CTOKOS Blog

“Presence is more than just being there,” states Malcolm S.Forbes. How true!

Have you ever been talking with someone and felt that they were miles away even though they were sitting next to you? They might have appeared to be listening, but you could sense that they weren’t really mentally and emotionally present in the conversation.

We all have moments when our mind wanders and we lose focus, but if this happens frequently, our relationships with others will be negatively affected. In a marriage, intimacy is enhanced by feelings of connection and harmed when partners start feeling disconnected.

When a spouse is physically present but mentally “out to lunch,” the partner will feel the difference. Something important is missing, and what is missing is the spouse’s full attention to the conversation or activity. Often, the distracted spouse is feeling rushed, bored, impatient, or stressed. When that happens, the natural tendency is to constantly mentally leap ahead to the next items on the “to do” list.

If this describes you, then you are missing the experience you are having right now because you are so focused on what you’re gong to do next. By living in the future, you miss the present. Besides robbing yourself of the enjoyment of the current experience, you are also negatively impacting how others feel when they are around you.

“I’ll make it up to him (or her) later,” you may tell yourself as you rush through yet another conversation without really looking at your spouse closely or hearing what’s really being said. In the mean time, the feeling of disconnection between the two of you grows and intensifies.

One of the ways you can show respect and caring for your spouse is to give the gift of undivided attention. Likewise, you show respect and caring for yourself when you value connecting deeply with others, and that can only be accomplished in the Now. One of the best presents you can give others and yourself is to practice being fully present in your life.

It takes practice and discipline to pull yourself back to the present moment when your mind jumps ahead into the future. Breaking any long-standing habit is difficult and can take weeks, even months, of practice. But the pay-off for learning to live more of your life consciously and with more awareness of the present moment is significant.

Until you can learn to listen intently and focus your total attention on the other person, you are not connecting at the deepest, most intimate level. As Mary Catherwood observes, “Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet.” This is the tragedy that befalls many marriages.

Follow these five tips to be more present when you interact with your spouse:

1. Stop what you are doing and look at your partner when he/she is talking to you. This shows respect and will make it easier to keep focused.

2. When your mind wanders, gently re-direct it back to the present moment. Take a deep breath to help you stay anchored and centered.

3. Ignore stray thoughts that flit across your mind, trying to distract you. If you don’t give them attention, they won’t “hook” you.

4. If you are too distracted to concentrate, tell your spouse, “It’s really important to me to focus on what you’re saying, and I can’t seem to concentrate right now. Could we schedule a time to talk later today?”

5. Keep the bigger picture in mind. You are investing time and energy into creating satisfying intimacy with your spouse. Each interaction either adds a deposit to the intimacy “piggy bank” or makes a withdrawal from it.

Nancy J. Wasson, Ph.D., is co-author of Keep Your Marriage: What to Do When Your Spouse Says “I don’t love you anymore!” This is available as an e-book at http://www.KeepYourMarriage.com ,where you can also sign up for the free Keep Your Marriage Internet Magazine. Nancy can be contacted at Nancy@KeepYourMarriage.com.

Fresh precise GPS readings carried out on the 17-18th August have registered that Mount Blanc amounts to 4810.7 m. Mont-Blanc is smothered by a heavy icecap which has grown bigger by 2 metres in only 2 yrs moreover more surprising the bulk of the ice has all but grown twofold . Leastwise that’s as reported by the professionals.

The volume of ice was measured for the inaugural time in 2003. It was measured at 14300 cubic metres higher up than 4770 metres. It was only 13900 metres cubed in 2002 potentially owing to the heat with positive temperature even at 5000 metres elevation. Yet the ice has virtually doubled since then and at present amounts to 25000 cubic meters.

Chamonix village’s valued local weather man Virginia Stancil stated the development in the size of the ice cap is among the contrary consequences of climate change: Snowfall has not accumulated generally in the French Alps merely with climate change we’re having a lot of hotter prevailing westerly air currents that bring in rain at lower altitudes however in summer this results in significant snowfall that falls above 3700 meters height thus the amount of the ice-cap is rising. Compare that to the state of affairs in winter time when snow crystals are exceedingly cold and are transferred by the wind and so don’t settle down on the summit.

Chamonix ski resort is not just well known for Mont Blanc it is also a well renowned ski area and climbing mecca with many ski deals and self catering chalets to be hired. And at merely 1 hr from Geneva Switzerland it is unbeatable for a short break.

An important decision you’ll make during the course of creating your perfect wedding is that of wedding reception music. After all, what’s a wedding reception without music? Do you hire a band, hire a DJ, or just throw on some tunes for everyone to dance to? The choice is all up to you from what type of music you want at your reception to how it’s delivered.

One possibility that a number of people opt for is to hire a band to provide their wedding reception music. A lot of working “cover bands” (musicians that specialize in performing spot-on renditions of popular songs) are available to work wedding receptions. The cost for hiring a band varies according to the experience and popularity of the band itself. A band that is highly skilled tends to be highly sought after and therefore more expensive to hire. A live band brings a certain level of excitement to the party atmosphere of a wedding reception and your guests are sure to enjoy the interactivity that comes along with live wedding reception music.

Some couples forgo the band in favor of hiring a DJ for their wedding. The advantages of hiring a DJ as compared to a band are threefold. First of all, a DJ tends to cost much less to hire than an entire band does. In addition to the monetary savings, the DJ will have access to original recordings of popular songs. Your guests can shimmy to Baby Got Back or The Locomotion by the original artists rather than a rendition performed by an unknown singer. Additionally, the DJ will have access to a far greater number of recordings than any band is likely to have in its repertoire. For these reasons many couples enjoy hiring a DJ to supply their wedding reception music.

Another option is to simply supply the wedding reception music yourself. Armed with a computer that is equipped with a CD burner you can create CD’s full of .mp3 files to play at the reception. Because of the .mp3 file compression, nearly ten hours of music can be squeezed onto one CD. You can choose exactly what songs you want, place them on the CD in the order that you like, and just pop it in to play at the reception. This is possibly the most cost effective option as it will cost very little or nothing at all to compile the CD. The downsides are that you’re left with just a group of songs and no live interactivity whatsoever and you must have a specific type of CD player in order to play a disc full of .mp3 files. You will also need to provide a decent sound system unless the reception hall happens to come equipped with one.

There are a number of options available for providing music for your wedding reception. Choosing which one is right for you is merely a matter of deciding what you want and what you can afford.

Kirsten Hawkins is an event planner from Nashville, TN. Visit www.wedding411.net/ for more event planning tips, strategies, and resources.

Microsoft “Project Green” phase one is reflected in Microsoft Great Plains/Dynamics GP 9.0 realization. It is exposed to .Net developer currently through eConnect and as time goes - more and more eConnect object will have XML web service interfaces. In this small article we will be touching the set of object, deployed in eCommerce application, using Microsoft Dynamics GP as a backend.

• Sales Order Processing (SOP). In the light eCommerce case - you push data into SOP10100 - SOP Header table and SOP10200 - SOP Line table. If you do create Sales Orders Only, do not accept deposits against sales order - then you do not care about SOP Distribution table: SOP10102. All these tasks could be realized through eConnect.

• Inventory Tables. If you sell from your inventory (not just services), then you use Inventory module tables: IV00101 - Item master, IV00102 - Item QTY master, the last one shows you quantity at the specific location and in general

• Receivable Management Tables. RM00101 - Customer master - in case if you create and register new customer or update existing customer info in Great Plains.

• eConnect extensions. Obviously eConnect will be repeating the logic of former Great Plains Dexterity objects. In Great Plains you typically create work documents: Quotes, Orders, Invoices and then you post them individually or in the batch - posting process is functionally assigned to the operator, this is why you will have hard time to program it via eConnect (which allows you to create work documents). You will need eConnect extensions or simply stored procedures, which post work records in Sales Order Processing and potentially Receivable Management modules - it is not recommended to create ones from scratch - posting and order transferring logic is very complicated.

• Stored Procedures approach. We see more and more cases when eCommerce is built around Microsoft Small Business Financials, former Microsoft Small Business Manager - in such a situation eConnect might be too expensive and too complex - you may need just several SOP oriented stored procedures to create SOP orders and invoices at the back end in SOP SQL tables. The advice to the developer in the case of Small Business Financials - ask SBF user to create sample transaction - Sales Order and watch how did it distribute across SOP tables - you will get the idea and replication pattern for your SQL coding

• Development Tools. Microsoft Visual Studio.Net is becoming the tool of choice (over now legacy Microsoft Dexterity or Great Plains Software Dexterity). However if you are eCommerce developer - you will have to use SQL scripting. Usually the first question is - where do I get Great Plains table structure description: Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Sometimes developers ask about Great Plains Integration Manager. This tool is in process of being rewritten with eConnect panidea. Integration Manager up to version 8.0 was relatively slow in its technical ability to integrate bulk number of records - it used legacy OLE Server technology - Great Plains was OLE Server and IM used GP screens to validate integration records. New integration manager should be more powerful and it is in the process of the creation as we write these lines.

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM web front. In some cases we see this scenario. Microsoft Great Plains - MS CRM integration is in process of being rewritten on eConnect - currently it uses BizTalk server (and does a nice job, however sometimes you have to programmatically tune the BizTalk integration). In CRM you can create Account or Contact that will be integrated to Great Plains Customer, then Order when submitted can be integrated to Great Plains if needed. Sometimes developers complain, that they have to force credit limit for the CRM Account to be non-zero - in order for the invoice to come through

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.
We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Washington, Baltimore, New Orleans, Austin, Kansas City.

There are many times when anger can be a very good thing.

Periodically, when you experience anger (especially if you are able to always maintain control) you may find it can lead to passion, commitment and determination.

Anger can also lead to stubborn, pig-headed and unreasonable as well.

Anger can be good and it can be bad but as a general rule of thumb, anger never mixes well with a divorce.

Divorce is a brutal business. It ranks right up there among the five most stressful things a person can experience in a lifetime. Regardless if you are the one that left, or the one that remains behind, you are undoubtedly very hurt and confused with lots of unanswered questions.

One of the keys to getting past messy divorce is learning how to deal with the anger. Emotions are raw enough during a divorce. If you allow yourself to become angry during a conversation with an ex, you can be assured that it will only be a matter of time before something is said that you will both regret.

Just because the ex maybe getting mad or upset at you, does not mean you should return the favor in kind.

If you are talking with your spouse on the telephone about a particularly difficult topic and you want to remain calm, imagine that your child is standing right next to you, watching and hearing everything you say and do. Would you like your child to have this image of you? Would you like them to remember you this way?

If you think you may have a problem controlling your anger, you should visit the American Psychological Association website at http://www.apa.org

Gary Kelly is co-creator of the online dating website for golfers, http://www.DateAGolfer.com and http://www.PuttingForPar.com, a golf website specializing in personalized ball markers

If we go to war with China the first thing they will do is knock out as many of our satellites as possible. Many secret SPY satellites in the Military will be safe now up there and there equipment in their UAVs, ground vehicles and command and control centers because they have special Anti-Jamming GPS systems with bleeding edge top of the line and state of the art counter measure technologies. You are probably thinking to yourself who thinks of this stuff anyways? Well you know men and there toys and when the US Military wants something no matter how seemingly impossible someone will find a way.

This time that someone was a little company Harris Corp that has about $3 billion in annual sales and over 12,600 employees as of yesterday and they have teamed up with another little company; The Boeing Company, maybe you have heard of them. Harris Corp will provide to the net-centric battlespace smart munitions anti-jam technologies. This means no one gets away and no smart bombs go astray and that our enemies have only one option before meeting their maker and that is to pray.

Now you are probably saying to yourself, “Hey self, that would be cool in my SUV!” Just think never lose an XM Radio connection or have to worry about interference on your urban assault vehicles GPS. Indeed that would be cool and it will inevitably become standard equipment on all in-car system by 2010 through the gracious gifts of transfer technologies or hand me down research from the US of A. Never a lost signal or missed tune, you got to love it. Think on this.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

After the initial euphoria of love gets over, lovers start thinking about what troubles them. For example, your partner may always be coming late to meet you. you never told him/her about that till now. You feel that now you must tell, because you cannot bear waiting every time.

You are troubled by a habit of your darling. But that was always ignored in the initial euphoria of knowing each other and developing relationship. You want to point out about that habit now.

You are facing a problem at your work place. You have kept that problem away from your sweetheart. Now you feel that you need his/her support to fight that problem. These are few examples of what happens in the second phase of love. How to discuss such issues with your beloved and whether they will affect your relationship?

When love matures a little, it is time to find out about how much both of you are ready to support each other and what is the quality of love that you share. If the love is only skin deep, a small problem will take it away and that is good. Otherwise you might have continued in a relationship that would have been of no use to you. If the love is strong, discussing personal issues and problems will bring you closer to each other.

Many of us hesitate to discuss any problem. They don’t want the love to get affected at any cost. But is that love or a pretension of love? If you truly love each other, you must be open with each other. Why live in a make believe world? A close relationship demands that both of you talk about and help each other at all times. If that does not happen, love is of no use and should be discarded. After all you are searching for a partner, who will be with you through thick and thin and vice-versa. Test your Love Relationship to find out the strength of your love. Many Internet Websites are offering tests and quizzes. Look at few of them and begin your test to find out about your strength of love.

CD Mohatta writes advice and articles on Love, Marriage and Dating This website is a guide on dating, love, relationship, romance, marriage, and break ups. He also writes for ecards and online greetings, screensavers and desktop wallpapers. You can have his writings on your desktop with free desktop wallpapers. These are static wallpapers which can be your computer desktop background all the time. Read the messages and get inspired all day. He also writes content for Tests and Quiz on Dating, Personality and Love.

Each week we receive many emails from people wanting to know about magickal powers such as clairvoyance, levitation, telekinesis and telepathy. They want to know whether this kind of magick is real and, more importantly, how to do it!

Since it’s become such a popular topic, inspired by movies like Harry Potter and shows like Charmed, we thought it might to time to shed some light on this topic. To answer the first question, are such magickal powers and abilities real? In other words, is it possible to do these types of things in this world at this time? The answer is yes! Absolutely. In fact, you’ll find that the masters of many different traditions, such as Aikido or Buddhism, can and do levitate. There are also many popular clairvoyants and telepaths, such as the well-known medical intuitive Louise Hay. And, many Tai Chi masters have telekinetic abilities (meaning they can move objects without touching them).

The second question, of course, is how you can develop these abilities for yourself. There are, of course, many paths to mastering these abilities. At the foundation of all these paths, though, is an understanding of the four elements of magick: air, fire, water and earth. One of the basic tenets of magickal studies is that everything in this Universe is made up of some combination of these four elements, and if you understand and know how to work with these elements, you can understand (and create) anything you desire.

That’s why four element magick is the first area of study for our apprentices - it is at the heart of everything in the Universe, including magickal powers and abilities. For instance, you can develop clairvoyance and telepathy, which is access to knowledge not available to the five senses, by developing and working with your water element. Water, being the language of Spirit, allows you to access almost any information (or emotions) at a Spiritual level. Another ability, levitation, is the result of increasing your air element and decreasing your earth element. And telekinesis is the ability to channel your fire energy toward a specific object. For instance, we teach our students to begin using their telekinetic ability by throwing firebolts at a candle flame. They know they have begun to develop that ability when they can make the flame jump and split by pointing their finger at it.

Beyond the development of these psychic or magickal abilities, however, the four elements help us develop and follow our birth visions, listen to our Spirit guidance, and generally live more creative and peaceful lives. By understanding the basic “makeup” and laws that drive our Universe, we can learn to go with the flow rather than swim upstream. This is the true benefit of four element magick. Is the development of magickal abilities great fun? Absolutely! It’s useful, too, for self-defense, personal power and more. But it’s also the beginning of a deep understanding of the driving forces of life. It’s a strong first step onto the path of direct knowledge and spiritual scientism. When the shamans were kicked out of the tribe centuries ago, the world lost access to such direct knowledge. Now we need the shamans more than ever, and we invite you to step on this path by studying the four elements of magick!

Stephanie Yeh, co-founder of the Esoteric School of Shamanism and Magic (http://www.shamanschool.com), helps clients use magical and shamanic techniques to manifest their desires. Stephanie has created several online and video classes to make this information more accessible. She also helps others learn to create abundant health and wealth with spiritual and practical resources through her site, Prosperity Abounds (http://www.prosperity-abounds.com).

Weddings as we know is where a bride and groom stands at the altar taking their vows pledging undying love for each other but not all countries do the same as we. Worldwide country cultures and beliefs differ greatly in the way they celebrate their wedding night.

Did you know that after a marriage has taken place some couples wedding night never goes according to plan due to all the activities concocted up by friends and family in a quest to upset the newlyweds plans of becoming one in the marital suite as early as they would like.

In the US it is habitual after the reception for the couple to jump into the vehicle that waits to take them on honeymoon only to find that the rear end of the car is fully geared up with rattling tin cans.

Tradition for the Gaelic culture is where close friends and family set out to delay the couple consummating their marriage in a fun sort of way. In the good old days the married couple would spend their wedding night in a hay barn. Close lady friends of the bride would dress her for bed and would invite every male species who attended the wedding to kiss her goodnight. What they did in the old days to add fun to the night would be things of disturbance making it hard for the groom to meet up with his new wife. When the couple finally come together noises would bellow from outside the barn with its (peephole) thus adding further embarrassment to the newlyweds.

It is just a matter of time when the alcohol kicks in sending the pranksters to sleep. Is it any wonder why in those days the honeymoon destination was kept a secret.

Other Celtic Scottish rituals performed on the wedding night was the sprinkling of water onto the bed which was considered to bring good luck.

Inhabitants of Germany and France uphold similar traditions where their disturbances on the wedding night are called Chiverie. The US spell it Shivaree, they also cause havoc by decorating the bridal suite with balloons or laying food all over the bed just for fun. A love in surrounded by crumbs is not very romantic.

They say when in Rome do as the Romans do but whatever you do dont fall as it is seen as bad luck if the bride takes a tumble on entering the newly weds first home. After the roman wedding all male friends of the married couple would carry the bride over the threshold. But times have changed where the groom has the pleasure, in saying that; he may need to ask for assistance if his bride is the size of Bessie Bunter.

In western Africa, (Benin), virginity is valued highly. The brides mother compensates her with money if still untouched by man on her wedding night! This may sound alarming but the sheets are checked for blood smears the next morning after the wedding night. I did say things were done differently in other countries and this just happens to be the custom in Benin. Sometimes the sheets were flown like flags from the window to show that the daughter never gave into temptation submitting her body to any other.

A Chinese wedding night consists of beautifully designed candles shaped like a phoenix and dragon to force away evil spirits. Wine is drunk from goblets tied together with a scarlet red sash while at the same time the newlyweds have their arms intertwined. It is now when the bride is handed half-raw dumplings which denotes prosperity.

Wait for it no ration on passion for brides from Marquesasian (Polynesia) who are expected to have sex with all the male guests - Heaven for bid if the numbers are great - the groom finally gets to sleep with his bride last. Depending on the number of male guests surely this could go on for quite some time but at the end of the day I suppose the wait will be worthwhile because it is the groom who gets to sleep with her for the rest of his life.

Sun glasses are useful. They aren’t just to look cool, but protect the eyes from UV rays as well as keep the glare away from the eyes to protect vision. Sun glasses are widely available and offer many styles and designs. There are many manufactures from high end designers to no name, inexpensive models. While there are many to choose from, sunglasses should fit the face comfortably and enable the user to see in all directions.

There are several brands of sun glasses that stand out as dependable, fashionable, and with great protection. One of these brands is Oakley Sun Glasses. Oakley sun glasses are offered in many styles. There are models to enable sportsman the best comfort while staying in place even in the harshest extremes as when skiing or running. They also offer sun glasses for different face shapes to create a fashionable look for the consumer.

Sun glasses are widely available. They are available in department stores, malls, even in sun glass hut at the mall, which is a sun glass specialty store offering a wide range of choices to the consumer. Sun glasses are also available on their manufactures websites as well. Also, you can find discount or wholesale sun glasses all over the internet. To find the best sun glasses for you and your face, the best way is to just try some on! Make it fun and find sunglasses that will protect your eyes from the sun and the sun’s glare. Sun glasses should be fun and be able to offer the user protection as well as style.

About the author:

Mike Yeager
Publisher
http://www.my-sunglasses-4me.com/