Children & Elders: Benefits of Relationships

If you have fond memories of frequent visits with your grandparents or even living in the same town as your grandparents, you may one of the lucky few. While many of today's families are multigenerational and live under the same roof, some children don't know their grandparents very well due to long distances or may not have a grandmother or grandfather. Elderly individuals don't need to be biologically related to act as a mentor or a positive influence in a child's life. Many elders act as "honorary" grandparents for children of all ages. If your child doesn't have a close relationship with a grandparent or you want him or her to have more interaction with an older population, contact a nursing home in your local area; many places are more than happy to have visitors of all ages.

Why Intergenerational Relationships Matter

Creating a healthy and strong relationship with someone of a different generation is beneficial for everyone. Some children, who don't have frequent interactions with elders, may be afraid of older individuals. Similarly, elders who don't have regular interaction with younger people may have inaccurate assumptions about younger populations. While intergenerational relationships benefit individuals differently, here are a few benefits based on programs involving youth and elders:

• Increase Understanding of Aging: Interacting with an elderly population helps children understand the aging process (how people slow down or how memories can change).
• Improved Socialization: Children that interact with elders are more likely to have better social skills. Rather than socializing with individuals only within their peer group, they learn how to adapt (such as speaking loud/soft, articulately). They may also exhibit and have a better understanding of manners and overall respect.
• Having Purpose: Both young individuals and the elderly may feel as if they have a purpose as they build their relationship. Children may notice they make an elder smile upon each visit and the elder may see that he or she has made a friend.
• Increasing Wellness: Sadly, in some nursing homes across the country, some elders feel unsafe and are unhappy. Having visitors of all ages can improve moods, which as a result can improve the overall health and wellbeing of a nursing home resident.

What Can You Do?

If you want to participate in creating a healthy relationship with an elder, you don't need to be part of an official organization or class. Consider making holiday cards for elders or plan an activity (such as a game) that could include children and adults. Always call the nursing home ahead of time and communicate with the employees in charge; tell them what activities you have planned. Additionally, once you've created a schedule, stick to the plan as young and old depend on consistency.

Windex Wipes

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Search Google for 'iPhone Screen Cleaner' and see how Google basically nullify Windex's Ad:

Global Organization for Health Improvement

Today I got this awesome spam email. I am guessing spammers are trying to be tricky. My email client easily identified this email as Spam and places it in the correct circular file:

My name is Dr.Susan Patrick. I work with the Global Organization for Health Improvement (GOHI), California LA, USA. We are cordially inviting you to the forth coming global conference on Eradicating Malaria 2015, which will be held from 14th to 18th December 2015 at the Clarence Brown Conference center Located at Cartersville, Atlanta GA, USA.

If you are interested to participate and want to represent your country, you may contact the conference secretariat for more information regarding the conference. You should inform them that you were invited by Dr.Susan Patrick who is affiliated with Lutheran Medical Center and a member of Global Organization for Health Improvement.

The benevolent donors of the Organizing Committee will provide round trip Air tickets to all invited/registered participants. Registered delegates will only be responsible for their hotel booking in Atlanta where the conference will be held. If you are a holder of an international passport that may require visa to enter the United States, You should inform the secretariat as the conference organizing committee is responsible for all registered delegates visa arrangements. You may Contact the Conference secretariat with the address below for detailed information regarding the conference.

The email concludes with some contact information. Sorry Dr. Susan Patrick, I won't be going to your conference. I checked out the conference event calendar and there is nothing scheduled for December. You can let the benevolent donors know of my plans.

Download.com Installer

Watch out if your downloading anything from Download.com! You may end up changing some browser settings and be downloading some spyware.

I was testing out TotalTerminal application when I saw it on CNet's download.com. I have downloaded files from their site in the past, so I thought it would be safe to download it.

Turns out that you can't just directly download the file. You have to download an installer which will download the file. The installer is where it get's tricky because there's a screen that ask if you want to change your Browsers to Yahoo Search. Well they don't exactly put it that way, they use the term "Search Offer."

What's buried in the Download.com 'Acceptance of Terms' is that you'll also be installing an 'eBay Shopping Assistant,' 'SearchMe' and a 'Domain Error Assistant' browser extension.

What's worst is that you can't copy the 'Acceptance of Terms' text to another file to search for it. Download.com anticipate that you'll just click 'Yes' and not read what your really signing up for.

I would follow the advice of iowacitytechnologyservices.com and not download anything from download.com.

Solar Panel Inspection

Today we had the town inspect the electric work done with the solar panel installation.

After having the solar panels installed on the roof, the work needs to be inspected by the city/town. First up is the electrical inspection. A representative electrician from the solar installation company shows the work to a city/town inspector. For this part, the homeowner needs to be home so that the inspector can go in the house and see the work done with the electric box.

Our Electrical inspection went smoothly. Basically the electrician showed the inspector the new power boxes outside and demonstrated that they are generating power. They came inside and looked at the various parts of the fuse box. The inspector made sure that the electrical guide was updated to the latest changes. After everything passed, the inspector added his signature to the building permit.

We still need to have a building Inspection done, I am not sure if we need to be home for this part of the work. There was some drilling done to connect the cables from the outside to the inside, not sure if that will be included in the inspection.

Glad that an independent person is checking the work done. We don't want to have any issues because a contractor decided to cut corners.

Google Alerts Thumbnail

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I get a Google Alerts every day on different topics that I am interested in, such as '1080p Camera', 'Firefox', 'Chrome' and 'Huntington Ave Boston.' I have the Huntington Ave as an alert because it's the street where I work. I find it useful to know if there's anything interesting around my area.

In the past I learned about when Five Guys got their permit and when someone one famous was signing thier books at the Prudential Center Barnes and Noble.

Today I saw this piece of news with a thumbnail image that doesn't quite fit the story:

Check out the Google Alerts, and set up a daily notification of something interesting in your neck of the wood.

Sungevity Install

New Solar Panels installed

Yesterday Sungevity installed solar panels at our house. Last week they informed us that they were ready to do the installation since the town permit was completed and the panels were ready.

There were four installers that came around 8:30 am, and they actually finished the job by 4pm. A few additional people stopped by to help, including another person to install panels and an electrician.

They did an awesome job and was able to do the entire job in a day. Sungevity originally told us that it was going to take a couple of days to get it done. I am thinking that if we had a bigger house, or harder to reach roof, it would have been a longer installation process.

Some tips that I gathered from their visit:

• Make sure there's plenty of room for the workers in the basement. If you have a lot of things that are around the patch panel you should clear it away.
• We needed to move both our cars out of the driveway so that they could park their vans as close to the house as possible.
• If it's a hot day, have some cold water available for the workers.
• The team that did our house didn't have any power splitters so they could charge some of their tools. I have to use an outdoor power splitter to help them out.
• The electrician needed to cut the power for about a half-hour. Since we were working from home, it made it tricky to stay online, we ended up using the hotspot capabilities on our iPhones. They did give us plenty of warning on when the power was going to be shut off.
• There's going to be a lot of noise. The workers on the roof, as well as those working around the patch panel will be loud. If your working from home, avoid having any important conference calls.
• We ended up locking our cats in the guest room since the workers need to have a window open in the basement.
• I took lots of pictures of them doing the work, but not a lot of before pictures. (Seriously how many people take pictures of their roof?) It's not a bad idea to take some before pictures so you know what the house looked like before.
• Sungevity installs a small box next to the electric box in the front of the house, or where ever your electric meter is. There's another two boxes that get attached to the house just below the panels.
• We got a visit from the Sungevity sales team encouraging us to let our friends know how much we liked the installation process.
• We left the workers alone most of the time. When they arrived they just needed to know how to get access to the basement and to our backyard. They didn't need anything else from us, other than where the bathroom was.

If you have any questions about using Sungevity or any solar panels. I am happy to talk about our experience and answer any questions that you may have. Feel free to leave your phone number on the feedback form and we'll give you a call back.

My Lucky Penny

In April, I found a 1935 penny in my pocket full of change. This got me thinking a bit about how long the penny has been in circulation. The World has changed a lot since the penny was minted. In fact, most people that read this website blog weren't even born when the penny was minted.

Some facts I found about this 80 year old penny journey:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States in 1935
 
• The United States was in the middle of the Great Depression.
• Average Cost of new house $6,510.00
• Average wages per year $1,650.00
• New Car Average Price $610.00 
• A loaf of Bread cost 7 cents
• 24% of the population was unemployed.
• Airplanes are no longer permitted to fly over the White House
• Bank of Canada opens
  
• Black Sunday: The worst sandstorm ravages US midwest (creates the Dust Bowl)
  
• US Congress accepts FDR's "New Deal"

I don't know how I got this penny, as I just happen to look into my jacket pocket one day and noticed a penny that had the wheat symbol on it. I knew instantly that it had to be a special penny. I know it isn't worth much since it has been in circulation and I checked eBay and found that I could buy a dozen 1935 pennies for about $10.

So where is my lucky penny now? I now carry the penny in my FitBit belt clip. I don't want to accidentally spend or loose the penny. I feel that I am lucky that I took the time to look at the change I had in my pocket and notice

Why don't you check your pocket/coin basket and see what treasures you might find.

Kindle Fire HD 7 review

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Over the past few months I have been using a Kindle Fire HD 7 on my commute to and from Boston. This replaced my older Amazon Kindle Touch which I have been using off and on for two years.

The purpose of having a Kindle was to make it easy to read books on the train. Paper books were fine until I wanted to read bigger books and it didn't make sense carrying heavy books on my daily commute.

My new Kindle is very practical and allows me to not only read the latest books but with the Internet access on the MBTA I can do some Internet surfing too. I have found other Applications to be useful too.

The TED application allows me to download TED videos that I can watch on the train. The app has a cool functionality to pick random clip based on the time you have and the category your interested in.

Using EverNote, I can browse the Internet on my home computer and send interesting documents to my Evernote account. Just before I leave for the train I sync my Evernote on my Kindle to get the documents. I have a Premium account and that lets me download the full content of a notebook to my Kindle. So I don't have to be online to read the content. Which is good because Internet access in Wellesley is pretty bad.

The best thing about the Kindle is that I don't need to be tied into buying and reading books from the Amazon bookstore. I can easily read PDF documents - which was nearly impossible on the Kindle Touch. In addition, there are plenty of places online where I can get free books.

Having the Kindle HD 7 is a great education tool. I now take full advantage of my morning commute time to learn about different thing. The Kindle fits perfectly in the front slot of my Swiss Gear Backpack, so I can quickly get to it once I find a seat on the train.

Some of you know that I am a huge Macintosh fan. Why am I not using a iMac Mini? The Kindle Fire HD 7 is much better overall solution to use and it meets the simple needs for my daily commute. In the past 5 months that I have used my Kindle, I have not encountered any technical issues. It would be nice to have all the same Apps that I have on my phone, but having a Kindle allows me to stay focus.

So if your one of the thousands of MBTA Commuter Rail commuters traveling to Boston everyday and using your phone on your commute, check out the Kindle HD 7. I think it will make your commute a lot more productive.

Google+ Image Collection

Google+ unlimited uploads is great! The problem is that you may not know if the computer Auto Backup feature is working. One way to check this, if your not at the computer where Auto Backup is being run, is to check the Google+ image stats. You can find this information if you check out Google+ Account dashboard:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/2/dashboard

This page will display all sorts of stats about your Google account, including how many email messages you have in Gmail. Scroll down a bit to see the basic information on your Google+ Photos.

If you click on the word 'Google Photos' you'll see more details about your photo collection on Google+. This is a very useful page! For some odd reason, Google makes it hard to find. There's also good information on Gmail and other Google settings.