VentSwap.com - Recent Topics

Do you have a monkey in your trunk?!

Dino — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:34:35 -0400

I think you should consider having a monkey in your trunk! watch and enjoy! :)

Trunk monkey series:

1 - Road Rage

2 - Pediatric Edition

3 - Thrown off a Bridge

4 - Chaperone

5 - Want a Donut?

What the hell do you think you're doing?

Dino — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:15:40 -0400

What the hell do you think you're doing?...........Oh boy! What the hell do you think you are doing....??!!

Peanut Philosophy...

Dino — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:23:47 -0400

The following is an e-mail I got from "Sheri", she is a friend of mine and she ALWAYS sends me all kind of crap but this one sounded interesting so I wanted to share here with you:

Charles Schultz Philosophy
Charles Schultz is the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip, you don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read straight through, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners !
How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners .

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of f ive people you enjoy spending time with

Easier?
The lesson:
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care .

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia" (Charles Schultz)

So what do you think?!

It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?

VS — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 02:35:52 -0400

Remember that phrase from your own childhood? It's still a valid question, but now, it comes with a twist: "Do you know where your kids are — and who they're talking to online?"

Social networking sites are the hippest "meet market" around, especially among tweens, teens, and 20-somethings. These sites encourage and allow people to exchange information about themselves, and use blogs, chat rooms, email, or instant messaging to communicate with the world-at-large. But while they can increase a person's circle of friends, they also can increase exposure to people who have less-than-friendly intentions, including sexual predators.

Help Your Kids Socialize Safely Online

Talk, talk and talk to your tweens and teens about social networking sites, and here are few tips for using these sites safely:

1- In some circumstances, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and Rule require social networking sites to get parental consent before they collect, maintain, or use personal information from children under age 13.
2- Keep the computer in an open area, like the kitchen or family room, so you can keep an eye on where your kids are online and what they're doing.
3- Use the Internet with your kids. Be open to learning about the technology so you can keep up with them.
4- Talk to your kids about their online habits. If they use social networking sites, tell them why it's important to keep information like their name, Social Security number, address, phone number, and family financial information — like bank or credit card account numbers — to themselves. Remind them that they should not share that information about other people in the family or about their friends, either.
Your children should be cautious about sharing other information too, like the name of their school, sports teams, clubs, where they work or hang out, or any other information that could be used to identify them or locate them offline.
5- Make sure your kids' screen names don't say too much about them. Explain why it's inappropriate — even dangerous — to use their full name, age, or hometown. Even if your kids think their screen name makes them anonymous, it doesn't take a genius to combine clues to figure out who your kids are and where they can be found.
6- Use privacy settings to restrict who can access and post on your child's website. You may approve of their friends from school, clubs, teams, community groups, or your family being able to view your kids' website, but not strangers from a neighboring town or school.
7- Your kids should post only information that you — and they — are comfortable with others seeing — and knowing. Many people can see their page, including their teachers, the police, a college admissions officer, or a potential employer.
8- Remind your kids that once they post information online, they can't take it back. Even if they delete the information from a site, older versions exist on other people's computers.
9- Warn your kids about the dangers of flirting with strangers online. Because some people lie online about who they really are, no one ever really knows who they're dealing with.
10-- Tell your children to trust their gut if they have suspicions. If they feel threatened by someone or uncomfortable because of something online, they need to tell you and then report it to the police and the social networking site. You could end up preventing someone else from becoming a victim.
11- If you're concerned that your child is engaging in risky online behavior, you can search the blog sites they visit to see what information they're posting. Try searching by their name, nickname, school, hobbies, grade, or area where you live.
12- Check site privacy policies. Some sites may share information like your child's email address with other companies, which could generate spam and even spyware on the family computer. Sites' privacy policies or other posted links for parents also may contain contact information for you to ask about your child's personal information.

Understanding Postpartum Depression

VS — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:49:45 -0400

Many women have mood swings right after childbirth. They can be happy one minute and sad the next. Even when their baby is asleep, they may have difficulty sleeping, eating and feel a little depressed. If these symptoms begin a few days after delivery and go away after 7-10 days without treatment, they are in all likelihood the “baby blues,” a short-lasting condition that 50-80% of women feel and that usually doesn’t require medical intervention. Clinically diagnosed postpartum depression, however, is another story.

Actress Brooke Shields recently gave a compellingly candid public account of her experience with postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter. When actor Tom Cruise publicly criticized her course of treatment, psychiatrists seized the opportunity to offset the stigma and misconceptions associated with this illness.

Postpartum depression affects 10-15% of women any time from a month to a year after childbirth. Women with postpartum depression may feel restless, anxious, sad or depressed. They may have feelings of guilt, decreased energy and motivation, and a sense of worthlessness. They may also have sleep difficulties and undergo unexplained weight loss or gain. Some mothers may worry about hurting themselves or their baby. In extremely rare cases—less than 1% of new mothers—women may develop something called postpartum psychosis. It usually occurs within the first few weeks after delivery. Symptoms may include refusing to eat, frantic energy, sleep disturbance, paranoia and irrational thoughts. Women with postpartum psychosis usually need to be hospitalized.

Researchers aren’t sure what causes postpartum depression, but think that the dramatic shifts in hormone levels during pregnancy and immediately afterward may result in chemical changes in the brain leading to the condition. Childbirth is also a major life change that can create ongoing stress and contribute to depression. The new mom’s responsibility for the baby, the household and her work duties upon returning after maternity leave may affect her risk of getting postpartum depression.

The good news is that, like diabetes or heart disease, postpartum depression is an illness that can be successfully treated with medicine and therapy. Women treated with antidepressant medicines and talk therapy usually show marked improvement. Depending on the type of medication they’re using, they may be able to continue breast feeding.

Researchers are making progress in understanding how changing hormone levels and other factors affect the brain after childbirth. They hope to develop better medications for treating postpartum depression by targeting the chemical pathways they’re uncovering.

If you suspect that someone you know is suffering from postpartum depression, it’s important to show understanding and support during this stressful time to help the new mom avoid the stigma, shame and isolation often associated with postpartum depression.

Baby Einstein Sucks!

VS — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:28:55 -0400

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos instead might be creating baby Homer Simpsons, according to researchers.

In a study published yesterday in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that, among babies ages 8 months to 16 months, every hour spent daily watching programs such as "Brainy Baby" or "Baby Einstein" translated into six to eight fewer words in their vocabularies as compared with other children their age.

The makers of the videos have sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth to parents aiming to put their babies on the fast track.

Unfortunately, it's all money down the tubes, according to Dr. Dmitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Christakis and his colleagues surveyed 1,000 parents in Washington and Minnesota. They determined the babies' vocabularies using a standard set of 90 common baby words, including mommy, nose, and choo-choo.

The researchers found that 32 percent of the babies watched the videos; of those, 17 percent watched more than an hour a day, according to the study.

The videos, which are designed to engage a baby's attention, hop from scene to scene with minimal dialogue and include mesmerizing images.

Christakis said children whose parents read to them or told them stories instead of showing them videos had bigger vocabularies.

"I would rather babies watch 'American Idol' than these videos," Christakis said, explaining that there was at least a chance that the parents would watch with them -- giving the babies contact and perhaps interaction that would have developmental benefits.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children younger than 24 months.

Make Money Online: A Dream For Many

VS — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:38:53 -0400

Making money online is a dream for many, but the simple fact is that it’s often just as tough as making money offline and There’s recently some movement from the various blog based marketing networks which allow bloggers to get paid to blog about advertiser products and services.

Blogsvertise, Get Paid To Write
Blogsvertise, of all the services, gives the advertiser the least control. To spin it another way, Blogsvertise is very low maintenance, which might be attractive to advertisers who just want links and don't care where they come from. (Blogsvertise requires that each post contain at least 3 links to your site.)

Each time a blogger submits his post for payment, an editor at Blogsvertise reviews it to make sure it has met the criteria and then forwards an email to the advertiser with a link.

The admin is surprisingly basic: you indicate what link you want placed and how many posts you want to buy. The price is preset for you. There's also a space for notes to the bloggers-which the bloggers are instructed not to copy and paste, though that doesn't seem to stop some of them-where you can request specific anchor text. There's nothing else to do except watch the new links proliferate.

If you have a blog and would like to get paid for writing content, why not sign up for Blogsvertise?

Any Idea's?

proudarmywife610 — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:34:27 -0400

Just wondering if anyone has any idea's for family oriented vacation spots........mostly young kids. My sons will be 3 and almost 1 when my husband returns from Iraq. Obviously there's Disneyland and all that, but what else? We've been trying to figure out what we'd like to do, and obviously there are a ton of things we'd like to do being away from each other for a year, but hey share some thoughts guys. I'd like to hear some good vacation stories. THANKS

Anyone know about Military Housing?

proudarmywife610 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:38:42 -0400

Okay, I am having a HUGE problem with housing and maintenance on our Post. My husband is in Iraq, I am taking care of a toddler and a newborn with colic on my own, on top of every day things. My toddler is allergic to ants and has to have an injection if he's bitten. We have a major ant problem in and around our house. I called on July 2 to see if they could help and they said they'd have TERMINEX come to the house but the soonest was July 17.....that was the first thing that made me upset was having to wait, and dodge the ants in his bedroom and our bathroom and everywhere else. Then I called July 3 to see if someone could fix our bathroom cause that's where MOST of the ants were coming from and was told the soonest was the 16th. I have terminex coming on the 17th what good would that do? So the 17th has come and gone and I have YET to see a terminex truck in my driveway. So now I started making phone calls and for two days now, NOTHING. No one is returning my calls, NO one is helping me with this problem, and what's irritating is our housing/maintenance is run by civilians and no offense, but they don't know what military life is like so they don't care enough. They get paid every day to answer the phone and make a couple routine appointments so what do they care that my son could die if he's bitten in the middle of the night and I don't know about it to give him his injection? They don't. So now I've gone to the Garrison Commander which is just about as high as I can go on post here, and they aren't exactly being helpfull either. They keep giving me other numbers to call and people to reach. WHAT DO I DO NOW?