In many cultures around the world, the custom of kite flying has been passed from generation to generation almost as a ritual. Kites have been introduced more than three thousand years ago in China and from there the kite flying experience traveled throughout Asia, Europe, and later in America, Australia and other countries around the globe. From the years of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Graham Bell to the World War II, kites have been used in scientific experiments or as lifting tools for military purposes. Today, kite flying and its contemporary successors, like kite buggying, kite sailing surfing, or kite jumping, are considered to be joyful, relatively inexpensive and unique recreational activities practiced around the world, almost all year around. The traditional kite flying involves flying a tethered man-made object with the help of the natural wind. The necessary lift that permits the kite to fly into the open space is generated when airflow over and under the kite creates the right amount of low pressure above the kite and high pressure underneath it. Those practicing kite flying state that running against the wind while holding the...

When firestorms raged across Southern California and land lines were down, having a cell phone to call my family was a blessing. When I could sit in my ocean front garden and use both hands while talking to my Mother in Florida, I adored my cell phone. After getting lost in a jumble of streets, a cellular call helped me find my client. It s become my everywhere companion and yet, I am aware that we might just have too much of a good thing. We ve all become incensed at the loud boors who turn public places into phone booths where we re bombarded with information we don t want, don t need, and probably shouldn t know. But now, we re entering a second stage in the cellular age where this amazingly portable device can actually disrupt meaningful face-to-face conversations, the privacy of precious vacation time or the silence of reverie and deep thinking. This tiny and getting tinier device has become the metaphor for our 24 7 culture. It has become almost unthinkable to turn it off or plain not answer. In short, the phone controls us rather than visa versa. We live in an age of omniaccessibility according to Fordham communications professor Paul...

Many people think appraisals and assessments are the same thing or at least that they should be for the same amount. The truth is they can vary greatly. Let s look at each of them. Appraisals An appraisal is an estimate of market value. An appraiser can use many methods for coming up with this estimate. For income producing property, the appraiser may capitalize the value of the income stream. It would take x dollars of capital invested at a y rate of return to produce an income equal to the rental income generated by this property. For other properties, an appraiser may use replacement value. It would cost x dollars to build this structure if it were being built today. Appraisers usually use comparable sales when evaluating the market value of a home. They look at nearby properties with similar characteristics, which have sold in the recent past to see at what price they sold. They typically give the most weight to the property they deem to be most like the property they are appraising. Buyers and sellers generally encounter appraisals when the buyer s lender has an appraiser make an evaluation of the market value of the property being sold. The...

Do we really need colon cleansers to help us to achieve optimal health. They say that there is very little new in the world, only that which we have forgotten, and this is a tenet as easily applied to the history of our colonic and intestinal health as anything else. Colon cleansers are nothing new, and while the advocates of colonic clearers might point proudly to the long history of these intestinal health tools, which indeed find their origins in Egyptian times, many of the supporters of the colonic cleansers and the intestinal health they purportedly encourage are more reluctant to admit that opposition to these natural remedies boasts a healthy history all of its own. The thinking that first compelled the ancient Egyptians to develop the very first natural colon cleansers might have seemed, until a few years ago, as absurd to the modern day intestinal health consumer as the old notion of the four elements of earth, fire, water and air. And while we would be foolish to dismiss all ancient thinking, including that regarding colon cleansers, as having nothing to teach us about our health and wellbeing, we must temper thoughts based in the ancient...