Author Archives: schatzi

9 Top Things You Learn In a First Aid Course

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You probably already have some idea about what a first aid course can teach you, but if you are curious to find out more, following is a description of some of the most important things you can learn during a first aid course.

• Head injuries: you will learn how to recognize both internal and external head injuries and how to provide immediate help for the victim, such as proper wound disinfection or applying adequate head bandages.

• Burns: a first aid course will teach trainees how to recognize and treat burns caused by fires, electric shocks, or chemical substances. You will also learn how to treat other symptoms which may be associated with burns, such as smoke inhalation.

• Poisoning: a first aid course will show you the different manifestations of poisoning by various substances (drugs, pills, alcohol poisoning, chemical substances) and will teach you some simple maneuvers that can alleviate the victim’s prognostic, such as administering medicinal coal or saline water.

• Bleedings: during a first aid course, you will learn how to apply compressive bandages to stop an external bleeding. You will also find out the symptoms that can help you recognize an internal bleeding and a few simple gestures that can prolong the victim’s survival, such as raising their legs above the level of the head and heart so as to maintain blood flow in critical areas of the body.

• Fractures: first aid training shows you the different ways in which fractured limbs or bones should be immobilized before being able to transport the victim to more specialized medical help. During a first aid course, you will also learn how to differentiate between an open and a closed fracture.

• Cuts and scrapes: although these injuries are less severe, it is important to know how to take care of them because they do have the potential of getting infected and causing significant harm at a later time.

• Seizures: during first aid training, you will learn how to recognize and differentiate between the various types of seizures, as well as how to keep the victims from swallowing their own tongue or getting injured during the episode.

• Sprains and strains: a first aid course will present the most common signs which can help you recognize a strained wrist or ankle, as well as the proper way of applying a bandage that can sustain the joint.

• Heart attack: although there is not much a non-professional can do to help a victim in case of a heart attack, a first aid course can show you how to rapidly recognize the symptoms. In this way, the victim can receive adequate medical help faster.

These are the nine basic topics taught in any certified first aid course. The information provided above is just a brief introduction into the lessons you can learn during first aid training. If you want to find out more, do not hesitate to join a first aid course; you will surely not regret it.

Five Tips For Teen Health, Teen Fitness, And College Health

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Anyone who is concerned with teen health, teen fitness and college health, need to look no farther than your local gym floor to see why there is such a problem with teen fitness today.

Students don’t know the first thing about college health or teen health, and that is drastically affecting their expanding waistline. Students who are concerned with teen fitness need to alter their workout easier in order to become more fit.

College health is tough to regulate because of the late night parties, all you can eat buffets and drastically different lifestyle. Also, college students are much less likely to be as active as they were in high school, then teen health was much easier to come by (think 3-sport athlete).

Most teens, unfortunately, know nothing about teen health and teen fitness, and it shows in gyms across the country. Teens are showing up to the gym to workout, but we will not address the issues of teen health and teen fitness until we alter their workouts.

Here are quick tips to improve teen fitness, teen health and college fitness:

1- Rest less and workout more. It’s tough for teens to lose weight while they are resting five mintues between sets. You need to get up and workout more. Do a set of jumping jacks between sets, it’ll work! That’ll help out teen health and college health.

2- Lift weights to lose weight. Teen health is terrible because they, especially females, waste their time on the treadmills and elliptical. College health would greatly improve with shorter workouts with lifting more weights, and teen fitness wouldn’t be such an issue if teens lifted.

3- When doing cardio, do it right. Long distance running or walking will not improve teem health. In fact, there have been studies done to prove that adding aerobic training to a workout showed nothing that dieting alone wouldn’t help. Do a short run (less than a minute) followed by a shorter walk. That’ll greatly help teen fitness and college health. It’ll help lose weight!

4- Don’t isolate muscles. Teen health, teen fitness and college health will not improve unless they learn to workout right. Bicep curls will not improve teen health and teen fitness. Neither will triceps kickbacks or sit ups help out college health.

5- For college health, try to stay active. Easier said than done, but college health is just as big of a concern as teen health and teen fitness. Stay active. Go to the gym more. Remember, if you were an athlete last year, and now you do nothing, your college health will deteriorate.

Teen health, teen fitness and college health are a growing concern. But staying fit during your student years can be very simple. Lift weights, rest less, and you will melt the fat away! Remember, college health isn’t all that hard.

Special Education and the Reality of One-on-One Education Needs

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Special education children, especially those with autism really require one-on-one education, or no more than five people per teacher. Any more than that and it is pretty much a babysitting episode, rather than any meaningful education. Teachers aids can help, and volunteers in a special education classrooms are a good thing, but those teacher’s aids must also be trained to deal with special education kids, who must be handled differently, and appropriately.

Of course this causes conflict with the parents of regular kids in the regular classrooms, because it takes a tremendous amount of budget money in special ed programs. Right now, as you know the school districts around the nation are cutting as much as they can to save costs. Every school district must cut as much as possible, as many states are nearly bankrupt. Looking for the federal government to help out probably won’t work, even though the federal mandates for the no child left behind programs are part of the problem.

Those kids who have autism, or have learning disabilities in special ed can come a long way if they get the proper trained, taught, and have the proper teachers to make that happen. In the future they can in fact support themselves as adults. If we fail to teach them correctly now, they become wards of the state in later years. The reality of one-on-one education needs help, but also don’t forget that the kids in normal classes also need one-on-one attention when learning the more technical aspects in computer class.

It is unfortunate to see that the special-education classes and the regular classes are being pitted against each other, along with parents fighting each other over the budget at the school board meetings. The reality is that one-on-one education for special education is appropriate given the situation, but we must also understand that if we take all the money and throw it into special ed to provide the one-on-one support needed to properly teach these kids, then the rest of the school will suffer.

If our schools cannot teach our kids properly then our society as a whole will be in severe jeopardy in 20 years when these kids are then in charge of running the society and civilization. Perhaps you can see how important this issue is, and also understand why we are failing at it. If we don’t address these issues, and are too concerned with being politically correct, then neither side will win, and everyone loses. It’s time to take a realistic approach to the cost and actual funding available for our education system, or we won’t have one. Please consider all this.

Are You Looking For a New Career in 2009?

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According to an approximation, at any given point of time, around 35 percent of employees yearn to give up their existing careers and pursue something completely different from what they are doing. The wide ranging reasons for this include dissatisfaction with compensation, low job satisfaction, lack of motivation or morale. However, this is not the only reason for seeking a new career. Today, following the deepening recession in the US and other developed nations of the west, finding new careers to tide over job-cuts has become one of the most pressing needs of the employment world. In February alone, 651,000 jobs were laid off in the US, in what is widely believed to be one of the worst monthly losses since 1949 and unemployment rate has soared to 8.1 percent, according to the US Labor Department.

The First Step

Many of those who would give anything to have a change of job often end up just reading, talking or dreaming about it, and are less inclined to take the step forward, or are simply too scared to take the risk lest they should end up regretting if things didn’t actually turn out well in their new careers. The flip side is that there are also those lucky ones who find that they have never had it as good as they have after a career change. These people go on to reap the rewards and benefit from their new careers.    

With job losses becoming ‘imminent and widespread’ in nearly all sectors, except perhaps in the health care industry and government, finding alternative careers is proving to be one of the most difficult propositions, given the slowing economy in the US as well as European countries. Once you have decided on a career change, the next step would be to weigh your options. Answers to question like – what would you look for in your new career and would you like to do something different or move into a career that utilizes your previous skills and experience, would help you to identify the industry which can possibly fulfill your requirements.

Where Do You Fit In

The next step – and a pretty important one – is a reality check. Once you have decided to go for change of career and also zeroed in on where you would like to fit in, you would have to make an analysis of whether or not the industry you have chosen would be in a position to meet your requirements. Find out if there is an opening in this industry or if they have a need for you? If you are joining an industry where there is more supply than demand or if the current skill shortage is likely to be filled in a few years, joining such an industry doesn’t actually make sense unless you possess that ‘something special’ or an edge over the other employees in terms of skill or experience. Also find out if the new industry would offer you an opportunity to make more money and achieve your long-term goals.

I Am Learning Martial Arts As Slow As Possible!

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This observation, that I am learning Martial Arts slowly, actually goes back to 1967-1968. I was in a type of Ed Parker Kenpo school at the time. What martial system I was studying doesn’t matter, however for I found ‘slow learning’ was being done in every martial art being taught.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t learning and having a ball. Heck, Martial Arts made life worth living, and the rite of passage is not equaled in other method in life. But, as I have said, I was learning pretty darned slowly.

The process of learning slowly was described to me as being on a plateau. I would earn a belt, be given new material, and then study that new material for half a year, and be bored with that new material after the first month. The instructors knew what I was going through, and justified it by giving it the label plateau, and telling me it was part of the learning method.

Somebody shows me a move, I practice it a dozen times, and then I can do it. I don’t have to think about it, and don’t really understand why I am supposed to practice something I know. And pretty much everybody is like this.

Intuition is how a human being learns, and human beings are the fastest learners around. Yet, in a karate school or any other martial arts school, they are asked to memorize random sequences of moves, and then draw connections that don’t, for the most part, exist. No wonder learning is becomes tedious; no wonder people drop out.

Think of it this way: you are asked to memorize an algebra sequence, a trigonometry formula, learn negative addition, and then you call yourself a mathematician. Doesn’t look too smart, does it? Yet that is the way the martial arts are given to people.

Well, of course, they originate in nations which did not have logic, let alone broad public education, let alone an interest in the latest and greatest modern method for learning. Doesn’t mean their arts aren’t great, they can be phenomenal, but they are slow. The method used to teach is just slow, you see.

There are alternatives to this random memorization of tricks…if one is to be willing to admit that the old methods are antiquated, and that they can learn fast, and that it is okay to learn at a faster rate. We are our greatest natural resource, and it is time to undo the restraints, throw away the wheel chairs…and get the lead out. After all, you don’t want to keep learning the martial arts at a snail’s pace, do you?

What You Need, Personally, To Write A Book

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There are as many reasons to write a book as there are titles of books. For each book published the reason to write the book was personal and may or may not have been fulfilled. Yet without the desire and a reason to begin writing a book you will have a difficult time finishing it.

The book is working its way through your thoughts and you are becoming more and more excited to get your ideas written down. Yet, like any habit, it starts with a bang and quickly loses momentum. This is the point where self motivation takes over. Here’s where you need to go back to your reason for writing a book. Ask yourself questions such as why am I writing this, who am I writing to, what do I want them to get out of it, and is it worth my time and energy to continue. If you answer yes to the last question your motivation will be renewed and your habit of working on writing your book becomes solidified.

The key to a good book is the strength of its concept. Make sure you can explain what your book is about , preferably in one sentence. If you were asked ‘What is your book about?” you should not hesitate to be able to answer with confidence. If you can not you need to regroup and get a clear idea of what your concept is. Keep your eye on that concept throughout the writing of your book..

This may sound elementary but when you take a trip you need a roadmap to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. Do not start your book without a roadmap and plan. Some may think that writing a book means sitting down to your computer and just let the words flow out. Although a romantic idea, this is not how it works. Draft a plan of ideas and concepts, who you are writing to, and your end goal. This plan will be the difference between a tightly written book and a book that rambles on.

Writing a book requires focus and commitment over many months or more. You will not finish in a day or even a week. Your attention span will be strengthened when you follow the plan you’ve set up for yourself and your book, and you will reach each step. You will need a long attention span to keep you on task. Focus and commitment will be necessary not only to finish writing your book but also to get it published and with promotional efforts.

Remained determined, even through times that you have nothing to write or when your life has hit a rough patch. This commitment is necessary to keep you together through these times and come out the other end with a book you are proud of and worked hard at.

It is always a great idea to have guidance and someone in your corner all the way from the concept to the finished product. If this is your first book or your 99th it never hurts to have someone to bounce ideas off of who can actually help. Join a book writers forum, take a course, or get a coach. Any of these will assist you when times get tough.

You are the one who wants to write a book. You are the only one who can keep your determination throughout the entire process of writing, publishing, and promoting your masterpiece. If you’re personally ready then it is time to start writing your book.

The ABC of Coaching a Winning Soccer Team

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Coaching soccer is an art that needs to be learned and mastered. For a coach, learning the game and its rules is never enough. Coaches need to learn how to bring out the best attributes of their players. Considering that coaches bare the task of ensuring great scores in matches, they should always have a secret weapon to help them get the great scores.

When dealing with players, a coach needs to understand that these are very different people from different backgrounds with different personalities, temperaments, goals, and aspirations. Coaches have to know every player and know the best way of communicating and working with them. Coaching soccer simply requires proper communication of a strategy on how to win matches to players.

When coaching soccer, coaches need to find a way of making his players work together as a team. Training sessions and team building activities can be used to develop teamwork. Problems are inevitable between players in most of the cases. Coaches must try to ensure that teammates are in good terms at all times. Anything that hinders team work should be dealt with effectively.

Coaches must use positive encouragement when dealing with their teams. They should do this to ensure that their players feel encouraged. Players need not be shouted at or insulted even if they make a stupid mistake. Coaching soccer is like trying to build a relationship, the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. Coaches must use an approach that will build not break the spirit of their players at all times.

There is no standard style in coaching soccer because every coach should have their own. The style a coach uses for his team must be his own secret weapon of bringing out the strong points of the players. Style may include the unique language, verbal, or non-verbal used by a coach. The style you use must work well with your team of players.

The ability of a team to shine shows that a coach has the required style, proper communication skills and is working with his team players towards a common goal. Coaching soccer must emphasize on the mental, physical, technical, lifestyle and tactical aspects of players. Understanding these five aspects of each player can help build a strong team.

Lastly a coach must make training sessions something that players can look forward to. Bearing in mind that the recipe for a successful soccer team has skills as a major ingredient, coaches must ensure that all their players attend training sessions. One can do this by ensuring that training sessions are as interesting as possible.

While developing your team for success remember that once you setup the foundation with proper communication and expectations, you should have a team that will play all out for you.

What You Need, Personally, To Write A Book

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There are as many reasons to write a book as there are titles of books. For each book published the reason to write the book was personal and may or may not have been fulfilled. Yet without the desire and a reason to begin writing a book you will have a difficult time finishing it.

The book is working its way through your thoughts and you are becoming more and more excited to get your ideas written down. Yet, like any habit, it starts with a bang and quickly loses momentum. This is the point where self motivation takes over. Here’s where you need to go back to your reason for writing a book. Ask yourself questions such as why am I writing this, who am I writing to, what do I want them to get out of it, and is it worth my time and energy to continue. If you answer yes to the last question your motivation will be renewed and your habit of working on writing your book becomes solidified.

The key to a good book is the strength of its concept. Make sure you can explain what your book is about , preferably in one sentence. If you were asked ‘What is your book about?” you should not hesitate to be able to answer with confidence. If you can not you need to regroup and get a clear idea of what your concept is. Keep your eye on that concept throughout the writing of your book..

This may sound elementary but when you take a trip you need a roadmap to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. Do not start your book without a roadmap and plan. Some may think that writing a book means sitting down to your computer and just let the words flow out. Although a romantic idea, this is not how it works. Draft a plan of ideas and concepts, who you are writing to, and your end goal. This plan will be the difference between a tightly written book and a book that rambles on.

Writing a book requires focus and commitment over many months or more. You will not finish in a day or even a week. Your attention span will be strengthened when you follow the plan you’ve set up for yourself and your book, and you will reach each step. You will need a long attention span to keep you on task. Focus and commitment will be necessary not only to finish writing your book but also to get it published and with promotional efforts.

Remained determined, even through times that you have nothing to write or when your life has hit a rough patch. This commitment is necessary to keep you together through these times and come out the other end with a book you are proud of and worked hard at.

It is always a great idea to have guidance and someone in your corner all the way from the concept to the finished product. If this is your first book or your 99th it never hurts to have someone to bounce ideas off of who can actually help. Join a book writers forum, take a course, or get a coach. Any of these will assist you when times get tough.

You are the one who wants to write a book. You are the only one who can keep your determination throughout the entire process of writing, publishing, and promoting your masterpiece. If you’re personally ready then it is time to start writing your book.

Arizona Schools Focus on Science

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In April 2007 the Science Foundation Arizona (SFAz) announced an investment of $3.2 million into a K-12 Student & Teacher Discovery Program to benefit the Arizona Schools. The Arizona Schools grant are the third awarding of SFAz funds intended to create a top-notch science, engineering and medical core in Arizona. The foundation intends to create this by supporting and funding secondary and university level Arizona Schools.

Why Fund Science in Arizona Schools?

The state looked to the foundation to “strengthen scientific, engineering and medical research programs and infrastructure in areas of greatest strategic value to Arizona’s competitiveness in the global economy.” In addition to benefits to economy, educators in Arizona Schools are aware of a growing achievement gap that most affects minorities and low-income students. That gap is greatest in areas of math and science.

Arizona Schools are an oxymoron in education. Education Week rated them last in the nation for per pupil spending in January of 2007. Yet it rated Arizona Schools 14th in the nation on academic standards, and 20th in education alignment. On the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) the state came in 21st. Typically schools with lowest spending per pupil (like California) also rate poorly on other indicators of success; while the top spending states (like New Jersey) rank higher.

Superintendent of Arizona Schools, Tom Horne, wrote in his January 2007 district letter that although the national average is not a satisfactory goal, “… if our [Arizona] schools can bring our students to above the national average, even though we are last in resources, I believe we could be in the top 10 nationally if we raised our resources to the national average.” Clearly private funding from groups like SFAz is expected to help Arizona Schools reach that goal.

What Programs Will Benefit Arizona Schools?

Arizona Schools intend to use some of the funds for summer classes, teacher training and online courses. $225,000 will go to growing the Hands-on Optics Project run by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson. This program lets elementary and middle school students in rural Arizona Schools learn about optics from scientists in surrounding communities.

The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) award gives $525,000 to the development of underprivileged K-12 students. Arizona Schools will participate in the First Robotics Competition and FIRST LEGO® League Programs with these funds.

As Arizona Schools try to address issues like English Language Learner program funding, and equity across racial and socio-economic lines, debates over allocation funds will continue to heat up. This is why a national trend of philanthropic and corporate sponsorship of public schools has become so popular.

Whether Superintendent Horne will get the additional state funding he seeks for Arizona Schools is still unknown. But it’s certain that the funds provided by private parties will benefit the Arizona Schools in the 2007-2008 school year and beyond.

Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Tutorial: ISDN Details You Must Know

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CCNA exam success depends partially on knowing the details of ISDN, and there are plenty of them! To help you review for your CCNA exam, here are a few ISDN details that you must know on exam day. (They help in the real world, too – and there are still plenty of ISDN networks out there!

The Cisco-proprietary version of HDLC is the default encapsulation type for serial and ISDN interfaces.

R2#show interface serial0

Serial0 is up, line protocol is up

Hardware is HD64570

MTU 1500 bytes, BW 1544 Kbit, DLY 20000 usec, rely 255/255, load 1/255

Encapsulation HDLC, loopback not set, keepalive set (10 sec)

While there’s only one D-channel in BRI, PRI (US) and PRI (EU), the bandwidth of that D-channel does vary from BRI to PRI. It’s 16 kbps in BRI and 64 kbps in both PRI versions.

The global command isdn switch-type must be configured before you can even begin to have ISDN work. show isdn status will tell you whether or not you’ve done this correctly.

R2#show isdn status

**** No Global ISDN Switchtype currently defined ****

ISDN BRI0 interface

dsl 0, interface ISDN Switchtype = none

Layer 1 Status:

DEACTIVATED

Layer 2 Status:

Layer 2 NOT Activated

Layer 3 Status:

0 Active Layer 3 Call(s)

PAP allows passwords to be different; CHAP requires that they be the same.

PAP requires the “ppp pap sent-username” interface-level command. CHAP has no equivalent command.

Define interesting traffic with dialer-list and link that list to the interface with dialer-group.

R2#conf t

R2(config)#dialer-list 1 proto ip permit

R2(config)#int bri0

R2(config-if)#dialer-group 1

The dialer idle-timeout value is expressed in seconds, not minutes. (Even IOS Help isn’t totally clear on this.)

R2(config)#int bri0

R2(config-if)#dialer-group 1

R2(config-if)#dialer idle-timeout ?

Idle timeout before disconnecting a call

R2(config-if)#dialer idle-timeout 120

Dialer map maps a remote IP address to a remote phone number. You never dial the local router’s phone number.

dialer load-threshold requires the ppp multilink command to be configured, and the value of dialer load-threshold is expressed as a ratio of 255, NOT 100. For example, if you want the second b-channel to come up when the first reaches 50% of capacity, the value to express with dialer load-threshold would be 50% of 255 – which equals 127.

R2(config)#int bri0

R2(config-if)#encap ppp

R2(config-if)#ppp multilink

R2(config-if)#dialer load-threshold ?

Load threshold to place another call

Success on the CCNA exam depends on knowing the details. Keep studying, keep practicing on real Cisco routers and switches, keep a positive attitude, and you’re on your way to CCNA exam success!