| Pooch Walkers sniffs out niche in pet care
Jennifer Moore and her canine companions recently walked and sniffed their way around Whitney Park in sub-zero temperatures for their daily walk. Moore is a pet caregiver for about 30 clients around Central Minnesota. Her business, Pooch Walkers, has boomed since opening last year, she said. She'll walk dogs, bathe them, take them to the vet, take their pictures and even throw pooch birthday parties — complete with dog treats, party hats and photos. "I try to make the owner's life as easy as possible and spoil the dogs as much as possible," said Moore, a St. Cloud resident. Pet owners such as Vi Bergquist are more than willing to pay for a $10 backyard waste cleanup or $15 for a bath. Bergquist of St. Cloud has two dogs, Pucci, 18, and Minnie, 10, who she sometimes leaves in Moore's care while at long meetings or if she has to go out of town because of work.
10 surprising ways to keep your heart healthy
We're listing them here so you can see how easy it is to reduce your risk of heart disease. You've still got to jog and eat broccoli, of course. But these other easy behaviors might just mean no one will ever have to dial 911 on your behalf. Good deeds do come back to you When you do a good deed or give a compliment, some of the benefits rub off on you. You get a dose of well-being simply from making others feel good. Dr. Stephen Post, author of "Why Good Things Happen to Good People" (Broadway, 2007, $24), calls it a "helper's high" and links volunteering to better health. Research backs him up. A study of 600 older adults, published in the Journal of Health Psychology found those who volunteered the most were 44 percent less likely to die during a five-year period.
Thanks from Hunters for the Hungry
Stretching the tournament scheduled across the calendar and should make a less rigorous life for anglers who fish both the BASS and FLW tours. Some anglers who have stuck strictly with BASS may also compete on the FLW tour. The late February or March date for the Classic should put anglers on better fishing opportunities than the late-summer dates have. In this time slot, the Classic will take place prior to the start of the regular tournament season. Most likely the Classic sites will be in warm-weather areas. BASS has not announced the location of the 2006 Classic, but this year's event will be in Pittsburgh. .
Lenders Step Up Effort to Avert Foreclosures
Under the latest plan, dubbed Project Lifeline, the lenders promise to seek contact with homeowners who are 90 or more days overdue on their mortgages. In some cases, homeowners will be given the chance to "pause" their foreclosure for 30 days while lenders try to work out a way to make the loans affordable. Lenders could begin sending letters to these borrowers as soon as this week. Homeowners wouldn't qualify for the program if they are in bankruptcy, if they already have a foreclosure date within 30 days or if the loan was for an investment or vacant property. Unlike the plan announced in December to freeze interest rates at current levels on certain adjustable-rate loans, this latest effort is to involve all kinds of home loans, not just subprime mortgages, a higher-cost variety for people with blemished credit records or high debt in relation to income.
Super disk cloning
But even without a major OS upgrade in the wild, savvy users know that you should always have a good, working backup of your Mac's hard drive. One way many users get such a backup is to “clone"—make a mirror image of—their drive. Not only does this approach let you perform an Erase and Install of OS X, using Migration Assistant to restore your data and applications from the clone (as explained by Joe), but it also means that if anything should ever happen to your main hard drive, you can be up and running from the clone in no time. Unfortunately, because of invisible files and permissions issues, you can't simply drag the contents of one volume onto another to get a good copy, as you could in Mac OS 9 and earlier. In the past, my favorite utility for cloning my hard drive has been Carbon Copy Cloner; unfortunately, it's not yet compatible with Tiger.
Wyldwood closings delayed again; Developers ask for patience in ...
Closings on local properties were initially scheduled to be completed at the end of January, but were then rescheduled for late this month. Those closings will now come at the end of March, officials with the venture said.Speaking on behalf of the developers, attorney Gerald J. Kelly urged patience."Everyone needs to be patient. It is rare that a $600 million project tries to move forward in a relatively rural venue. Many of the traditional strengths of a venue are not in place, such as infrastructure, airports and other significant attractions. It takes a great deal of time stating the case for this project and insuring everyone remains on board," he said.
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Don't skimp on skin care as nasty weather chaps and dries
DON'T WANT to spend a lot of time or money on specific new products? Softening your skin could be as easy as changing the temperature of the water you use to wash your face, or varying your morning beauty routine just slightly. We talked to dermatologists and aestheticians, who shared some inexpensive, over-the-counter products and easy-to-follow tips on how to keep skin supple. - Bathe better. Cool down your shower. The hotter water we use in the winter is one of the most powerful culprits behind dry skin, says Stephen Maberry of Fort Worth, Texas, Dermatology Associates, P.A. "If you want to clean an oily frying pan, you put it in hot soapy water. That's what you're doing to your skin" by taking long, steamy showers, he says. Steer clear of soaps such as Dial, Ivory and Zest.
School Board agrees to keep block schedule for another year
Hundreds of Collier County high school students unhappy about a possible change to the high school schedule staged protests and sit-in at Gulf Coast High, Naples, Lely and Palmetto Ridge high schools on February 20 and 21, 2008. Enlarge photos | View thumbnails .
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