t have the same body at 40, 50, or 60 that you did at 25. Time, gravity, and pregnancy all take their toll on the female body, as does menopause. And when you mix a mature body with fashions obviously made for a younger person, it can lead to self-doubt, frustration, and confusion.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Getting older also means getting wiser, and like a fine bottle of wine, you’re improving with age. So you don’t have the same body as those twenty-somethings you see in magazines or on TV. So what? Would you REALLY trade everything you’ve learned since your twenties for the body you had back then? Probably no sooner than you’d like to re-live puberty, thank you very much.
So how can you be fashionable without wearing all those body-conscious clothes so en vogue these days? By remembering the “3 C’s” when you dress: clean, classic, and coverage.
CLEAN
Clean lines create a clean silhouette which makes the body appear more youthful by skimming the trouble spots instead of calling attention to them. Complicated cuts, seams, and details usually call for a killer body to pull off, so if you haven’t got it, steer clear of those styles.
CLASSIC
Classic styles are called classic because they remain in style year after year. Why? Because they look good on so many bodies! Sheathes, A-line skirts, flat front pants – all tend to flatter a variety of shapes. What’s more, because they remain in style year after year, classics are easier on the budget than trends.
COVERAGE
Covering appropriately is the key to aging gracefully. If your upper arms, thighs, and décolletage have all seen better days, it’s time to cover them up a bit instead of sharing the wear-and-tear with the world. Now I’m not talking about draping yourself in a tent for the rest of your life. Far from it. I’m talking about wearing short sleeves instead of going sleeveless, Capris instead of shorts, and modest necklines instead of plunging necklines.
Now I know that covering up the parts that used to turn heads and draw envy can be tough to take for some women. Which is precisely why beautiful jewelry and fine fabrics are the revenge tools of choice for many well-dressed mature women.
So your bustline isn’t as perky as your twenty-something daughter or granddaughter. So what? Add a beautiful necklace and draw envious glances from women of all ages. Don’t have the same backside you did as a teen? Encase it in a fine fabric and see how many men go out of the way to hold the door open for you. People will look where you focus their attention, so use that knowledge to redirect their interest to the parts you want them to see.
Or, as actress Cybil Shepard once said, “I like to flaunt what I have left.”
Don’t flip through fashion magazines and bemoan the fact that you don’t look like the models. Instead, look at the various fashion elements to determine what will and won’t work for you. Are printed scarves all the rage this year? Grab a few and be trendy. Are mini skirts the style of choice? Pass and bank your money.
See how easy this is?
“A woman has the age she deserves,” Coco Chanel once said. You don’t have to go under cover and dress “like a little old lady” just because that’s what your mother or grandmother did. You’re your own person.
If you remember to dress in clean lines and classic styles and cover appropriately, you can still be fashionable – AND draw long, lingering glances from handsome men — whatever your age. And if THAT doesn’t make you feel like a blushing girl again, then honey, nothing I can say will!
Diana Pemberton-Sikes is a wardrobe and image consultant and author of “Wardrobe Magic,” an ebook that shows women how to transform their unruly closets into workable, wearable wardrobes.
Visit her online at http://www.fashionsavvy.com.
The Secrets of High Money Classified Ads
When used effectively, classified ads can be one of the quickest and most inexpensive ways to increase your sales. A well written classified ad can generate thousands in sales, yet could cost you pennies to write and run.
Most people don’t appreciate the power of well written classified ads. They think classified ads are for selling cars, or finding jobs, and not for expanding a business. While it’s true a classified ad is a good way to achieve the above, it is also true that classified ads can be used to launch and expand multi million pound businesses.
Many businesses rely exclusively on these low cost ads to generate a substantial amount of their annual turn over. The reason is simple. Once you have discovered how to harness the power of these classified ads, you really won’t need to run expensive display ads at all.
Note that the key point about classified ads is that they are most effective when used as lead generators, and not to sell from. In these ads you are not trying to convince someone to spend money with you. You are trying to identify a potential customer by having that customer contact you as a result of the ad. Once potential customers have identified themselves, you can then follow up with your direct mail offer for the product or service you are selling.
Writing an effective classified ad is one of the most exacting forms of copywriting. In twenty words or less you have to grab the customer’s attention, and excite them enough to prompt them into calling you for more information. You can’t rely on eye catching illustrations or professional layouts to catch the reader’s attention. It’s all in what you say.
Here’s how you write a good classified ad that works:
1. First you need to define what you want the ad to accomplish. Do you want the customer to read the ad and smile? Or do you want them to read your ad and call you immediately? Obviously the answer is the latter of the two.
2. Next decide what type of person is most likely to purchase your product or service. This is called creating a customer profile. Ask yourself questions like: Are they a man or a woman? Are they young or old? Are they rich or poor? Ask yourself as many questions as possible to help create a profile for your potential customers. If you struggle to identify who you are going to sell your product or service to, then it is almost impossible to write an ad that will grab their attention.
3. With the most likely customer profile developed in step two above, you should make a list of all the “hot buttons”, those words, ideas, and concepts that are most likely to grab the immediate attention of anyone in the group of customers you have identified. These hot buttons might be simple phrases like “work at home”, “financial freedom”, “lose weight overnight”, “exciting job opportunity”, or “immediate loans”.
4. Using the list of hot buttons you came up with in step three above, you should see how you can integrate them into a twenty word or less ad that accomplishes what you defined in step one. When writing your ad, the most important words are the first three, and must be selected with great purpose. They should call out to your potential customers.
5. If your goal is to get the reader to identify themselves to you as a potential customer, you should offer free additional information about your product or service. This way you get the customer to call you and give you their name and address, so you can send them something in the post. You would normally do this by saying, “for a free information pack please call (your number here).
6. After your ad is written to your satisfaction, you should search out a number of highly targeted newspapers and magazines that your customers might read. Then you find the ones with the least amount of classified ads in, and run your test ads there. Always avoid general interest publications. The ad price rates are too expensive in them and the response too small, go for specialist publications.
7. Before the ads appear you need to develop your ad response pack. This is the free information that people who see your ads will be calling about. It is this response pack that will generate the sale. Having a good response pack is critical to the success of your classified ad project.
8. When your ads appear, you should keep a track of the total number of enquiries for each ad, and from which publications they came from. This lets you know which ad works best, and which publication pulls the most interest. You can then use this information when you roll out the ad on a wider scale.
One final point to remember, the success of a classified ad is determined by the sales that are generated by the follow-up effort (the response information pack), not by the lead generating ad itself. It is important that you spend much time and effort considering the content to be included in your response pack, but that is another topic.
Thanks for reading. If you liked the article please feel free to rate it at the bottom of this page.
Jason
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Jason Morris is co-author, search engine optimization and marketing consultant of Business Phone Systems Direct. An established communications company, offering advice and implementation of high quality business phone systems.
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Learning Interior Design
Learning interior design can be a simple or complicated task depending on a wide variety of factors including exposure, ability, creativity, and willingness to learn. This article is dedicated to explaining the basic elements that interior design is based upon so that you will have the ability to go out and research these elements on your own in order to advance you ability and perspective of the interior design world.
Lets begin with a few suggestions of where to properly conduct your research. A good beginning point for all of those interior design newbies would be television shows dedicated to the subject, books, magazines, other interior design professionals, ect.
Another resource that you have an unlimited exposure to that doesn’t cost you anything but time and focus are your eyes. Your eyes are wonderful tools for learning interior design and successful application of it. They are such terrific tools because eyes are the ears of the interior design symphony. They possess the ability to look upon any element of design and transmit information to your brain concerning the colors indicated in the design, textures, layout, and whether or not the overall effect is pleasing.
If you can master the ability of viewing a particular setting or scenario and delving from it the key elements of its visual success, you are enormous steps forward in your journey of learning interior design.
Find an example of a design setting that is pleasant or pleasing to you. This can be located in a book, magazine, or even in real-life. Close your eyes. Now open them. What do you look at first? The first item that your eyes focused upon is considered to be your focal point.
In television discussions or magazine articles it is sometimes wrongfully alluded to that there is one appointed (by the designer, of course!) focal point. This is simply untrue. For every person that views the room, that person offers a unique perspective.
One person might gaze intently at the fireplace due to the warmth and secure nature of that design element. Another might focus upon the sofa. Yet another person might elevate towards the remote control (ha!).
The point is, is that the focal point of a room is the area of the room that demands your attention upon arrival in it and generally you base your placement of activities that take place in that room on the location the that focal point. This is the reason why so much strategic planning is normally based on the focal points of a room when designing the creative outlay of the room. This is why your fundamental understanding of the focal points of a room is dramatically instrumental in learning interior design.
It is true that certain architectural elements of a room demand more attention then others. I think that this is one of the reasons that many people misunderstand the concept of focal points. Throughout your journey of learning interior design, you will come to understand the importance of balancing the understanding of architecture focal points, and living ones.
Certain people are naturally going to elevate towards different activities and objects in a room. This is why a basic understanding of both the human element and the architectural one are a keystone to successful interior design.
Once you have a basic to medium understanding of focal points and placement of items in and around those places, the other key feature of learning interior design is visual representation of objects.
Color, texture, and shape are the fundamentals in this category. When you view an object, the way that the light is reflected off of it onto your eyes is commonly known as color. Texture is the way that the object ‘feels’ to you visually. Shape is the basic makeup of the object reflected visually. The correct combination of these characteristics results in a visually harmonious atmosphere.
Let’s imagine a few terms you hear when associated with design. ‘Gaudy’ always pops into mind. A space with bold color representation, an overkill interjection of texture, and the overuse of modern or untraditional shape forms are all factors that would encompass that title.
‘Simple’ would generally refer to the use of light, neutral color schemes in combination with small interjections of light texture and straight lined shapes. Simple, in my opinion is the basic ingredient to a successful recipe of design. Begin simply and build to your comfort level of complexity. This will not be an area that will flow naturally with you when you begin learning interior design. It will more then likely become an understanding that you will develop over time and exposure to different aspects of design.
To wind things up, the road to learning interior design is filled with information and visual perspectives that will open both your eyes and your mind to an entirely different world. Observation is the key to better understanding this world. Open your eyes and begin the adventure!
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Rosemary Leake is an Independent Consultant with Southern Living at Home. Inspired by Southern Living magazine, our exclusive home décor line brings warmth and style to every room of your home! Visit Rosemary’s Interior Design website for more articles and resources – http://www.newsletterjournal.com. Also get your FREE Mini-Report “A Complete Guide To Interior Design.”
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Michael Jacksons Latest Album Has Flopped
One month after being cleared of sex assault charges, Michael Jackson’s latest album, The Essential Michael Jackson, has flopped. In the first week of its release only 8000 copies were sold. At this pace it will take nearly one hundred years to equal his most popular album, Thriller, which has sold 40 million copies. Jackson may have been cleared of all charges, but his fans aren’t buying his product. Is this a portent of things to come? Let’s look at some of the reasons why Michael Jackson may be long “past peak” when it comes to entertaining in the US.
The Michael Jackson Trial got the attention of Americans in the first half of 2005 as the drama was played out nightly on cable news shows. Indeed, it seemed as if CNN and Fox News were battling to be the first one to bring the latest and greatest information to viewers. Finally, in June, the verdict was in: not guilty. The Jackson legal team breathed a sigh of relief and pundits predicted that Jackson would recover over the next year.
So, why has The Essential Michael Jackson flopped? Certainly it isn’t because of the quality of the songs which include Jackson 5 favorites: “Rockin’ Robin”, “Ben”, and “ABC” as well as “The Girl is Mine” recorded with Paul McCartney and and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” with Seidah Garrett. True, it does not contain new material, but the song list should be popular enough to grab the attention of Jackson devotees. It hasn’t. More than likely there are other reasons why it is a slow seller including:
1. The Trial. Jackson may have been cleared of all charges, but this is the second time he has been raked through the coals over alleged behavior. Whether you believe him to be guilty or not, all the publicity did nothing but hurt Jackson. Additionally, the trial just got over…why didn’t record producers wait six months or more to release this album? Oh yeah, someone has to pay his legal bills!
2. Changing Tastes. American music tastes change quickly. What was acceptable a few years ago is not necessarily acceptable today. In Europe, Jackson’s music is still widely accepted. Hmmm… me thinks that Germany or France may put up with him.
3. The Weird Factor. Okay, I have to mention it. Jackson just looks weird. Compared to when he was a kid and also a young adult, Jackson looks nothing like he used to look. Is he white? Is he black? Is he male? Is he female? These are some of the questions asked by fans and followers. Weirdness sells…to a point. Track the career of Boy George for comparison purposes.
Personally, I think Jackson was guilty of at least some of the charges and I believe that many fans think the same way. You can be a very good singer, but after awhile fans will tire of all the negative attention and go elsewhere. Witness O.J. Simpon’s life post trial and you can expect Jackson to have a similar fate.
Unless, of course, Michael Jackson moves to Europe.
Matt writes on a variety of topics as well as designs and manages web sites. Please visit The Article Writer to preview his portfolio.
