Archive for May, 2010

• Saint Malo and the Legends

  Friday, May 28th, 2010

  Saint Malo is a fortified island, and a walled city, and has so many enchanting things about it that anyone wanting a typical European vacation might be surprised at what they find here. There’s really nothing typical about it, but it does have all the appeal of any European city that had to fortify itself, named for a saint who was able to bring the dead back to life. Or so the stories go. It’s hard to imagine a more legendary respite than to hole up in a Saint Malo hotel , and take in some of the sights, enjoy the food and the drink, and to consider all the stories that circulate here.

  There are, of course, real historical events that made it what it is today, and the remnants of other ages are fairly substantial. Enough to suggest that the medieval stories about Saint Malo aren’t simply legends, because this is all still very visible. But the legends about the saint are really rather extraordinary, and can almost rival the stories about pirates and other visitors from other times.

  The best stories are the ones that link Saint Malo with Saint Brendan . Malo was Welsh and Brendan was an Irish monastic, who took Malo in as his favorite disciple and baptized him. Brendan was in a great deal of trouble at one time, having destroyed a holy book that contained stories of fantastic adventures with divine interventions. To repay the debt for the crime, he was charged to go out into the world with a blank book, and to have adventures enough that would be worthy of a new book.

  He did, indeed have adventures, and many of these were of a particularly fantastical nature. On one island, when he and Malo were traveling together, they came across the head of a giant. He revived the head, like you do, and offered to bring the giant back to life and baptize him, like you do. The giant thought he would only commit sin, and didn’t want to die again, and didn’t want to suffer hell as a baptized sinner, so he declined.

  There are many scholars who claim this story is about a different Saint Malo, and there’s no doubt that there are a few elements here that may not be literally true. But in this part of the world, metaphor sometimes exists in spite of truth, or sometimes becomes it.

• Decorating Your Beach House Before Summer Hits

  Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

  When you have a beach house it can be hard to make it as comfortable as your own regular home. There are a few design tips that can help you out.

  The first thing you will want to remember is that you want to keep this space crisp, bright, and airy. You will probably want to lean toward simplicity unless you have a particularly large beach house. This means that your paint colors should be the main thing that decorates your house and you should have only a few small pieces of furniture.

  The best way to make one of these houses feel more open is to paint the house in bright colors . In the case of a beach house, if you are feeling a little adventurous you should paint the house in sunset colors with bright pinks and deep golds. Let a beach side sunset be your inspiration. If there hasn’t been a particularly brilliant sunset, find a picture of a New Mexico sunrise and use those colors as inspiration. Use your blinds to help complete this feeling getting blinds that are just as brilliant as the walls.

  You really have a few options when it comes to window coverings. If you want to you could possibly put up a light cloth as your blinds. This will be less to keep the sun out, and more just for decoration. If you do want to keep the sun out during different times of the day you may want to look into some window shades . These are usually a little heavier, but you can keep the coloring light, bright and airy. Do not use wooden shutters as these will be too heavy for the design choices you are looking for.

  Your furniture should also be airy and light. If you can get something with big pillowy sides and back it is for the best, but make sure you also focus on getting something that is brightly colored. If you want to continue with the beach theme , there are a number of places willing to oblige. The material here will also matter. It is a beach house so you will not want leather, or a material that you are going to worry about it getting wet as it will get damp once in a while. If you can’t find this, then make sure you find a nice couch cover just for this case. A couch cover will also help keep the couch clean in general and will make it easy to wash.

• Singapore Fanns

  Friday, May 14th, 2010

  Singapore is a place where dreams don’t necessarily come true, but they are certainly visible at moments. There are many exciting and exotic things to see on the streets of the city-state, and it’s possible to catch glimpses of something that might turn into a dream. It could be a perfect meal, a fantastic hotel , or perhaps even a celebrity sighting.

  It’s ironic that such a small country could hold so much, but it’s an attractive place for artists and actors to work. There is a tremendous sense of world culture here, where the pop stars are often made from the home-grown talents. And the youth culture of Singapore is never far from having their fingers on the pulse of the world, with a rare ability to recognize world-class talent.

  A lively place, it can be a perfect setting for a getaway, nestled in a bustling urban center that’s also characterized by its tropical weather. This can create a sense of otherworldliness, and it has been known to cause travelers to feel a strong sense of enchantment. There’s nothing secret at work in the local magic, because it’s a very real charm that gets into the heart and souls of travelers from all over.

  It’s certainly evident in the celebrities, and there are some, like Fann Wong , who have that special magic that can make some celebrities into international stars. She’s had a pretty spectacular career so far, too, having started as a model when she was a teenager. Like many who follow that path, she turned soon to film and television. As if that wasn’t enough, she also decided to cross over into music, and has released albums and contributed her songs to films. Currently married to heartthrob Christopher Lee, and with a new film, Happy Go Lucky just released, there’s plenty of reason for her magic having a special power.

• Motivation and Inspiration

  Monday, May 3rd, 2010

  Working with people in any capacity means learning about some of the basic principles of motivation. Most highly successful people already have a fairly well-developed reflex for motivating themselves, and it’s so ingrained that it’s almost unconscious. It’s a very helpful trait, and it’s one that can keep things moving. Goals are always within reach, because there is a sense that things will always go our way, to some degree. In this sense, then, there is already a practice of positive thinking, or what some might call visualization . It has to do with an inner attitude that is nothing less than positive. And this is not only attractive to others, it attracts a number of positive effects in the world at large.

  Learning about how we work in different situations is sometimes considered to be a by-product of doing a good job. However, sometimes this can be the end in itself, where the journey is characterized by learning one lesson after another. Success is still the norm, and it’s what we create because it’s what we expect, but the experience of day-to-day living is deeper. There are plenty of ways to create positive attitudes, and in the business world, these can have incredible reverberations. There are special courses designed to put these principles to good use, in order to create positive change at the workplace.

  This can be the art of motivating people , so that our own unconscious capability to create attractive results can be externalized, and taught to teams and staffs so that there is a winning edge on all levels. It can also be ways of developing communication skills so that it’s easier to relate to employees and customers, with the same successful results. The principles that Dale Carnegie set down are still very useful today. In fact, as organizations streamline, and simplifying seems to be the most common past-time, the ideas are even more applicable than they ever were. Creating positive things begins with accessing a center that is already positive, and learning how to put pieces of a puzzle together, for success in all areas and levels.

• Online Reputation Management and Advertising

  Saturday, May 1st, 2010

  Starting an online reputation management campaign is a big first step for a company and should be done as soon as the company possibly can. If you can, call the money you put into this campaign advertising money, because in a lot of ways that is exactly what it is. It is not your traditional type of advertising however, it is actually much more effective. These days consumers are on the internet, even if your company is not. If you don’t have a website, an app, or at least a Facebook page you are probably missing out on a lot of great opportunities, and those customers are going to your competition.

  If you have no online presence right now, and you need to start an online reputation management campaign, there are very few companies who do this, but Elixir Interactive CEO ‘s been paving the way for the last six years to find the best way to go about working in this new field. The idea behind an online reputation management campaign is that PR is different in the online world than it is outside the online world. Online reputation is based on where your pages and your information ranks in the top search engines, because that is where people are going to go when they want advise on a company. It is also important to have a good face in Facebook and other social networking sites, because this is how people give and get advise these days. If you end up having an upset customer, and they are tech savvy , this is also where they will go to attack you.

  The point of an online reputation management campaign is to show yourself as strong, give the customer your good points, and be honest with them about your weak points, while still holding strong against those people who might want to break you down and ruin your reputation. Part of the point is to get customers to come to you and trust you, from what they see on the internet. This means that an ethical company that is working is this field will not take you on as a client if you don’t have the good points worth selling to the public, and probably won’t consider you until you shape up your own ethical issues.