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Here’s a novel thing to do in New York as a tourist: personal training. Forget the tourist traps like Zalman Silber’s Skyride; if you want true heart-thumping excitement, how about hiring one of the many attractive personal fitness trainers available for a jog, swim, stretch, or bike-ride around town? Really, there’s no better way to take in the sights than in the same way a native might.

Thousands – no, hundreds of thousands – of New Yorkers exercise each day, whether specifically working out or otherwise enjoying a physically rigorous leisure activity. Why not you? It would be a lot less expensive than the aforesaid Zalman Silber affair. Instead of helicopter flyovers on film (which is all that his Skyride is – and not even “all” at that, but only “some,” to be exact), why not jog past the West Side heliport near the downtown nabe of Chelsea? Or just take a bicycle ride past the USS Intrepid a mile uptown, along the same waterfront, with its fighter jets and other military aircraft permanently parked above deck.

You want excitement? There’s no thrill more visceral than working out with an attractive able-bodied trainer when new in town! Not only will you enjoy the company of someone that’s good-looking, but you’ll also be able to stay healthy. Even if you’re not exercising at all, picking it up for the first time (or after a long while) when in a new unfamiliar environment can be really fun. In fact, it can be so exhilarating that you need to be mindful of checking your own enthusiasm so as to not get hurt, especially as a beginner!

Indeed, organizations like the 50 States Marathon Club were founded to serve people who already have, all on their own, combined fitness and traveling into one unbeatable vacation package. And for many who are retirees, exercise and travel go hand-in-hand every day! It’s a great idea with which almost anyone can participate along.

Naturally, many people have long traveled just to do certain things at, specifically, certain places. Climbing and hiking come to mind immediately; they are possibly the pastimes most associated with travel. But there are many sports and otherwise physically challenging activities that can be intimately tied to a certain place. Bicyclists and kayakers are as similarly enamored of particular places as climbers. Surfers and hangliders, too, as these sports depend on conditions that are often most dependable at specific spots.

And so when in New York one may bike, swim, run, kayak, and of course simply walk all over the place. Indeed, it is one of the most versatile cities in the world in this regard, with very free open space in most cases: row or paddle where you will; run or pedal as long as you can. This isn’t news for natives, to be sure, but tourists may be surprised that New York truly has it all, including outdoors life!

Have you heard that unlocked cell phones have received something of a huge nod from the American judiciary lately, thanks to a judgment that makes it possible the unlocking of our own handset completely legal. Cellular service providers in general lock the mobile phones they give their customers so that those telephones will solely work using the provider’s network. The upshot of it all is that cell phones are immediately made worthless whenever customers switch carriers, and so a cottage industry has developed around those buyers who would like to take their cell phones with them to a brand-new carrier. And now the courts just gave this practice its blessings, but with one fatal caveat – while unlocking cellphones is allowed, the means necessary to achieve it is not!

The exponential growth of virtual assistant jobs reflects the prevalence of corporate management trends in this age of downsizing and cost-cutting. Particularly popular with start-ups and other firms of the Knowledge Economy, virtual assistant jobs enable firms to minimize their in-house support staff as they search for increased profitability.

After all, from management’s perspective, nothing more is needed than somebody who will basically – even only – transcribe records or answer phones. Virtual assistant jobs allow the business to avoid paying for expenses beyond wages or salaries.

Businesses save a great deal by not having to provide health insurance, sick days, and the like. Now take the concept another step further, and it’s easy to see that companies don’t even have to deal with any administrative hassles at all, like performance reviews and so forth, simply by hiring what is in essence a contractor!

So what does the worker get out of it? Well, for folks that require non-traditional work opportunities, these virtual work at home jobs are particularly attractive. Such work most frequently involves general clerical duties that might be easily fulfilled outside of an office. Some positions, nonetheless, can require advanced skills for instance computer programming or internet research.

But these jobs are not some bad old-fashioned work-at-home scam where victims are made to assemble tchotchkes or stuff envelopes with fliers. They are genuine honest-to-goodness employment opportunities made possible by an ever more interconnected world.

More and more entrepreneurs now hire actual live virtual assistants to give their fledgling start-ups a respectable appearance, creating the professional impression of a full-staffed operation. If you’re a student, a homemaker, retired, or just do not want to deal with a conventional lifestyle, you now have a lot more options than ever to be, in a very real sense, your very own boss! Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, it’s simpler and much more practical than ever before to work off-site, even in one’s own home.

In most communities, water damage restoration isn’t considered a very pressing concern, seeing as most communities simply aren’t prone to flooding in a capacity that makes it terribly necessary. Only after Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans did water damage restoration become a concern for people, or at least an issue worth recognition, even to people outside New Orleans who reasonably considered the flooding of an entire city to be a bad thing. At that time mold was also familiar but due to their circumstances, mold removal didn’t come to mind. What few Americans realize is that the flooding of New Orleans was a relatively small disaster compared to flood scenarios experienced in other parts of the world.

While Hurricane Katrina was certainly a national disaster of unbelievable proportions, whose flooding claiming at least 1,836 lives, it pales comparability to an event like the 1938 Yellow River flood in China, where the death toll is estimated to have been as high as a million people, with several million more turned refugees and forced to flee their homes and the areas affected by the flooding. The geographical effects of this flood alone lasted for nearly 10 years, the entire course of the Yellow river itself having been diverted and necessitated intention of water damage restoration far beyond those demanded by New Orleans.

Unlike the flooding following Hurricane Katrina, the 1938 flood was a man-made disaster. In 1938, China was already in their second year of war against the invading armies of Imperial Japan during the second Sino-Japanese war, and by that point Japan had seized control of nearly the entire northern portion of the country. In order to stop the Japanese advance and to stall their seizure of the major Chinese cities Wuhan and Xi’an, the Chinese made the drastic decision to open dikes along the Yellow river, flooding the river valley and annihilating infrastructure vital to the Japanese advance.

To be able to catch the Japanese by surprise, the Chinese made no effort to notify Chinese civilians residing in areas that could be affected by the flooding, and consequently, hundreds of thousands were drowned in their sleep. More deadly than the actual flooding was the threat of waterborne diseases, such as Botulism, Cholera, Dysentery, Malaria, and Typhus, which likely claimed hundreds of thousands more lives than the waters themselves. The floods having submerged nearly 21,000 square miles of land destroyed local crops ending up in famine and starvation among the local population not yet afflicted by the other effects of the flood.

In 1946 and 1947, after the end of the Second World War, the dikes were rebuilt in one of China’s largest efforts in water damage restoration, gradually restoring the Yellow river to its pre-1938 course. To this day, the Chinese government still conceals most of the details regarding the disaster from the public.

Racing strategies for alleycat races can be very individualistic. An alleycat race is an informal bike race, likely popularized by bicycle messengers. Of course, informal racing has always existed, but the adjective “alleycat” is a fairly recent addition; the first official use was by a 1989 Toronto race. Messengers participating in that and subsequent alleycats helped spread the name and idea far and wide.

As individual as the strategies are the rules involved, for one characteristic of an alleycat race is its very localized nature, with just about every thing tailored to native conditions and practices. Team racing may be fairly rare, as the function of a bicycle messenger that these races reflect is solitary.

On the other hand, relay races are fun for the contestants precisely because it puts an fascinating social twist on the otherwise singularly solitary nature of their work on the weekdays (alleycat races take place around major holidays so that messengers, who live paycheck-to-paycheck with little to no benefits, can be involved).

Alleycat races involve not only speed, but traffic handling skills and a rider’s intimate knowledge of local routes. As might be imagined, alleycat races heavily reflect the bicycle messenger subculture, not least of which is the fact that they’re of questionable legality in most jurisdictions.

Originally spontaneous, their growth has meant increasing organization, which in turn means working with local authorities, such as obtaining all essential permits. But organization has also meant that alleycat races can be highly creative and themed with social causes such as global warming and bicycle advocacy.

In keeping with its anti-establishment roots, many alleycat races resist formality, particularly in the form of obtaining permission. The right to free assembly is evoked to justify these essentially spontaneous races. Regrettably, motorized vehicles occupy such a venerable place in American culture that authorities curtail such rights in favor of maintaining automobile convenience.

A backpacking tent is a necessity even when you expect to do only a simple hike. I learned this lesson the hard way, personally, and it would’ve been at a great cost were I not lucky enough to have been rescued by volunteer forest rangers who dutifully answered to a midnight call.

My friends and I hadn’t taken any gear at all, never mind a backpacking tent. It was supposed to be nothing more than a quick enough romp up and down a straightforward mountain of modest height, some two thousand feet above ground level and the tallest point in all the region. It was Mount Buck, near Lake George in upstate New York, the busiest tourist attraction around for miles. Yet as luck would have it, it turned out to be a cloudy, then rainy, day (note to self: check weather forecast day-of).

Nevertheless with no backpacking tent, we decided to proceed anyway. After all, we’d traveled up from New York City hundreds of miles, way over three hours by car; we really needed to stretch our legs! But soon it got dark – just like in the movies, fading to black in mere seconds – and we’d thought we were done for. It was literally black, and we decided to remain in place so that we do not worsen our predicament.

Luckily, that fateful choice proved to be the right one, as it was through remaining on the trail that volunteer forest rangers, hiking up the trail hours later, were able to fairly easily rescue us. But until that hopeful time, at one or two in the morning, we had to endure the cold – how cold it gets, and how rapidly, in a forest! And so never leave home without portable shelter: always take your tent along, no matter what.

College flags rank amongst the most valuable of memorabilia, with a wide range of designs that reflect the distinctive heritage of each individual institution. Officially licensed college flags and pennants ensure authentic insignia as well as top quality design, and they provide a source of revenue that goes back to support the school. You can purchase flags or pennants to hang by the door of one’s house or display in one’s garden as well as banners that could be streamed over an entrance or across the yard. Two-ply constructions allow designs to be seen properly from either side.

But most types of college flags are usually to be found at intercollegiate games, especially football games. They are utilized by the fans to cheer on their team, and waving them is a symbol of the school spirit. One popular activity while waving them is to sing the school’s fight song en masse. In fact, it is hard to conceive of a college flag apart from that college’s fight song. One would seem incomplete without the other.

Thus, there are hundreds of fight songs, just as there are hundreds of flags. Sometimes both are equally old and hallowed, and sometimes each is of vastly different vintage. The earliest fight song in generally recognized to be Boston College’s “For Boston” of 1885, but it is not certain which is the oldest college flag. Indeed, it is not certain when the tradition of college flags and pennants began, though one may safely imagine that their origins roughly coincided.

Speaking of origins, numerous flags have changed over the years owing to cultural developments that made it unacceptable to feature mascots based on racial stereotypes or designs integrating the old Confederate Battle Flag. Many alumni protest, but eventually new generations of students with no sentimental attachment to old symbols make the revised models their own.

Virtual travel has just only come of age now, in the 21st Century, thanks to the kinds of Web 2.0 applications like Google Magps’ Streetview function. Unlike something like the sort of corny movie one might view at a Zalman Silber Skyride or Oztrek, where the audience simply sits back and watches tape of a helicopter flyover intended to induce a you-are-there feeling, virtual travel today is really virtual, and much more interactive – which is all to say, realistic like never before.

Indeed, two people have even embarked on that grand old tradition of The Great American Road Trip – only this time, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, they will do it all from the comfort of their own homes. Utilizing Google Maps and its Streetview option, Peter Baldes and Marc Horowitz have been able to trek across the country without paying for gas – or speeding tickets!

Perhaps best of all, however, are all the strangers you can meet along during such a road trip – and they aren’t necessarily locals, either! Thanks to those same marvels of modern technology, it’s easy for others to check in on you, joining you for a part of the virtual trip by webcasting the trip live, just as Marc and Pete mentioned above had done. After all, what’s virtual travel without virtual companions?

Unlike the travel videos of yesteryear, virtual sightseeing this way is fully open-ended, the same as if you’d won the lottery and can afford to do whatever you want, whenever you want to! No longer will you merely be following along passively; with the simple click and drag of a mouse you can instantly teleport anywhere! Started off in Rome and suddenly longing for Paris? Have most of Germany covered and now want to check out Japan? It’s easy, and fast, through virtual travel in the 21st Century!

Of course, as any Physics 101 student can tell you, you don’t get something for nothing in this universe. And with respect to sightseeing virtually, you give up a lot even as you save a lot of time and money. You won’t meet folks face-to-face, or feel the wonderful weather or sample regional specialties, culinary and otherwise. Most of all, as any globetrotter knows, much of the fun lies in the journey itself, the very getting there. All this, and much more, are lost on a virtual trip.

It is, in many ways, about what you get with a Zalman Silber spectacle, only without the professional production values – a flowing stream of images, as if instead of a juicy well-done steak on your plate you are presented with a glossy high-resolution photo of one! Virtual travel will likely never replace really being there yourself, and it still has a long way to go before it can even begin to rival the same level of fun offered by the real thing – for right now, the sizzle is the most attractive thing about it.

Being an “agent” most likely refers to commissioned sales, and selling is one of the hardest jobs to be found anywhere – and anytime – but what about as a career? Most peopel would simply burn out, but the successful ones tend to move into more managerial sorts of positions, which explains how they are able to make an actual career out of sales. After all, it’s tough living on commission-only your whole life, particularly at the lower end of things where one is doing showroom sales of items less than ten grand apiece!

Then there are individuals like Zalman Silber that are able to parlay their talent for sales into serial entrepreneurship. In fact, selling is the lifeblood of any business, so in a way it’s no surprise that successful salesmen and women should be able to combine that skill with more managerial ones to create their own companies.

But what is this mysterious art of selling that’s so vital to any enterprise? Is it only a matter of horse-feathering one’s way through a potential customer’s defenses? Do successful salesmen and women lie better than most? What’s the fine line between representing your product or service positively and doing whatever it takes to make your monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly quota?

Believe it or not, it’s basically a lot like the dating game, and it’s no secret that successful sellers – “agents,” if you prefer – also tend to be quite the Casanovas (and whatever is the equivalent term for females). After all, successful selling is nothing more than successful seduction.

Not the way a Zalman Silber would put it, in all likelihood, but it’s possible for people to be very good at something and yet not know exactly why. And the truth is that the same thing which makes one successful at sales is precisely what makes one successful at finding lovers.

It’s all about getting enough information. Think about it. If you absolutely knew that someone wasn’t interested in you – that there would be no chance in hell – would you still waste your time? Certainly not. So the key, whether at dating or selling a product or service, is to get as much information as possible. It is, in other words, a matter of intelligence (pun intended!)….

But we are not telepathic or clairvoyant, of course, so the only way to find out is to observe. To really listen. And to ask the right questions – or use the right pick-up lines.

By “right pick-up lines” it isn’t meant some magical quip that will easily open the lady’s heart (and legs!) but questions – or even non-interrogative statements – that allow you to plumb her mind, her soul. The goal is to find out what she wants, and what she’s willing to settle for – to find out what her needs are, and how much she’s willing to pay.

Just like with a prospective customer.

Catholic saints are people canonized by the Catholic Church, officially recognized for their piety as residents of Heaven. Nevertheless, in a technical sense, all who are in Heaven who had once been human on earth are, by definition, saints, individuals perfected in holiness; this is the view subscribed to by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

And while the list of Catholic saints can vary between almost a thousand and a half names to over ten thousand, depending on who’s doing the counting (inexplicably, there appears to be no comprehensive official list), it is frequently understood in many quarters that many pious souls are obscure and outright lost to human history.

Thus the term “Catholic saints” refers to those formally recorded and so honored while not making the claim that such a list are the only such folks of piety and thus the only group in Heaven. Canonization is the process whereby an individual’s life and deeds is examined for evidence of such recognition by the Church.

It is lengthy and can take numerous years, and even whole centuries. Beatification is an official declaration that an individual is near sainthood. The final determination rests, however, on the provenance of two posthumous miracles of some significance.

In a certain sense, miracles are one of the most crucial aspects of a saint; the veneration of saints often rests on this point for numerous lay Catholics. Patron saints are those designated as being particularly associated with certain professions, causes, or qualities.

Saints are not considered to have power in their own right, but only that which has been granted by God. Yet the bodily remains and other relics of a saint is believed to be holy and may be used in certain ceremonies. Originally, saints were mostly martyrs, but over time other considerations became just as prominent.