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We own a home on the island of Puerto Rico nestled high in the mountains against the backdrop of the United States’ only national rainforest, The Yunque. To say that the trees, faunas and wildlife are incredible is an understatement.

Where we live there are only a few handful of houses spaced apart enough to enjoy one’s own privacy. One of my neighbors is a wonderful retiree name Emilio. When you look at Emilio he reminds you of that favorite grandfather who would probably play pranks on you. Emilio’s humor and energy, if you’re around him long enough, is contagious.

About six months ago as I was pulling up to our house, I saw huge piles of cement powder, boards and tools scattered about Emilio’s front yard. I went over to see what he was up to. Emilio had decided to build his own cement patio. “Incredible”, I thought. I asked him if he was going to do it himself and he said, “Yeah, why?” When I returned to Puerto Rico a month or so later he had finished the patio which extended wonderfully off a small dip in the valley giving him an even more spectacular view of the rainforest.

The next time I went to the island, I remember while sitting on my porch enjoying a cup of coffee and the view of the valley, I heard someone yelling my name, “Victor, Victor”. When I came done the road by Emilio’s house I saw him sitting on the roof of his house with his feet dangling over the edge and laughing. Apparently, while repairing some shingles on his roof, the wind came by and blew the ladder away and he had no way of getting down. After a few moments of laughter, on my part, I put the ladder back in place so Emilio could get down.

Last week we went up to the house in Puerto Rico again to find Emilio finishing up the installation of a hot water heater powered by a couple of solar panels he had installed. Apparently technology didn’t scare this old guy either.

That night we sat down and chatted while sipping on a few cold ones. Emilio’s story of how he was raised and the adversities he’s had to overcome made him even more amazing. One of the most recent challenges was the loss of his wife to cancer 10 years ago after 42 years of marriage. She died before their dream house there in Puerto Rico was finished. Emilio can’t go for more than 10 minutes in a conversation without bringing up her name. To hear him speak of his wife, you think she’s in the next room. A beautiful black and white photo of their wedding sits alone atop a desk and is the first thing you notice when you step inside his home.

Emilio still takes care of his house and continues to improve on it. I suspect that in his mind he’s not building it alone. No. Whatever new task Emilio takes on, his wife is right there beside him in spirit. His vision for their dream house continues to motivate him on to the next project.

Unlike Emilio, many of us have lost our motivation. We’ve lost that drive to bring about the life we once thought of having. We’ve surrendered it to the past and have become apathetic in reclaiming it. Our will to pursue our passion, our dream, our vision has atrophied.

Many of us complain that it’s too late to start a career or learn a new skill. We think we’re too old to learn anything new. Think of Emilio. He learned how to build the patio as he went…at 78!

Many of us stop dreaming because of some tragedy or misfortunate event. Think of Emilio. He taught me to work through the pain, push on and give your life new purpose, new meaning.

And, many of us are afraid to fail or look stupid in the process of building our dream. Failure scares us. Think of Emilio sitting on the roof when the ladder was blown out from under him. I didn’t find him on the roof depressed or belittling himself. Instead I found a big kid laughing at himself and the situation. From Emilio I learned that fallen ladders (i.e., things don’t go the way we planned them) don’t matter and it’s OK to ask (or in Emilio’s case yell) for help.

Emilio shows no sign of letting up. He’s a human Energizer bunny still going strong, still building on his dream, still holding steady to a shared vision.

Are you still holding steady to your vision of happiness?!

Are you still building?!

Remember to laugh when the winds of misfortune blows your ladder out from under you. And, don’t be afraid to ask (or yell) for help. You may be surprised at who shows up to help support your vision.

Please forward this article; share it with a friend who may need words of inspiration to pursue their dream.

All of us procrastinate on occasion. For some people, it’s a chronic problem; for others, it’s only a problem in certain life areas. Procrastination is always frustrating because it results in wasted time, lost opportunities, disappointing work performance, and generally feeling bad about yourself.

When you procrastinate, you allow less important tasks to take up the time and space that should be devoted to more important things. You do things like hanging out with friends when you know that an important work project is due soon, or going shopping instead of doing your homework. It can also be evident in behavior such as talking about trivial things with your partner to avoid discussing important issues in your relationship.

Most people don’t have a problem finding time for things they want to do. But once they see a task as too difficult, painful, boring, or overwhelming, the procrastination behaviors begin. You are not alone if you have ever made any of the following excuses to yourself:

1. It’s too cold to exercise outside today. I’ll wait until tomorrow when it’s warmer.
2. I’ve got too many other things to do first.
3. I’ll do a better job when I can concentrate on this project.
4. I still have lots of time to get this done.
5. They don’t pay me enough to do a more complete job. This is good enough.
6. This problem is too hard to talk about. I wouldn’t know where to start.
7. I work better under pressure.
8. It’s too noisy to work while my teenager is at home.
9. I should get the shopping down now because the stores will be more crowded later.
10. I can eat this pie tonight, because I’m starting my diet tomorrow.
11. My tooth doesn’t really hurt that much. The pain will probably go away tomorrow.

Most of the time, these excuses seem fairly innocuous. However, they’re not as innocent as they seem, because they cause us to postpone important duties and projects. Ultimately, these excuses can keep us from accomplishing important goals and make us feel bad about ourselves.

Why People Procrastinate

If you were hoping for a simple answer to this puzzle, you will be disappointed to learn that there are many reasons why people put things off. Here are a few of the most common (check those that apply to you):

Avoiding discomfort. Wanting to avoid pain makes lots of people shift into procrastination mode. However, the longer we delay, the worse the uncomfortable problem usually becomes. The rash gets bigger, the tooth hurts more, or the brakes squeak even more loudly.

Perfectionism. Those who believe they must produce the perfect report may obsess about uncovering every last information source and then write draft after draft. Their search for the perfect product takes up so much time that they miss their deadline.

Laziness. Sometimes people delay tasks that involve fairly slight inconvenience or minor discomfort.

Thinking you’re not good enough. Some people are certain that they are incompetent. They think that they will fail, and procrastinate to avoid ever putting their skills to the test.

Self-doubt. If you second-guess yourself, you probably suffer from procrastination. You may avoid new challenges and opportunities unless you are certain that you will succeed. Perhaps you make feeble attempts to begin a project, and you tell yourself that you could do a better job if you put in more effort.

Workaholism. At the other end of the spectrum, many people who work excessively also fall into this category. They drive themselves ruthlessly, fearing that if they stop working, they will not be able to start again. Most self-doubters are driven by the belief that they must meet strict standards in order to see themselves as successful.

Physics Review

Remember the concept of inertia: a mass at rest tends to stay at rest.

For some reason, it is more difficult for most humans to start change than to keep it going.

Why Don’t We Just Say No?

Since procrastination produces mostly negative outcomes, why don’t we just change our behavior and eliminate these undesirable consequences? The reason for this is that procrastination reinforces itself. For some reason, it is more difficult for most humans to start change than to keep it going. We avoid getting started by cleverly diverting our attention from the things we really should be doing. We do something else instead or make up a story about how we will accomplish the task in the future-when we are inspired, or when we have completed a preliminary step, or some other trick.

Although recognizing how these diversions work won’t automatically cure your procrastination, being aware of it is a good place to start working on the problem. Once you are aware of the ways that you procrastinate, you can start to change your behavior.

Task Manager is a Windows system utility that displays the tasks or processes currently running on your computer. To open Task Manager, press Ctrl+Alt+Del. The Applications tab lists the applications currently running on your computer. A single application may actually consist of several running processes, and many programs that run in the background are not listed (you can see icons for some of these programs in the System Tray).

Note: With Windows 98 and Windows Me, Ctrl+Alt+Del will open Program Manager, which allows you only to close applications. However, you can download one of the many Task Manager utilities from the Web.

The Processes tab displays a comprehensive list of all the processes currently running on your computer. This can be very useful for monitoring your system. The process tab displays information about the processor usage and memory usage of each process. The problem is, how to identify a process. Below is a list of some processes you may see in Task Managers Processes list.

“System Idle Process” “System” The Windows System Process “SMSS.EXE” Session Manager Subsystem “CSRSS.EXE” Client Server Runtime Subsystem “WinLOGON.EXE” The Windows Logon process “SERVICES.EXE” Services Control Manager “LSASS.EXE” Local Security Authentication Server Service “svchost.exe” Service Host “spoolsv.exe” The print spooler service “explorer.exe” Windows Explorer “TASKMGR.EXE” The Task Manager “regsvc.exe” Remote Registry Service

“System Idle Process” is basically another name for the time when Windows is doing nothing. There are hundreds of thousands of processes that run on a computer, so you will definitely find names of many other processess that are not listed above. For a list of well known processes, visit www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm You can also learn about almost any task by using it’s name as a search term in google.

Task Manager can also be used to tweak your system if it’s running slow. The Performance tab displays running graphs of your computers CPU and memory usage. If the CPU usage seems to be running over 80 percent most of the time, or if the memory usage seems to be running higher than the total physical memory, you may want to shut down some applications or processes.

On the Process tab, you can identify processes that are consuming a lot of processor time. Click twice on the CPU column heading to sort the CPU column so the processes hogging the most CPU time on top. You can sort the “Mem Usage” column the same way.

On the Application tab, if you right click on the name of an application and, in the popup menu that appears, choose “Go To Process”, Task Manager will open the Processes tab and highlight the process that runs the application. On the Processes tab, if you right-click on the name of a process, you can choose “SetPriority” and promote the priority of the process you need (or demote the priority of a different process to free up some resources).

If you go to the Application tab and shut down an application, you will shut down any processes related to that application. Or, you might choose to shut down a background process that you can identify. To shut down an application or process, click on it’s name in the list to highlight it, then click on the End Task button.

On the Processes tab, if you right click on the name of a process, you can choose “End Process Tree” to kill the process and any sub-processes started by the process.

Task Manager can also be used for troubleshooting. If an application freezes up, you can open Task Manager and shut down the application. If the entire system freezes up, you can use Task Manager to shut down a process that is hogging all the CPU time or memory.

If you spend some time monitoring your computer with task Manager, eventually you will become familiar with the processes that commonly run. Then, when you see an unfamiliar process, you can do a little investigation to make sure it’s not a virus. For example, if you see msblast.exe in the process list, your computer is infected with the Blaster virus. You might be able to detect and eliminate a new virus before an antivirus update is available.

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It’s hard to find sometimes but it’s making a resurgence, black and white film. If you’ve never used this film now is the time to try it out. Here are some tips to using b&w film and what you can expect from the results.

1. Forget color. This is the hardest thing to do and the number one reason that you will not get good results with b&w film.

2. Look for contrast. Once you can ignore color look for contrast. You will want your image to have a bit more contrast than you would normally want in a color image.

3. Consider shooting situations that are more formal. Black and white film gives such a wonderful timelessness to an image and it’s perfect for formal situations.

4. Keep your photos simple. Black and white film simplifies so don’t fight it. Keep the images simple by keeping close to your subject or place your subject against a simple back drop.

5. Babies and pets look great on b&w film. Place the pet or baby on a white background and you’ll be stunned at the beautiful results.

Black and white film creates a timeless simple look. It’s wonderful for portraits and formal events. After shooting a few rolls of b&w you’ll notice that you start to pay attention to composition of your image more, since you don’t have to worry about color. If you’re just learned photography try using b&w film for awhile it will help you teach yourself good composition. Think of light and dark, black and white, and good composition and you’ll find that b&w film could be a whole new hobby for you.

You’d have had to be living on a desert island with no TV, newspaper or internet connection to have missed hearing about the great mutual fund scandal of 2003.

The issue was that some mutual fund companies allowed certain hedge funds to engage in after-hours trading, sometimes incorrectly referred to as market timing. Unfortunately, some companies have used the confusion about the term “market timing” to further their own cause. How?

They have used this issue to pretty much ban all forms of trading their funds, and some companies are imposing hefty short-term redemption fees–penalties for all intents and purposes–in the name of avoiding impropriety. But the real idea behind it all is: Buy our fund and never sell it!

These companies advocate a stubborn Buy & Hold philosophy despite the devastating effects that approach had on investors’ portfolios during the recent bear market. Performance is immaterial to them–they want your money in their fund whether it’s going up or down.

With all of the negative press over the months you’d think that mutual fund companies would have cleaned up their act and started giving more consideration to the individual investor. Not so.

This was brought home to me when a fund manager of an $800 million mutual fund called me to see what my plans were in respect to holding our positions with his fund (about $2 million).

I explained my trend tracking methodology and he got very angry when he heard I would protect my clients’ accumulated profits by selling his fund if it were to drop 7% off its highs.

His blustering made it quite clear that he did not like anyone managing for the benefit of their clients; he only cared about what was best for him and his company.

So, what can you do to prevent being taken advantage of? For one thing, do what your mutual fund company does — not what they tell you to do. Adopt a strategy for following trends, such as I do, and use the mutual fund manger’s superior stock picking ability to your advantage by buying and holding only as long as the fund is performing well.

Remember, the fund manager has one big disadvantage over you: He always “has to” be invested so that the public can purchase shares in his fund. You don’t!

If market conditions dictate that you are better off in the safety of a money market account because we are in a severe downtrend, then you can take your money and run for cover. He can’t. He is constantly trying to adjust his portfolio to ever-changing economic conditions so that his potential losses are minimized. At the same time you are being told that his fund is the investment for all seasons. Don’t fall for it!

You as an individual investor are really in the driver’s seat. Unfortunately, you have probably been conditioned to think that Buy & Hope is a good investment strategy, when in fact it is a losing proposition.

Bottom line is, use a well performing mutual fund during strong up trends and get over to the sidelines during trend reversals. (That’s exactly what I did for my clients in October, 2001, and we retained the lion’s share of their profits while Buy & Holders kept insisting the emperor was wearing new clothes.) Pretty soon you will feel that you are in charge of your financial destiny and any chosen mutual fund is merely a tool to bring you closer to your goals of maximizing your gain and minimizing your losses.

During the Democratic convention the Reverend Al Sharpton quoted a shocking statistic: One third of the children in Harlem suffer from asthma. This shouldn’t be completely surprising since asthma cases have been consistently increasing over the years, especially in the cities, escalating recently during the rollback of some key environmental laws, but it is a trend we must turn back.

While parents have only limited control over the environment

where they raise their children, there is a personal environmental decision they can make that may dramatically reduce the symptoms their children experience. It all comes down to detergent, and not just any detergent. It is the detergent that they use to wash their children’s clothes and sheets. The biggest selling detergents in the United States contain large amounts of irritating phosphates, which are not only a major irritant to the skin and respiratory system, but a source of serious pollution, and a component in global warming.

If you are wondering if your laundry detergent contains phosphates just read the label, it is listed there. In most industrialized countries phosphate detergents are outlawed for good reason, but in the United States the chemical industry has a strong lobby and cheap phosphates help manufacturers keep their costs low, so their use continues.

The next time you walk though the laundry detergent section of your supermarket, take a deep breath and notice how much the smell irritates your nose and lungs.

What kinds of detergent contain low, or no phosphates? Baby detergent! No mother would dream of washing their newborn’s clothes and sheets in the family’s powdered detergent! That would give their baby’s delicate skin rashes, not to mention an increase in crying and crankiness. There are many readily available natural detergents that are phosphate-free and it’s worth the time to find them.

We have noticed tremendous improvements for both children and adults when their clothes and sheets are consistently washed in a phosphate-free detergent. By itself this change may not alleviate all of the symptoms of asthma and those related skin rashes, but it clearly removes an insidious irritant from

the equation.

It might be helpful to explain why this simple change is so effective. Testing in Europe shows that, while sleeping, people are between two thousand and ten thousand times more sensitive to chemical and electromagnetic pollution than while they are awake. When a child’s pajamas are washed with a chemical irritant and they sleep on bedclothes containing those same toxins, their immune system is challenged nightly, during a time when they are most vulnerable. Their body’s nutritional reserves are consumed in that battle and they are less able to defend themselves from the pollutants they encounter during their day. Asthma and allergies are not produced by a single irritant, but by an accumulation of minor irritants that eventually overwhelm the body’s ability to adapt. It is not a huge leap to imagine that removing a respiratory irritant from the sleeping environment, where a person spends one third of their time, is going to produce an improvement in a child’s ability to breathe.