Archive for the ‘Personal Success’ Category
Magnolia Speech School's new director shares grandson's ordeal
Posted: June 9, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Tina Atkins, the newly named director of Magnolia Speech School, has a personal stake in the school's success.
Her grandson, Evan, was born premature. He will turn 3 this month but still is unable to speak.
"It's really sad ... to know that he can't tell us when he's hungry or thirsty," Atkins said. "We have to just keep him by the hand because he can't tell anybody his name if he gets lost."
Atkins and her family searched for someone to help Evan, even trying private therapy. But, because they needed intense daily therapy, they were referred to Magnolia Speech School.
Later, after learning the current director, Anne Sullivan, was retiring after 18 years at the school, Atkins applied for the job.
"This is why we didn't have to explain to her in an interview that this is life-changing work," Sullivan said.
The search committee and board of directors voted unanimously for Atkins. She will take the reins of the school in August and will have a period of transition with Sullivan through December.
The school attained a private grant that will make that transition possible, Sullivan said.
The board is "greatly saddened" by Sullivan's retirement, but takes pleasure in Atkins' acceptance of the offer to lead the school, Charlie Alexander, board president, said in a statement.
"We believe that Dr. Atkins' qualifications, experience and leadership ability will be a true blessing to the school," he said. "We are so excited to see another strong, focused and visionary leader arrive to take Magnolia's helm at this time.
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Magnolia Speech School's new director shares grandson's ordeal
Guide To Personal Success – Video
Posted: at 5:12 am
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Personal finance: It's rarely black and white
Posted: at 5:11 am
Every person out there has different income levels, different debt levels, different retirement accounts at work, different stress levels, different risk tolerances, and so on. All those issues matter.Thats why its personal finance.
Lets look at two people, Bob and Charlotte. Each of them has only one outstanding debt, a $100,000 mortgage with a 3.75% interest rate that has 28 years to go.
The Simple Dollar is a blog for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two. Our busy lives are crazy enough without having to compare five hundred mutual funds we just want simple ways to manage our finances and save a little money.
Bob is single and doesnt enjoy dating, so he plans on remaining single for the rest of his life. He wants to retire early so he can get involved with managing the local food pantry, where he works part time right now. He is fully funding a Roth IRA and contributing 20% a year to his 401(k), but he still has extra money each month because he lives simply. He doesnt really enjoy taking risks and he strongly desires having debt freedom as a personal goal as soon as possible.
Charlotte is married with four children. She and her husband love to go on family trips and plan to keep on traveling as long as they are both healthy.She contributes some to retirement enough to get her employers match but she intends to stick with her wonderful career until she cant do the work any more. Charlotte was thrilled to get a mortgage with such a low rate because it meant she has a bit of extra money free to help her children enjoy extracurricular activities and help her parents out as they struggle with retirement. Charlottes biggest focus in life is bringing up her children well.
Bob and Charlotte are facing the same debt situation, but are living very different lives. If I were giving these two people advice, Id tell Bob to pay down his mortgage quickly and tell Charlotte to make minimum payments for now.
Personal finance is rarely black and white. Every person out there has different income levels, different debt levels, different retirement accounts at work, different stress levels, different risk tolerances, different personal and professional goals, different levels of family support, and so on.
All of those issues matter. Thats why its personal finance.
Right now, in my life, I am closer to Charlottes situation. We have similar goals in that we want to raise our children well, and we both have multiple children and a spouse. However, I dont really enjoy travel all that much and feel more like Bob when it comes to retirement in that Id rather be careful with my money now and retire a bit earlier.
My closest friends are either single or married without kids. They have different income levels, different goals, and different risk tolerances. Some of them are like Bob. Others are like Charlotte. Most of them really arent like either one of them. Every time I talk with my friends about money, Im fascinated to find how everyone is doing something different, but everyone has sensible reasons for doing what theyre doing.
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Personal finance: It's rarely black and white
Investing Success Depends on You
Posted: June 8, 2012 at 3:19 am
By Andrs Cardenal - June 7, 2012 | Tickers: AAPL, BRK-B, BRK-A, FB, GS | 0 Comments
Andrs is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.
The investors chief problem -- and even his worst enemy -- is likely to be himself.
Ben Graham
Its not recessions, unscrupulous bankers or even nontransparent business practices what should concern investors the most. The biggest threat to your financial well being, my friend, is no other than yourself.
Fortunately, not only for their mistakes are investors responsible, the same goes for making the right decisions and choosing the best companies to invest in. Contrary to generalized opinion, I believe there has never been a more interesting time to be an investor. For better or for worse, investors have now much more possibilities and flexibility to implement their strategies.
Information has never been so abundant and easy to access as it is nowadays, education about personal finance and investing is widely available for those interested in the topic and willing to do the learning effort. You can access financial statements, recommendations and all kind of relevant news about companies in almost no time and no cost.
The technological revolution has also created many companies which have a tremendous potential to reward investors in an extraordinary way over the long term. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) for example is the biggest company in the world, and last quarter the company reported a 88% unit sales increase in iPhone and 151% increase in sales of iPads, which produced a 94% growth in net income versus the same quarter of the previous year. If the Cupertino giant wasnt such an innovative company making the best use of technological advancements, those kinds of growth rates would be impossible for companies of this size.
The other side of the equation regarding the effects of new technologies on our investments would be the danger of investing in companies like Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), but nobody was forced to do so. Those who paid a stratospheric price for shares of a social network only because they knew it was popular made a huge mistake, but it was their own mistake. Who knows, maybe the company will find a more sustainable way to generate profits, and with more than 900 million users this could still be an opportunity in the future, especially if bought at much lower levels.
Its not only about technology, of course, considering our current environment is quite shaky and uncertain regarding global economic conditions. Times have been much better in terms of economic growth in the past, and there are many structural problems in developed countries which need to be fixed. This will probably generate higher levels of volatility and uncertainty in the future, but that also brings opportunity.
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Throwing slider with confidence a key to Matusz's success
Posted: at 3:19 am
The Orioles will send their hottest pitcher left-hander Brian Matusz to the mound tonight with the opportunity to sweep the Red Sox at Fenway Park.
Yes, Matusz, who entered the season possessing the longest personal losing streak in baseball, seems to have things figured out of late.
Matusz (5-5), who is going for his fifth win in his past six starts, is 4-1 with a 2.78 ERA and hes coming off his best outing of the season, a season-high 7 1/3-inning start at Tampa Bay in which he allowed just two hits and one run while striking out seven. His outing Saturday was his longest in nearly 22 months, when he threw eight innings against the Rangers on Aug. 19, 2010.
The 25-year-old left-hander is also using his pitches effectively. Despite issuing three walks Saturday, he didnt labor deep into counts, allowing his 97 pitches get him into the eighth inning.
Hes using his slider effectively 22 of his 29 sliders were strikes in his last outing -- especially a backdoor slider that starts outside to right-handed hitters then enters the zone at the last minute.
Rays hitters swung at his slider 19 times and missed 10 times for a 52.6 swing-and-miss percentage (compared to a 29 percentage on the season).
Its been really big for me, especially since my change-up has been a little inconsistent, so to be able to have that, its been nice, Matusz said. Its just throwing them in the right count. I dont know how many of those sliders were down out of the zone, that started as strikes and ended up being down. Its just depending on the situation and the count and where I want to go with it.
Orioles pitching coach Rick Adair said Matusz showed a lot of confidence using his backdoor slider as an out pitch. Adair has also been impressed with Matuszs ability to throw the sliders at different speeds, with his slider that starts over the plate and breaks down and in to right-handed batters coming in with more velocity.
Hes done a tremendous job with that, Adair said.
Getting a feel for his breaking pitches has also allowed Matusz to get more ground ball outs. Over his past five starts, he owns an impressive 1.04 groundball-to-flyball ratio.
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Throwing slider with confidence a key to Matusz's success
Conejo Valley High graduates celebrate success
Posted: at 3:19 am
The Class of 2012 at Conejo Valley High School celebrated graduation Thursday afternoon with 53 out of the 77 graduating seniors inattendance.
The ceremony was held on the playfields at the continuation school's Kelly Road campus in NewburyPark.
Principal Martin Manzer commended his students for making it through atoughyear.
"You have overcome personal obstacles that most can only imagine," Manzer told them. "You have persevered and you should be very proud of yourselves. Your success isoursuccess."
Top scholar Daisy Rojas said in her speech that Conejo Valley High School is a specialplace.
"CVHS helped me become an independent person by forcing me to challenge myself. So starting with failure came only success and so it has been with all of us," shesaid.
Student speaker Sarah Dixon said she believed she would never have graduated without the help and support she received at theschool.
"I am so honored to be walking with this class and I am so proud of each and every one of you," Dixonsaid.
"Success is not how high our GPA was or how high our salaries will be in 10 years. Success is knowing we have the power to do anything," she said. "We set our mind to it and worked hard to accomplish ourgoals."
Paul and Patricia Herron said they were elated to see their daughter Jamie, 17, graduate. She plans to attend MoorparkCollege.
Seethawakapura UC’s success story in garbage disposal
Posted: June 6, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Disna MUDALIGE
We must ourselves carve out solutions for the problems created by us. Instant or ready made solutions may not be available for them. The problems which have become complicated due to long years of negligence and inaction would be impossible to be solved overnight. However, saying that, it is not prudent for all of us to just sit and worry assuming that nothing can be changed. If you wish to bring about a change leading to a long lasting solution, you must at least begin somewhere.
ILO Green Jobs National Project Coordinator Shyama Salgado
This line of thought I believe suits the efforts of 'garbage' or as now referred 'solid waste' management in Sri Lanka. As estimated the daily waste generation in our country amounts to about 6,700 tons. However, as reported only about 2,800 tons of waste is being collected daily. The per capita solid waste generation in Sri Lanka is 0.4kgs.
The solid waste has become a real menace in the Western Province. The daily waste collection from the Western Province is over 1,600 tons. Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in Sri Lanka are responsible for collection and disposal of waste generated by the people within their territories. This provision is made in the Local Government Act.
However, LGAs alone are unable to cope with this menace due to lack of financial, technological and human resources and knowledge. The assistance of the Central Government and NGOs concentrating on this aspect is much needed for this task. The efforts of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Green Jobs Project in Sri Lanka to push forward the country for a positive change in the solid waste sector with the coordination of all relevant stakeholders is praiseworthy in this light.
The ILO launched its Green Jobs in Asia programme in Sri Lanka in the last half of 2010. Sri Lanka chapter is one among five Asian countries where this project operates. The other four countries are Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh and Nepal. In the Sri Lankan project, we have focused the waste sector, while Bangladesh project focuses on solar paneling, Philippines on green constructions and Indonesia on eco-tourism. Globally we look at eight key sectors. They are fisheries, agriculture, forestry, fishing, energy, resource-intensive manufacturing, recycling, building and transport, Green Jobs National Project Coordinator Shyama Salgado explained.
This timely project addresses the issues in the solid waste sector in a more planned and practical manner. The most common method of disposing the solid waste collected is open dumping, which has led to numerous environmental and health issues. Production of compost from the municipal waste is one recommended option for the LGAs to follow. However, to initiate such a project, the waste should be separated into bio-degradables and non-biodegradables. About 55 to 60 percent of the waste collected in Sri Lanka consists of bio-degradable parts.
Waste can be separated during the collection and at the dumping site. For that, the LGAs must be provided with necessary equipment and trained workers. The ILO under the Green Job project extends its support to selected LGAs to convert the waste into a valuable resource through value addition.
It also concentrates on the welfare of lower level workers in the waste sector such as waste collectors and separators of whom the majority are informal workers.
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Seethawakapura UC’s success story in garbage disposal
MY MISSION STATEMENT! – Video
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NCAA men's track: Badgers' Grzesiak has blueprint for decathlon success
Posted: at 11:15 am
Theres some pretty rich history behind the quest Dave Grzesiak will undertake today when the NCAA outdoor track and field championships begin in Des Moines, Iowa.
Grzesiak, a senior from Brookfield, owns the third-best effort in the decathlon in University of Wisconsin mens history with 7,832 points. The two guys ahead of him offer similar tales of inspiration for the next three days.
James Dunkleberger, from Lake Mills, set the record with 7,924 points en route to winning the 10-discipline event at the NCAA outdoor meet in 1997.
Joe Detmer, from Lodi, broke that standard with 7,963 points on the way to finishing second in the decathlon at the NCAA outdoor meet in 2007.
In other words, two guys from the state, in their final meets as UW seniors, put up enduring performances.
Grzesiak knows Detmer but has never met Dunkleberger. If there is a trickledown effect its that Grzesiak isnt focused on history as much as the moment at hand at Drake Stadium.
I guess its a weird feeling, he said of his final collegiate meet. Its not going to hit me until its actually over.
Grzesiak has the eighth-best qualifying score which would put him on the podium and secure him All-America honors for the first time outdoors and is in good shape to earn a berth in the U.S. Olympic Trials June 21 to July 1 in Eugene, Ore.
Ive been doing this for five years and the daily grind of it comes to a halt pretty quickly once Im done, he said. Its not something Im really looking forward to, but I guess this journey has kind of ended for me and Im happy that Ive had it.
Grzesiak is one of 15 qualifiers from UW for the national meet eight women, seven men with a heavy dose of interest in the multi-events.
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NCAA men's track: Badgers' Grzesiak has blueprint for decathlon success
Find The Best Empower Network Team. Hands Down Best Empower Network Team. – Video
Posted: June 5, 2012 at 2:12 pm
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Find The Best Empower Network Team. Hands Down Best Empower Network Team. - Video