Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Luxury Romantic Vacation Options

By Bobbie McKee

Planning to surprise your special someone with a luxury romantic vacation? There are lots of romantic places in world, just waiting for you to explore. There's Florida, Hawaii, Tahiti, Paris, Caribbean and many other destinations.

Once you've already picked the place to spend your vacation in, you now need to plan the activities or settings for your luxurious holiday. It's good news that these days, nothing can hold you back from attaining your dream getaway. All you have to do is get online, and you can now handpick the most romantic settings this world has to offer.

Luxury Hotels

Of course, nothing will make your vacation deluxe than the comforts and lavishness that a first-class luxury hotel can give. A supremely comfortable place to stay while you are in a vacation will make that moment unforgettable. So after booking a flight, take time to look for a wonderful place that will give you superb accommodation.

If you've decided to spend your vacation in Florida and enjoy watching the sunrise and sunset with your loved one, you also have nothing to worry about where to stay. Among the best luxury hotels in Florida are:

Ginn Hammock Beach Resort in Palm Coast Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando Little Palm Island Resort and Spa in Little Torch Key Mandarin Hotel in Miami Ponte Vedra Inn and Club in Ponte Vedra Beach The Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Aventura

Should you decide to stay in the City of Lights to visit the world's famous architecture, among the best places to stay there are:

La Villa Maillot Victoria Palace Hotel Saint-James and Albany Hotel Claridge Bellman Dolce Chantilly

For couples who have chosen Hawaii as their luxury romantic vacation destination, the great hotels that can give them oh-so-comfortable place to rest are:

The Fairmont Orchid in Honolulu The Kahala Hotel and Resort Royal Hawaiian Halekulani Four Seasons Resort Hualalai Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows

Furthermore, if you're so excited on invading the Caribbean Islands an enjoy its exotic setting, then the hotels and resorts will prove to you that the Caribbean is truly the ultimate vacation paradise. The best hotels are:

Copamarina Beach Resort in Guanica, Puerto Rico Carl Gustaff in Gustavia, St Barts Cuisinart Resort and Spa in Anguilla, The West Indies Grace Bay Club in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands Half Moon in Montego Bay, Jamaica Mount Nevis Hotel and Beach Club in Charlestown, St Kitts and Nevis

Luxury Cruises

What better way to get romantic than going on luxury romantic vacation cruises? Surely, you and your spouse will both be thrilled by the thoughts of travelling to some of the world's premier travel destinations on luxury cruise ships. And if you want to know what to expect on these kind of luxury travel, here are some of them;

Seven Seas Mariner - considered to be the most spacious cruise ship

Seven Seas Voyager - considered as the top cruise ship in the world, you can enjoy an all-balcony and all-suite travel aboard this. Enjoy fantastic dining experiences with Le Cordon Blue on top of the list.

Silver Cloud - expect 6-star luxury when aboard this ship as well as other Silver Sea cruise ships

There are still lots of luxury cruise ships out there where you and your spouse can experience a luxurious romantic getaway to the fullest. Party all night and experience the finest restaurant service as well as first class concierge services aboard any of these cruise ships and you will surely get that romantic feeling all over. - 15790

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Car Valeting - Detailing Shops or Mobile Services

By Bobbie McKee

You can't possibly clean your car thoroughly unless you're an expert in car cleaning. If you take your car to a car valeting and detailing shop, their service crew will use different kinds of tools and cleaners to restore your car's beautiful look. Still, if you prefer to do the task on your own, you can easily purchase the tools and cleaners in chain stores and auto stores.

In the car detailing shop, the process of cleaning the car thoroughly takes a lot of time. It is a lengthy process because all the car's details are given attention. You don't have to worry what cleansers to use because everything will be handled by experienced professionals in auto detailing. But before you take your car to a certain car valeting and detailing shop, you should know where to get the best deals.

Since the gasoline prices have continuously gone up, very small budget is left to car maintenance. Nonetheless, you should still take your car to a good car valeting shop. If you can handle the task of cleaning the interior of your car, then you can simply have the shop do the exterior detailing. Car detailing can cost around $150 to $200, and that will depend on where you reside.

If you want to cut down on your car detailing cost, choose mobile car valeting and detailing because they usually charge $10 to $15. So you see, it's a lot cheaper that what auto shops charge. Here's the best part of the deal - you don't have to take the car to any shop because car detailing can be done in your garage or your yard. You don't have to wait so long in the waiting room because the service will be given to your car in a more personalized manner. You can even save gas because you don't have to travel just to have your car detailed.

Mobile auto detailers are quite popular these days because of the very low service fee they charge. Perhaps you can find several mobile detailers in your area. If you can get referrals from your friends and officemates, the better; don't just compare the service fees but also try to check the quality of their service. That's how you can find the best deals.

There are times when you can't find mobile detailers in your area. You need to settle with the car detailing shops in your locality. Again, you need to ask referrals from your trusted friends so that you can find a shop which offers good quality services. After all, you're going to pay a reasonable amount of money for their services so you should settle with only the best technicians or service crews in your area.

If the shops offer packaged deals, you can also take advantage of that. But you need to check if the shops offer clay bars, polishing, and waxing. These are the 3 techniques to completely clean the exterior of your car. If these techniques are offered in packaged deals, you can choose that package.

Price is usually the secondary consideration when you're talking about car valeting and detailing. Quality service is what you should look out for whether it's a mobile detailer or a detailing shop. The choice is yours because you're the one setting the budget for your car maintenance. - 15790

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Mission Control: Putting Our Purpose Above Our Goals

By Marshall Goldsmith

At the surface level, 'purpose' and 'goal' seem to be very similar. In fact, my thesaurus tells me they're synonyms. It might appear that we can use them interchangeably. But in parsing the definitions of these words, we discover they're as different as night and day.

Goals are the specific objectives we strive to achieve, usually within well-defined parameters of space, time and resources. On the other hand, purpose is abstract. It's the 'why' behind any thought or deed. Purpose is not about achieving an objective it is more of a way of life. Purpose is enduring, whereas goals can be created, adjusted and discarded as needed.

Going beyond mere semantics, you can see the variation between purpose and goals in what you do at work. Goals can be the targets you set regarding the recruitment, retention, development and progression of your organization's workforce.

In contrast, purpose should be what the goals serve. You establish those targets to achieve a greater overarching aim, one that benefits the business and its shareholders.

For instance, you wouldn't bring in 1,000 employees just for the purpose of making your workforce larger, would you? Of course not. (At least I hope not.)

On the other hand, you might set a goal of bringing in these employees to prepare your organization to support its purpose and to ensure the success of an exciting new growth opportunity.

We often get lost and confuse our goals with our purpose, both with our companies and our families. I will never forget teaching a leadership development session in a Fortune 500 company that not only involved executives - it involved the spouses or partners of the executives. As part of the session, executives received feedback from their partners.

Many executives learned that their partners felt ignored or put in 'second place' compared with work. When the executives were asked, 'Why are you working so hard?' they invariably said, 'Because I want my family to have a great life.' Their partners almost always replied, 'We have more money than we will ever spend. We would just like to see you more!'

Many executives had clearly let their goal (make a lot of money) become more important than their purpose (create a great life for themselves and their families).

I bring this up because the distinction between a goal and a purpose sometimes can be lost on talent management professionals - we can get so absorbed in our own limited objectives, thinking that these are our raison d'etre.

A good friend of mine left consulting to become the executive vice president of HR for a huge corporation. He reviewed a study of the company's employee benefits and found some benefits were costing the company millions of dollars and delivering very little that the employees actually valued.

When he suggested cutting the benefits to save the company money, he was told he was 'confused' by his HR staff members. They noted that cutting these benefits would mean a smaller budget for the HR department and less power for them. They had become so interested in 'building their empires,' they had forgotten about making a return on investment for their stockholders.

The idea that the purpose of the organization should come before the goals of any one part of the business seems to be simple enough. Yet why do many of the leaders in talent management (and to be fair, in other areas of business, as well) so often fail to get it?

The answer is rather simple: When a goal is designated, it tends to become a fixation for highly motivated people. Add to that the pressures that come with tight deadlines, struggles for finite resources and organizational turf battles, and it's not hard to see how our own goals can absorb any of us.

The solution to this problem is equally simple, although it isn't necessarily easy. It requires honest, perhaps even painful, introspection and reflection. Conduct a thorough analysis of your goals. Ask yourself, 'What goals are consuming my time and energy?' and 'What goals are consuming the company's resources?' Rank your goals in terms of cost. Then look at the true purpose of your organization. Rank your goals in terms of 'contribution to the purpose.'

If we are honest in our assessments, most of us will find some clear discrepancies between 'cost of goal achievement' and 'contribution to our purpose.'

When this happens, we can step back, take a breath and realign our goals, successfully completing our 'to do' list with our purpose - successfully doing what really matters. - 15790

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Your Personal Guide to Applying for a Loan

By Calvin Wapasa

Anyone thinking about applying for a loan needs to carry out a little research first, getting to know a few of the basics will make all the difference. There are some simple but basic rules to follow and provided this is carried out you will not apply for the wrong loan. When searching for a loan, it always pays to do your research, make sure you obtain a good number of possible companies so you can get the very best loan possible.

Using online sites that compare all the lenders and their products has saved a great deal of time, where it may have taken many hours to find the details you needed previously, it now takes a matter of minutes. Before you rush of and get a number of quotes so you can apply for a loan, you should be aware that each time you do, a credit check is carried out, too many lenders looking at your credit report can affect its rating, so make general enquiries until you are sure the lender is right for you. While a low APR or annual percentage rate will keep the interest on the payments lower, this is not the only condition to look for, while low APR rates are good check to see what the repayment terms will be and if there are any additional charges.

Should anything untoward happen during the period of the loan, it is reassuring to know that payments will be maintained, remember this doesn't have to be done through the lender. Before you decide on a particular loan insurance protection plan, check how much is covered by your employment contract first. When you applying for a loan there is generally no requirement for it to be secured, if have good enough credit to borrow without collateral, then do so.

Secured loans are usually arranged at a lower interest rate but in order to achieve this, something of value that you own, normally your home, will be used as guarantee against defaulting. Before signing any agreements, check and double-check all of the terms and small print, this is where all the potentially dangerous clauses are hidden that have financial penalties. Many lenders will charge a premium if you want to arrange an early settlement on your loan and there will probably be other charges that apply if you miss, or even make a late repayment.

Try and take a loan out over the shortest period you can afford because taking loans out over 10 years or more can be risky, you cannot be sure what your financial situation will be at a later time. This obviously isn't as important if the loan is for improvements you might intend to carry out on your property, a loan for a car for instance or a wedding will not warrant the additional repayments especially as it just means you are paying far more in interest.

When you apply for a loan make sure you know you can afford to make the repayment, the reason for the loan is also important because you could cause problems with your credit score if there are problems paying, later on. - 15790

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Solar energy in households

By Bobbie McKee

The sun is a great source of energy. It would be great to use solar energy in your homes especially nowadays when the prices of oil and gas continue to increase. Because of the high fuel and gas prices, more and more people are experimenting on the use of solar energy in their households in their attempts to minimize the costs of basic utilities.

The sun's energy can be harnessed in different ways depending on how you would utilize the end product. There are so called solar collectors which are placed on the roof tops or used in buildings. The main purpose of these solar collectors is to provide heating and even ventilation for the houses and buildings. These collectors harness the sun's energy by magnifying the sunlight several times and transferring that heat to air or water. That heated air or water is stored and will provide the building or home heating and hot water whenever needed.

The only problem here is that not all places have equal amounts of sunlight. As you go farther from the equator, the strength of the sun is reduced. But still, this is a much better solution than relying on electric grids which do not reach remote areas. It is just a mater of storing the heat generated from the solar collector properly. For example, some buildings in Sweden utilized an underground storage facility where solar energy is stored resulting to savings from heating the building and their water.

In areas where gas and fuel are out of reach of the pockets of poor communities, residents have to rely on solar cooking for their meals. They use this bowl shaped discs equipped with mirrors or reflectors which directs all the sunlight on the middle where a pot is placed. The same technology is being used in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. This serves are a good alternative from conventional fuels like coal, firewood, and gas. They can use these solar stoves during a sunny day and use traditional fuels when the weather is not that good.

This reliance by communities on solar cooking should encourage more studies on how to make photovoltaic cells cheaper for an ordinary household. At this time, the use of solar cells is not economically friendly for a single household. However, the approach here is to install a series of solar panels which would be shared by the whole community. This could be a good idea depending on your usage, but for basic lighting purposes these could work in small poor communities.

In some areas, community cooperatives have found ways to bring electricity to households out of reach of power grids. In the Philippines for example, a local cooperative provided households loans to enable them to install a basic solar power module which can produce enough electricity for three light bulbs. This ay be laughable in our standards but to these people who have been living all their lives with the flickering light of the candles, three electric light bulbs make a great deal of a difference.

The story is the same in other countries. In Israel, the high costs of photovoltaic cells have clamped down the growth of solar energy in the country. It if fortunate, therefore, that the Israeli government is now providing incentives for households that would use solar energy.

However, according to industry analysts, the costs of solar cells production will go down as the demand increase. Also, most are hopeful that recent discoveries and advancement in technologies will find a way to bring down costs of using solar energy.

Ordinary households using solar energy is an ideal scenario that we should all strive to achieve. - 15790

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