Main Street Magazine. Blogspot 2

PLEASE NOTE

2011-03-08T15:05:00.001-08:00

Please note for updated BLOG news and postings regarding MSM (Main Street Magazine) Please visit:

http://mainstreetmag.wordpress.com/

Our website is www.mainstreetmagazine.net

A LITTLE INSPIRATION - About Love

2011-02-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

As seen in the February Issue of Main Street Magazine

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out www.mainstreetmagazine.net

February 2011/A little Inspiration/MSM

'About Love' Short Story
Anton Chekhov's Famous Work

At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.

We began talking about love.

“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”

“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.

“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”

It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.

“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.

“In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!

“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’

“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.

“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna

Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband: “ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’

“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.

“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’

“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.

“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.

“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.

“‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’

“‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’

“‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’ And she laughed.

“‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’

“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

“‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.

“‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.

“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:“‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’

“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.

“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face: “‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’

“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:

“‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this present.’

“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?

“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?

“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.

“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly: “‘I congratulate you “If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterward “‘I knew you would forget it.’

“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”

While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.

Just a Moment

2011-02-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

What's not to love about February in Ontario?

Oh, you mean the snow, cold and ice. Yes there is that LOL, but we also have a long week end, “Family Day” is Monday February 21st and of course there is Valentine's Day.

What 'sweet' comes to mind when you think of Valentine's Day? Chocolate right? Well can't get more 'chocolaty' than our “Featuring” article this month, interview with Zach Townsend of Pure Chocolate Desserts, and speaking of yummy sweets, you DO NOT want to miss Main Street Men this month!

Main Street Music Scene brings us the top earning musicians of 2010, and author Dan Chaon's “Await Your Reply” book review is this months “A Novel Idea” book of the month.

Just in case, you plan on staying in doors until the sun comes out, 'May We Suggest' has a list of movie suggestions, and if you're thinking of getting a little 'frisky' on Valentine's Day, “All about Sex” may be of interest.

We haven't forgotten the boys...no, no, no. In “For the Boys” there are some 'tips' for getting-it-on in a car, and this is only the beginning!

All our regular writers are here to razzle dazzle you, and of course, MSM always has a few surprises and guest writers. So, no matter how you spend your time this month, we are glad you are spending it with us.

Enjoy!

Chris Reynolds
Editor, MSM
editor@mainstreetmagazine.net

© Copyright, 2011 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the February Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

2011-02-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

As seen in the February Issue of MSM
Proudly Canadian, ISSN: 1920-4299

'About Love'

Anton Chekhov

We began talking about love.

“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”

“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.

“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”

It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.

“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.

“In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!

“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:

“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’

“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.

“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:

“ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’

“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.

“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’

“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.

“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.

“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.

“‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’

“‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’

“‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’

“And she laughed.

“‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’

“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

“‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.

“‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.

“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:

“‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’

“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.

“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face:

“‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’

“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:

“‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this present.’

“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?

“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?

“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.

“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:

“‘I congratulate you.’

“If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:

“‘I knew you would forget it.’

“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”

While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.

Games

2011-01-19T06:18:00.000-08:00

Winter Fun & Games

Ice skating, snowman building contests, sledding. Is it any wonder that winter is a great time to be a kid? But you do not have to just be a kid to enjoy fun winter games; you only need to be a kid-at-heart.

I know, I know, you get cold to fast, and your bones creak, the idea of indoors and fire is much more appealing...but why not try it? Go forth with that kid-at-heart attitude and let the fun begin!

POWDER-PUFF FOOTBALL

Getting a group of buddies together could be great fun – after all what could be more fun then, snow, friends and football? All you need are two teams of three or more people to play, along with a spray bottle filled with a mix of water and food coloring to mark the playing field (a large rectangle with a centerline should suffice). The teams line up at opposite ends of the field (the North and South poles) for a kick-off. Once someone on the receiving team catches the ball, he tries to move it back across the defence’s goal line by running with it or passing it to a team-mate. Play stops if the person with the ball is tagged by an opponent or slides out of bounds. The teams then face off again on the spot. After four tries, or a touchdown, the ball goes to the other team. The game ends when either team gets cold.

ICE BOWLING

Okay come on, seriously ice bowling sounds like a ton of fun right? Do not forget the camera! I Ice's most fun forms--that of a gigantic bowling lane. On the night before the party, we fill ten (or more) plastic quart or litre bottles and several gallon jugs with water. We add a bit of food coloring to each, and then put them out to freeze. To play, we set out the quart containers as bowling pins, back up ten feet or so, and use the frozen gallon jugs to knock down the quart jugs.

CAPTURE THE FLAG

Agree on two items to serve as "flags." They should be brightly coloured to be seen easily in the snow. Gather your teams, two or three players each side will work.

Decide ahead of time what happens when captured. Either choose to make players "out" for the rest of the game, converted to the team that caught them, or put in a "jail" to be rescued by their team-mates.

The Game

Retreat by team into your territory to hide the flag. The flag must be hung at head height and be visible from 20 yards away on at least one side. Your mission is to capture the others flags while not getting hit by the enemy’s snow balls (try colouring the snowballs with paint or dye)

As seen in the January Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in

Canada

, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Business Today

2011-01-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business
From e-mail to health care, and from artificial intelligence to the end of HR as we know it, here are forecasts of how different the world of workforce management will be 10 years from now.

Workforce-management decisions aren’t made with crystal balls. What they do demand is a clear sense of the landscape on the far horizon. As a human resources executive, you probably know what health care will cost your company next year.

But you’re far less certain whether or not legions of workers will be full-time telecommuters five years from now, or if defined benefits will even exist in 2013. Fortunately, there are forward-thinkers and trend-spotters out there who make it their business to suss out the future for us.

Our visionaries don’t always agree with each other, as you’ll see. Still, their predictions of what factors will alter the world of workforce management are provocative, and may serve to inform and intrigue all of us who manage people.

1. E-Mail

It has taken less than a decade for electronic mail to emerge as the heart and soul of corporate communication. Yet while e-mail has made it faster and easier for people to swap words and data, it also has unleashed inbox overload and a seemingly endless stream of spam. Future e-mail systems will attempt to remedy today’s problems--but also adds new capabilities.

One possibility is that senders will have to match a predetermined list--either by name, company, or IP (Internet provider) address--or find themselves blocked. In addition, better anti-spam programs will help sift out the junk.

Powerful information-management and collaboration tools are also likely to emerge. They will link associated messages and track message streams more efficiently. Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf predicts that automatic language translation will take hold. Finally, unified messaging will allow workers to check e-mail, voice mail, mobile messaging, and fax machine from a single inbox.

2. Organized Labor

Despite declining membership and overwhelming odds, labor unions aren’t in danger of dying any time soon. They do, however, face the future with these grim facts: Membership dropped from 20.1 percent of the labor force in 1983 to 13.2 percent in 2002. The decline in

U.S.

manufacturing cost union members 1.5 million jobs in the 1990s. The Bush administration has eliminated collective bargaining rights for large numbers of federal employees.

Still, more than 500,000 workers formed new unions last year. Union members make on average $150 a week more than non-union workers. Pharmacists and physicians, faced with alarming shifts in the medical marketplace, will join unions in growing numbers in the coming years.

But to retain their power, unions must reverse the shrinkage, experts say. "Unions have been doing a better job than ever," says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University. "It’s just that the bar is a lot higher."

3. Business Goes to Kindergarten

All signs indicate that corporate involvement in public schools--already redefining kindergarten-through-high-school education--will continue to increase over the next decade. Alarmed by under performing public schools and students poorly equipped for the job market, business is getting directly involved. Corporate sponsors are popping up on campuses from Washington, D.C., to Stockton, California, as a new generation of students prepares for college, and for jobs such as auto mechanics, Internet specialists, and hotel workers. School-to-business field trips start in kindergarten. Internships, meetings with top executives in office settings, and even paychecks are available for older students.

"We’re saying, ‘See, there is a reason to go to school,’" says Knute Momberg, director of Stockton’s Weber Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology. The school has more computers than students, and GM provided the new cars that teens take apart in squeaky-clean service bays.

4. Going Euro

In Europe, snooping at employees’ e-mail isn’t only considered bad form. It’s often flat-out illegal. And as American companies increasingly enjoy their reputations as global trendsetters in business practices, they may have to reverse some key employee policies, says Andy Boling, a partner and employment-law expert in the Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie.

One obvious area is workplace privacy, where

U.S.

companies may be compelled to reduce their monitoring of e-mail and Internet use. "Multinationals are finding that it’s too cumbersome to have one set of privacy policies for Europe, another for Hong Kong and

Australia

, and a third standard for the

United States

," he says. With U.S.-based employees communicating increasingly via e-mail with their European counterparts, Americans also will begin to covet their liberal vacation policies and parental-leave benefits. "These things may not be implemented here to the extent of the privacy regulations," Boling says, "but American workers and organized labor may increasingly look to Europe as the standard."

5. Companies Won't Sleep

In a quest to reach new customers in foreign time zones and to speed up production and services, more and more companies in the future will be open for business around the clock, seven days a week. Already about 24 million Americans work in the 24/7 culture, according to Circadian Technologies, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm. While the 24/7 worker used to be an assembly-line worker, today he or she may well be a college-educated computer-tech-support specialist working nights in San Francisco, providing Japanese-language advice to a customer who calls from Tokyo during his lunch hour.

The migration to a 24/7 workplace will make human resources managers’ jobs far more complex, says David Mitchell, Circadian’s director of publications. "You may have to offer nighttime child-care providers, who watch kids while they sleep," he says. "And you may have to be much more creative in terms of scheduling--for example, if you’re running a call center for a retailer, you may have to have more staff on hand right after the 2:30 a.m. infomercial." Employers also will have a trickier time dealing with disability claims, since some mental health conditions may be exacerbated by a shift to nighttime work.

6. Artificial Intelligence

Making computers think more like people is an idea that persists. In the workplace, software already predicts customer behavior and machine failures on the factory floor. These capabilities will continue to evolve. As the Web and data warehouses grow, artificial intelligence will solve problems that are beyond the reach of the human brain.

AI’s strength is that it can uncover patterns and spot problems amid a mountain of data. That might translate into detecting financial fraud by examining billions of transactions, says Pepperdine University business professor Owen P. Hall Jr. Meanwhile, agents and bots--tiny pieces of software--will use real-time data to make decisions about how to maximize the efficiency of trucking fleets, machinery, and network resources.

"AI will bring advances but also usher in ethical concerns," Hall says.

7. The Simmering Malaise

For several years, employees have had a very tough time. They’ve lived with the fear of downsizing. They’ve watched benefits and retirement savings shrink. And they’ve been forced to work harder and longer, with fewer opportunities for promotions or raises. Even when the economy eventually recovers, experts say, pervasive dissatisfaction and anger aren’t likely to evaporate.

Only 25 percent of workers feel a strong attachment to their employers, and 4 in 10 feel trapped in their jobs, according to Walker Information, an Indianapolis-based research firm. Walker vice president Marc Drizin says employee loyalty was on the decline even before the economy stalled, and that pattern is likely to continue. "I think most organizations still don’t understand why you need to be good to your workers," he says. Employers who ignore workplace discontent run the risk of periodic productivity slumps as skilled staffers depart for higher-paying positions whenever the labor market surges. Smart companies that make employees feel valued will gain a crucial competitive edge.

8. Office Design

In the coming years, most cubicle-dwelling employees probably won’t have a room--or a door--of their own. There is an office movement toward more shared work space coupled with private desk areas, especially in creative industries, says Gervais Tompkin, a lead designer with the San Francisco-based Workplace Practices Group at Gensler Architecture, Design and Planning Worldwide.

What’s more, workforce managers will play a key role in office design, serving as a critical link between the personal and professional needs of workers and the vision of architects, he says. "When we analyze what makes our best designs successful and keeps those clients coming back to us, it is the active involvement of human resources managers early on in the process," Tompkin says.

He isn’t prepared to predict the demise of door less cubicle kingdoms, but says that he is seeing changes. "I personally could never operate with a closed door because people need to interrupt me at will since our work is so collaborative. Lawyers, on the other hand, will always need a way to shut out the world because their work is by nature mostly one-on-one."

9. Defined Benefit Plans

Attracting the best and brightest employees in the future will become nearly impossible without a defined benefit plan. Stewart Lawrence, a senior vice president of The Segal Company in New York, predicts that companies without retirement plans that provide guaranteed benefits will be passed over for employers that do. "Employees now understand the volatility of defined contribution plans and are looking for a balanced program with both the upside potential of a defined contribution plan and the mitigation of downside risk of a defined benefit plan," he says.

Major employers such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Cisco Systems currently don’t offer defined benefit plans because they have been able in recent years to recruit effectively without them. This will no longer be true. As the workforce ages and labor shortages increase, Lawrence says, companies will have to offer retirement plans that provide a floor level of retirement income.

10. Telework Has a Part-Time Future

By the year 2010, more than half of American wage earners will spend more than two days a week working outside the office, reports the Sulzer Infrastructure Services firm in London. Today, 28 million people "telework" under formal company policies--a leap from 4 million in 1990--and millions more work informally out of the office one or more days a week. As inexpensive broadband Internet access and mobile technologies take hold, the number will increase, says Toni Kistner, managing editor of Net.Worker, a division of Network World magazine. "The technology has steamrolled ahead, making it cheaper and easier to work from anywhere."

It will be rare even 10 years from now, however, to find people in any profession who telework five days a week. When teleworking took off in the 1990s, people talked about how the workforce would be dispersed and offices would shut down. That hasn’t happened, Kistner says. As the economy improves, companies may reduce their real estate, encouraging employees to share offices. That will create open work spaces that accommodate a flexible part-time telework environment. But there will always be a central location where people come to work, she says. "Some people need to come to the office to stay connected."

In professional jobs, teleworking is already common. With technological upgrades and guidance, the trend soon will take hold in fields such as nursing and call-center management. New kinds of work that combine technology and service also will be more feasible as technology improves, says Sirkka Heinonen, senior research scientist at VTT Communities, the biggest technological research center of the Finnish government. As the number of senior citizens in the industrial world rises, for example, many will want to live at home as long as they can. "Some kind of telework service providers to monitor these people at home will likely grow up around this need," she predicts. "These won’t be traditional nurses, who are always on-site, but they will be telepresent and will probably visit [patients] physically from time to time."

11. Consumer-Driven Health Care Reigns

Despite exploratory moves toward consumer-driven health care, most American companies aren’t exactly blasting into this new benefit area--not quite yet. Ten years from now, however, the notion of health-care dollars that employees can spend as they see fit will be routine, say benefits experts.

Consumer-driven plans take many forms. All are designed to make employees more aware of, and responsible for, the cost consequences of their health-care choices. Roger Vaughn, president of Aon Consulting

U.S.

, says that employees will benefit from the hard bargains that employers drive with health-care providers, so they won’t have to bear the expense of buying health care on the open market. And thanks to the Internet and a push for greater openness about corporate finances, employees will be able to see exactly what health care will cost them, and they’ll also be able to make comparisons to other plans, Vaughn says.

The other critical pieces for the success of consumer-driven programs are "education, advocacy, and assistance," says Richard A. Travers, CEO of Travers, O’keefe, a New York-based benefits consulting and brokerage firm. Those elements aren’t entirely present yet, but five years from now they will be, and "we’ll be well on our way," he says.

12. Child Care

Child care is and will continue to be a major, often heartrending subject for working parents. As the national workforce ages and the number of women of childbearing age levels off in the next five years, the demand for child care may lessen. But access to quality child care will continue to be a major issue for working moms and their employers.

Susan Seitel, president of Work & Family Connection, Inc., a Minnesota-based consulting firm, says one of the major problems for working parents is what to do when the babysitter is sick or doesn’t show up, or the regular preschool is closed for a holiday or vacation break. She expects that an increasing number of companies will offer backup-care arrangements that employees can use in the event of emergencies. "Employees often are willing to pay a fee for the care, so all the company may have to provide is the space," Seitel says. A related trend may be the rise of contractors that provide innovative activities for company-sponsored day care, such as theater classes for kids, she says.

13. Help Wanted: Ten Million Workers

The convergence of several trends--declining births, retiring baby boomers, and expected business growth--will create more jobs than there will be workers to fill them by 2010, experts predict. The math is relatively simple. The civilian labor force will increase by 17 million, reaching 158 million in 2010, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But by then, the BLS says, the number of jobs will reach 168 million.

Roger Herman, a futurist specializing in workplace issues, says pressure on baby boomers wanting to retire will be so great that they will be pulled back into the labor market. Even so, he says, older workers won’t show up in large enough numbers to fill the millions of jobs available. Herman says the problem will be aggravated by the shortage of skilled, educated workers already occurring in manufacturing, health care, and various technical fields.

14. Outsourcing

Outsourcing is to in-house human resources what Pac-Man is to dots. Double-digit growth is expected in the multibillion-dollar outsourcing market, dramatically gobbling up traditional human resources tasks and significantly altering people management. Companies spent $61.2 billion worldwide in 2002 on human resources management outsourcing, an amount expected to jump 11 percent annually, to $103.3 billion by 2007.

Growing even faster will be in the one-stop shopping market, where companies bundle different human resources management services into one large contract rather than serving it up piecemeal. Industry analyst Marc Pramuk of IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts, says

U.S.

companies packaging end-to-end services did $6 billion of business in 2002. That business will more than double in five years, to $15.4 billion, a 21 percent annual growth rate, he says.

Newer companies like Exult, a late-1990s start-up that is enjoying phenomenal growth, will battle it out for this business with older, established companies like Fidelity Investments, which has gone beyond its mutual fund and 401(k) business into human resources administration. A sample of things to come: Part of a broad deal with IBM called for the transfer of 700 IBM human resources employees into a Fidelity employer-services company.

15. Recruiting Older Workers

With the graying of the workforce, American business is going to have to pay attention to what older workers want and how to recruit them, says Deborah Russell, manager of Economic Security and Work at the American Association of Retired Persons. "Terms such as ‘fast-paced,’ ‘high-energy,’ ‘young,’ and ‘vital’ are often signals to older workers that they need not apply," she says. AARP encourages companies to use terminology that better reflects age diversity such as "experienced workers" and "age-diverse."

A recent AARP-sponsored study, using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 workers age 45 to 74, shows that 69 percent plan to work in some capacity during their retirement years. They work not only for money but also for intangible benefits such as enjoyment and a sense of purpose. Poll participants focused on "soft benefits" such as adequate time off and flexible schedules as well as "hard benefits," including health-care benefits and insurance and good pension benefits as "absolutely essential parts of their ideal jobs."

16. Mergers

Mergers and acquisitions are like courtships and marriages, says Ira Wolfe, a Leola, Pennsylvania, workforce consultant. Like human couples, companies "fall in love, and then later decide they can’t live with the other."

In the coming years, people management will play a far more pivotal role in corporate mergers. Wolfe estimates that company purchases conducted for the purpose of buying another company’s people could represent as many as half of all acquisitions. Now, he estimates, only about 15 to 20 percent of acquisitions are completed because one organization wants another company’s workforce.

One of the principal reasons why mergers and acquisitions have failed in the past is that workforce management isn’t brought into negotiations until the deal is consummated. No one studies the compatibility of the two cultures. Worse yet, the buyer often tries to change its partner, rather than adopting the ways of working that made the acquire attractive in the first place.

17. Freelancers and Consultants

Today, some 30 million Americans are self-employed, and with companies increasingly enamored of outsourcing as a way to control costs and increase flexibility, the use of freelance contractors and consultants is likely to grow. Dan Pink, author of the 2001 book Free Agent Nation, predicts that corporate workplaces will evolve into a continually shifting mix of employees and freelancers, "to the point where it will become difficult to distinguish one from the other."

That may lead to profound changes. Company health plans may begin to disappear, as workers on the move opt for their own portable health coverage, possibly subsidized by an employer. "Companies may not be hiring people for jobs," Pink says. "Instead, they may be saying, ‘We definitely want this person around for 10 years to accomplish these particular tasks, and after that, we’ll see.’" The concepts of retention and career development, he says, may be supplanted by an emphasis on maintaining long-term connections to workers who manage their own rise, moving in and out of corporate positions with increased freedom.

18. Pay for Wellness Performance

Instead of waiting to pay for the treatment of sick employees, some employers will soon turn to the concept of wellness management--with a twist. They’ll give employees a concrete financial incentive to participate, says Tom Lerche, senior vice president of Aon Consulting.

The process, which is handled through an outside organization to preserve privacy and HIPAA compliance, begins by having employees and their covered spouses take a voluntary health-risk appraisal each year. These questionnaires identify factors that lead to such chronic diseases as asthma, heart disease, and diabetes, which can account for 20 to 35 percent of a company’s medical expenses, Lerche says. If the appraisal identifies two or more risk factors that point to a potential health problem, the employee or spouse is a candidate for health coaching with a nurse, health educator, dietitian, or exercise physiologist. The coach sets up a plan for the health risk and keeps track of the employee’s progress via weekly phone calls. The incentive for the employee is a reduction in insurance premium payments--$55 instead of $75 per month, for instance, Lerche says. And if the employee stops participating, the insurance discount can be suspended until he gets back on track.

"Too much of what we do is a short-term approach," he says. "Fifty percent of disease is ultimately preventable," and this approach can head off many major health problems.

"It’s for the employer that has low turnover, wants to invest in employees, and wants to see to it that they’re productive and in good health" in the working years ahead, Lerche says.

19. Spirituality at Work

Americans eat too much. They spend too much money. They are obese and in debt and worried about personal safety and job security--especially since 9/11 and the economic downturn, says Harriet Hankin, president of CGI Consulting in Malvern, Pennsylvania. And those are some of the reasons they’re increasingly looking for spiritual comfort, she says. "The biggest change in the workplace is the interest in spirituality. It’s about doing the right thing. It’s not about religion. It’s about job satisfaction. Jobs in the future will have to be more meaningful. Pay won’t be as important as a good job."

Referring to the rising number of books on spirituality and business and in subjects such as work/life balance, Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, says he’d agree that spirituality in the workplace is a noteworthy trend. Workers are looking for meaning and purpose, he says. "The word ‘spirit’ comes from the word ‘to breathe.’"

20. Women at Work

With steeply mounting numbers of educated women, glass ceilings are going to shatter in the coming years, says John A. Challenger, CEO of international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Between 1979 and 1999, the number of women earning four-year college degrees jumped 44 percent, from 444,000 to 640,000, he says. At the same time, the number of men receiving four-year degrees is declining--from 532,000 in 1993 to about half a million in 1999.

As women earn more college degrees and ascend more corporate ladders, Challenger says, they "will make further inroads into management and exec ranks, and the workforce will have to create an environment where a balance between work and home life is more valued. Temporary and part-time work and job sharing will be more common." There also will be more re-entry opportunities for women who leave the workplace for a few years and then return.

At the same time, more men will be moving into "women’s jobs" like nursing and teaching, Challenger adds. The result won’t be that women are crowded out of the job market. "The major change will be this: The line between men’s and women’s work will blur and fade."

21. Skills Shortage

A job-skills shortage is already reality in the manufacturing industry, and is likely to spread to other industries over the next 10 to 15 years as baby boomers retire. Despite a recession that cost 2 million manufacturing jobs, a recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers warns that "manufacturing could experience a shift from merely having a talent shortage to facing a serious labor crisis."

That’s just manufacturing. Warnings also are forecast about the need for savvy, well-trained workers in job categories such as information technology and the global-energy and electrical-utility industries. Shortages are expected in the global competition for managers, engineers, technicians, skilled craftspeople, and front-line workers, mostly jobs requiring a college degree or technical education. Experts say changes must come on a broad front, from better technology and skills training in secondary schools to aggressive recruitment to a coordinated national workforce policy.

22. Security vs. Privacy

As technology becomes more sophisticated, the ability of those who administer company--and government--computer networks to monitor the comings and goings of workers will grow exponentially. While privacy experts shudder, cameras, keystroke logging, biometric devices, and network monitoring are becoming de rigueur within many organizations.

In the future, the cat-and-mouse war between businesses and crooks will lead to more sophisticated surveillance, the standard use of data encryption, and sophisticated data-mining techniques that spot potential problems and risks by analyzing patterns. "Increasingly, companies are realizing that security is not an option, it’s a basic requirement," says Alan Brill, senior managing director at security consulting firm Kroll Inc., New York.

Not surprisingly, the threat of terrorism is raising the stakes. For example, the

U.S.

government’s Terrorist Information Awareness program proposes to sift through vast quantities of business and government data to detect suspicious activity. "The dangers are greater than ever," Brill says. "It’s clear we’re living in a new era."

23. Accounting for People

Let’s say you took up the hobby of collecting every annual report from public companies over the last 40 years. You’d be shocked at how little you’d learn about what organizations often say are their "most important assets"--their people.

A few--like the Atlanta Braves, EDS, and Deutsche Bank--have gone out of their way to tell people what their workforces are worth or how much value their training will bring in the long run. In the years to come, however, human resources executives will start to see many more statistics on turnover, absenteeism, and revenue per employee in corporate publications.

"What’s the basis for competition in the 21st century?" asks Thomas P. Flannery, the director of Ernst & Young’s human capital practice. "It’s your ability to think through complex problems, serve the customers better, and be more creative." All these qualities come down to the capabilities of human beings, he says. Wall Street analysts will want to see what corporations know about the people who are winning patents for the company and closing big deals. And when companies show what people are worth, it also reminds shareholders how vulnerable those "important assets" are. Machines stay put, but as Flannery says, "People can walk at any time."

24. Universal Health Care

As costs soar and the number of uninsured Americans--both employed and unemployed--rapidly expands, there are about as many predictions about where health care is headed as Carter’s little pills. Employers are paying an increasingly large share of the cost--and so are employees. And almost everyone acknowledges that some dramatic change in health care is likely, perhaps even inevitable, in the next decade.

The country is indeed moving toward some form of universal health care system, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He points out that the

United States

is the only industrialized country where access to health care is dependent on employment. Says Pfeffer, "In other countries, access to health care is a fundamental human right."

25. The End of HR As We Know It

Conventional wisdom says that human resources finally has achieved its sought-after seat at the table. But the ability of human resources to add value at a strategic level "is currently more promise than reality." That’s the sobering finding of Creating a Strategic Human Resources Organization (Stanford Business Books, 2003), a long-term study of human resources by Edward E. Lawler III and Susan Albers Mohrman.

The authors found that today’s people managers still are most comfortable with traditional human resources activities. "If they want to be effective business partners, they need to change their skill set," Lawler and Mohrman say. Almost 30 percent of the companies in the study promote human resources executives who come from the business side, not human resources.

"In essence, some companies may have decided that the HR strategic-partner role is too important to leave to someone with an HR background." The study’s conclusion: Human resources must reinvent itself. "The old approaches and models simply are not good enough."

As seen in Work Force Management. For more articles like this one, visit: www.workforce.com

As seen in the January Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in

Canada

, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Just a Moment

2011-01-04T06:37:00.001-08:00

Did someone say "Happy New Year?"

Wow, when did that happen? We have really entered into another year? 2011 is here?

AWESOME!

I guess the saying 'time flies when you're having fun" is really true- because it seems like in a blink of an eye I was writing "Just a Moment" last year at this time.

2010 was exciting and fun for MSM, we were introduced to some pretty amazing talent! New articles, events and fun were around every corner and each issue kept getting better and better. We know that 2011 will be even better! In only a few short months we will be celebrating our 2nd year anniversary issue! (April 2011) BOOYA!

New this month is our article "All About Sex" which I am sure will be filled with lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and lighthearted sexual tips to bring back the fun in intimate connections.

Old favorites like Clare Jackson's "That's the Spirit", to Rosemary Peter's "Karma-Vore" vegetarian recipes continue to delight, Chef-of-Merit is here, and of course the new and improved: "Main Street Men" which was formally Lily's Garden.

As inconsistency and surprise is our trademark- you will just never know what you will find in the pages of MSM- or who....

Happy New Year everyone, we wish you love, light and happiness.

Grab that flute of champagne, lift it high....cheers to 2011 and all the wonders that await!

Now...go kiss someone!

~T~

Healthy Relationships

2010-12-22T09:56:00.001-08:00

Romantic Christmas Evening

No time for romance? Well! No specific time is required to have romance and an occasion like Christmas would be a perfect day for your romance. Make this occasion a memorable one by spending romantic moments with each other and make this occasion of Christmas a memorable one.

The most awaited occasion is the Christmas Evening and making this evening a romantic one is in your hand. Create a perfect romantic ambiance and wrap yourself with the blanket of love. If you are want some ideas about how to make your Christmas Evening a romantic one then go through the given below ideas:

Romance at home:

Let your home be the perfect place for you to have romance. Prepare delicious food items for Christmas Eve and serve each other. Christmas candle light dinner can also be a good option, as it will light the lamp of love in your hearts and keep it burning through out your lifetime. Share your inner feelings with each other and make this Christmas evening an everlasting romantic date.

Visit a romantic place:

Plan for an outing on the Christmas Evening to a romantic place. Spend time in each other’s arm and spread the warmth of your romance all around. Let your love life blossom like a young flower and get blessed with the blessings of Jesus on Christmas. Decide for the most romantic place and take your sweetheart along with you to make this Christmas evening a mesmerizing affair.

Romantic movie:

If you want to make your Christmas evening a romantic one then take your beloved for a romantic movie and spend hours with each other. Enjoy the romance on big screen and treasure these memories for lifetime. Let this Christmas evening be the occasion for you to spend time with each other and strengthen the bond of love.

Romantic cruise:

Arrange a trip to a romantic cruise with your Darling and give him or her a big surprise. Let Christmas evening be the occasion for you to enjoy these moments on the cruise with your sweetheart in your arms. Make these moments’ everlasting romantic memories that you will cherish in the years ahead.

So just go through the above ideas and make your Christmas evening a perfect romantic occasion. Be blessed with the blessings of Jesus and make your romantic Christmas evening all the more wonderful. _

As seen in the December Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in

Canada

, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Fashion Sense

2010-12-13T04:42:00.000-08:00

My dear readers, so far we have looked at the pair shaped body, and the hourglass. This month we are going to look at the Inverted Triangle body shape (see picture below) and how to make the best of what Mother Nature gave you baby!

"How to Dress and Flatter Your Inverted Triangle Body Shape.
Let's Create More Curves!"

So What Does it Mean to Have an Inverted Triangle Body Shape?
That means your shoulders and bust part are wider than your hips.
Your probably have strong shoulders and narrow hips.
An "Athletic" Body Shape
You're known for having an athletic-looking body shape! Your frame is quite common among catwalk models. And often your type of shape comes with nice, lean legs :)
Celebrities known to have an inverted triangle body shape: Reneé Zellweger, Naomi Campbell, Teri Hatcher, Demi Moore

How to Dress Your Inverted Triangle Body Shape
Your main goal when putting on clothes should be to discreetly add volume and width around your hips. This creates a balanced, hourglass shape.
However your wide shoulders are definitely a great body asset, so don't be afraid to show them off! More on that further down this page.
Let's take a closer look at how you can create a flattering look on your shape!
Add Volume and Width Around Your Hips and Down

I seriously don't like the fluff Naomi Campbell has put on her upper body (it's such a hideous layering), but you might want to take a look at her jeans. Those flared pants will help balance your shape.
Other clothes suited for your body shape: Flare pants, wide leg jeans, A-line skirts.

Tip: Are you a petite size? Then make sure you wear something tailored and fitted on top with flare/wide leg pants. The flare/wide leg + layering combo Naomi Campbell's wearing suit taller women best.

Proud of Your Beautiful Shoulders and Want to Create a Trademark?
Then accentuate them!

However avoid overdoing it as it can make you look stick-figured. Balance the look.
If you look at Teri Hatcher (the woman on your right left), you can see how she pulls it off.
She emphasizes her upper part with white, but at the same time she draws attention to her breasts (maybe her best feature?) and the center of her chest. Her dress also has a subtle flare at the hemline. She also adds self-confidence in the mix :)
All in all, you can wear something that enhances your shapely shoulders as long as you keep your frame proportionate!

Best Clothes for Your Inverted Triangle Body Shape
Most types of pants and jeans
Your narrow hips and legs are primed for all kinds of pants! Examples are gauchos, harem pants, cargo pockets etc.
However if you're wearing skinnys or anything that is slim-fitted, make sure you wear something that minimizes your upper part a little bit (like a solid, dark colored sweater) on top and a pair of bright colored (or anything eye-catching) shoes to balance the look.

Full skirts
Like for example A-lines, circle, balloon, etc. Or anything that flares around the hemline.

Long tops, shirts and sweaters that cinch at your waistline or flare out from your waist or bust
Examples are tunics and belted cardigans. It creates curves around your waist and down.

Tip: Petite or/and full-figured? -- Then take extra precautions when wearing long tops/sweaters/jackets as they can make you look shorter and add width around your hips. However, you can try wearing a regular length top (falls right above your hips) with a belt around the waist.

Belted coats
Choose coats with minimal designs at top and that flair out from the waist.

Bright-colored or eye-catching shoes
These are sure to grab attention to your lean legs.

Low U and V-necks
These will vertically slim down your chest and make it look leaner.

Dresses that are fuller at hemline/cinch your waist/flares out from your waist
They'll add more volume on the bottom, balancing your body shape.

Large straps
Have in mind that if you attempt to wear thin straps then you'll automatically broaden your shoulders by making your shoulders look bigger in comparison. So if you want to achieve a proportionate body shape choose larger straps.

Did you find my fashion tips on how to dress your inverted triangle body shape useful? If not, do this:
Imagine an hourglass shape. Now in your head try to merge your inverted triangle figure with that shape. See the lack of width and flesh around your lower half compared to your shoulders? That's your main focus -- adding more volume and attention to your hips and thighs to stay in proportion with your lower body part, or of course, minimizing your shoulder to keep them in line with your hips.
Rectangle Body Shape

As seen in the December Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in

Canada

, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Just a Moment......

2010-12-02T06:21:00.000-08:00

The word Christmas, or Yule, or Holidays mean many things to many people. Some celebrate because of their religious belief; some do not celebrate because of their faith. Others have become tainted with what they view as 'commercialism' and 'gift-giving' saying that the holiday has lost its meaning.

For me, I do not really understand how a holiday as special as Christmas can loose it's meaning, for the meaning behind it should be what YOU make it to be. Not about what others say, do, or create, the wonderful thing about holiday traditions is that they belong 100% to you and your family.
I LOVE Christmas, the songs, the decorations, the fake Santa in the mall, the sappy Christmas shows, rum and eggnog and yes even the fruit cake! I love the smells of dinner cooking, the sounds of my loved ones laughing, and the magic of the world being a little nicer, a little happier and the faith, glow and wonder of a child who gazes at the Christmas lights and tastes a candy cane for the first time!

Each of us at Main Street Magazine are excited to share this issue of MSM with you, the reader, and to wish you

A Very Merry Christmas
A Happy Hanukah
Happy Holidays
A Safe and Wonderful Yule
Seasons Greetings
I wish you:
Any and all phrases, in any and all believes and cultures that will express my love, peace and happiness to you during this holiday season.

To you- from me- with love
Blessed be,

Tilly Rivers

CEO, Rain Enterprises/ Main Street Magazine

As seen in the December Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

Quote It

2010-11-23T06:18:00.000-08:00

Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they do when they stick together.

- Verna M. Kelly

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

- Anne Bradstreet

The problem with winter sports is that – follow me closely here – they generally take place in winter.

- Dave Barry

To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring.

- W.J. Vogel

Brew me a cup for a winter’s night.

For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;

Spice it with love and stir it with care,

And I’ll toast our bright eyes,

my sweetheart fair.

- Minna Thomas Antrim

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.

- Anonymous

As seen in the November Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

nazareth love hurts (1976)

2010-11-19T07:11:00.000-08:00

Going Green

2010-11-16T05:46:00.000-08:00

Easy Ways to Go Green this Winter
Article by Jennifer Claerr

Those cold winter months can really drive up your energy bill. Find out how to go green and save energy this winter without sacrificing your comfort.

Keep Warm and Save Energy This Winter
For many people, the cold winter months create a huge energy drain within the home. Fortunately, there are plenty of easy ways to save energy and go green while still staying warm. Many of these energy-saving methods are cheap, and some are even free. All of them will save you money and help you to reduce your carbon footprint. You'll be toasty warm all winter, and you'll have a good feeling inside because you helped to protect Mother Earth. Here are a few quick and easy green winter ideas that will give you the most bang for your buck.

Go Green and Save Energy on Heating Your Home
One of the easiest ways to go green and save energy on heating your home is install digital programmable thermostat. Program the thermostat for about 65 degrees during the day. Lower the temperature to about 60 degrees if you plan to be away from home for a while. If you feel cold, wear layered clothing such as a t-shirt and sweater. If you're low on warm clothing, shop for eco-friendly winter fashions online or in stores. Buy organic and recycled winter wear, or check out some vintage winter clothing at a thrift shop. You can also save a lot of energy by switching your ceiling fans so that the blades run clockwise. This helps the warm air to circulate more efficiently around your home. Also, be sure to clean or replace your furnace filter according to the manufacturer's recommendations. You can also install clear plastic clear plastic window insulation on the insides of your windows to reduce drafts. Don't forget to caulk cracks around your home, as well.

Easy, Green Ways to Light Your Home for the Winter

The best way to save energy on lighting is to replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Also, instead of leaving lights on when you're away from home, put a timer or a motion sensor on your indoor and outdoor lights so they'll come on when you arrive. You can also install solar LED lights with a timer; these will come on automatically when the sun goes down in the evening. In addition, the easiest, greenest way to light your home is to open the blinds or curtains on the west and south sides of your home. This technique will also help to warm your house naturally by letting in the winter sunshine. Also, be sure to turn off lights when they're not being used.

Do Your Laundry and Dishes the Green Way

You can save a lot of energy by lowering your water heater's temperature to 120 degrees. You can also save energy by installing a jacket or blanket on your water heater. Water heater insulation products are available for both gas and electric water heaters. You can also insulate your pipes to save energy on heating water. Wash laundry in warm or cold water. Whenever possible, dry clothing on a rack inside the house or dry them on a clothesline outside, if it's sunny and dry. Turn off the heated dry setting on your dishwasher; the ambient heat from the washing cycle will dry them sufficiently. Also, only run the clothes washer and dishwasher when full.

© Copyright, 2010 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises

As seen in the November Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

Budget Travel

2010-11-09T05:29:00.000-08:00

Fall Travel Deals

Deals on Airfares, Cruises, Transport and Hotel rates

By Mark Kahler

     Prices quoted in this article are subject to change without notice, as they are controlled by the airlines. Change however does not necessarily mean UP, it could be down depending on the seats available, so please check each airline you are interested in.

     Fall is a great time to get away. In most places, it is not "peak season," and there are plenty of deals to be found. Here are some tips for finding better airfares, cruise deals and better rates for all inclusive resorts, transport and things to do, as well as cheap hotel rates. Do a little seasonal planning and find some great budget travel deal

     This is by no means an exhaustive list of deals for fall, but you should see enough here to whet your appetite for more!

     Europe is a favourite fall destination, and you'll find the attractions far less crowded even if the weather is rather cool and rainy at times. LastMinute.com getaway-style bargains to nine European cities.

     Go-today.com offers airfare/hotel combinations: for Ireland; Paris; London; and Rome. Unfortunately, these rates are significantly higher than at this time last year. Book these trips as early as possible, because the pre-autumn offers usually don't remain through the season.

     Air Berlin offers low fares from August-October. One recent search revealed a New York-Dusseldorf one-way fare for $300 USD. Fares tend to decrease from August to October. It's worth checking here because connections from Air Berlin airports to other European cities can be excellent.

     A good baseline shopping tool is British Airway's Cheapest Fare List. Here you can see the lowest priced tickets between London and multiple North American cities this fall.

     Once you find a good trans-Atlantic fare, Lufthansa offers deals for flying within Europe. Fares can change at any time but start at $125 USD round trip. Seats are limited and therefore these fares are subject to availability.

     Delta's International Business Class sale is valid for departures from hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati or New York JFK. Requires a 30- or 50-day advance purchase. The best one-way fares go to the 50-day buyers: New York-Madrid $1,279; Atlanta-Brussels $1,669; a 30-day advance price for New York-London Heathrow is $1,559. (Price subject to change)The fares require a minimum seven-day stay and do not include some additional fees.

     Alaska Airlines offers airfare Web deals for travel in September and October. Recently offered one-way fares include Los Angeles-Seattle from $89; Portland (Ore.) to Phoenix from $99. All fares require immediate purchase. Read terms carefully.

     Southwest Airlines has a "Northeast to Florida" sale good for travel between Sept. 7-Nov. 15. One-way tickets must be purchased at least 14 days in advance and are good only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. One-way fares include Baltimore-Ft. Lauderdale from $89; Boston-Panama City from $89; and Chicago-Ft. Lauderdale from $99. Fares can only be booked online and must be purchased early.

     Honolulu Vacation Packages and Deals from Travelocity include some flight and hotel offerings. These deals vary in length and hotel destination, so study the terms carefully before making a final selection.

     Don't forget to check out Deals of the Week for late-breaking air travel bargains throughout the season.

Please note:
     All the sale fares you encounter are base prices for the trip. You'll also need to add on taxes and fees. The fine print for each deal is required reading. Skipping this step leaves you open to potentially costly problems. Since many of these fares are non-refundable, you must understand the terms completely before you book.

Just A Moment

2010-11-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

So I guess I am a little strange when it comes to winter. I love the beauty of snow…….from inside the house or through the lens of my camera. The first time it snows I have to fight the impulse to get out the Christmas decorations, and I start humming Carols.

I love the cosiness of a warm house and a cup of hot-chocolate and something great to read either by the fireplace or with some of my favourite scented candles merrily glowing.

This months issue is going to be great for those quite moments; there are so many choices;

Your Home, Your Garden has some great ideas for DIY touch ups for your home before the holidays

Budget Travel with great deals if the snow is just not something you want to see out your window.

Going Green is a must read to save the environment and some of your hard earned money this cold weather season.

Fun & Easy Crafts is a great one for Christmas Gift Ideas……never to soon to start knocking that list down.

Lily’s Garden will defiantly warm you up this month; you might want to forgo the hot-chocolate while you read this one.

Moving Forward is a must read if your household is anything like mine….full of Chaos!

I sincerely hope you enjoy all of these great articles plus many more of your favourites.
And don’t forget a marshmallow or two in your cup.

Chris

© Copyright, 2010 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the November Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises
To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

Main Street Music Scene

2010-10-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

ELLI BENNETT

by D’Anise Marie

“Strength always inspires me..even at our lowest moments we always seem to keep fighting for it!” ~2010

This Thanksgiving article is dedicated to my new dear friend and ‘inspiration’, Ms. Elli Bennett.

Waiting my turn in the shopping line-ups, I know too well just how many men and women (including myself) reach for the magazine with the hottest looking or most intriguing cover models to add to their basket (or read without buying before they reach the check out).

Who are these cover-girls really and what is their story? Do we ever ‘really’ get to know? Elli Bennett has lived that life, been featured on the pages of Inside Sport, in Ralph and FHM; she was also the face in Panasonics digital camera print campaigns. As an actress she has worked in TVCs, music videos and television (including Breakers, seen in more than 30 countries), appeared on Jay Leno and many more.

Smiling at the world becomes almost ‘routine’ for most models and actresses.

Elli’s pressures ran much deeper than just having to keep the perfect form, walk with back straight and have teeth as white as snow in the spotlight. Behind the cameras, behind the pages of the magazines, there was a real human being with real feelings and real life situations to face.

Elli has shared with us, some of her darkest moments. ( See the interview below).

The loss of her fiancé in 2007, brought with it a grief so deep, she had even contemplated her own existence. It’s natural for the mind and body to want to just ‘stop’ when something so tragic numbs us. Elli fought to stay strong and with the instrumental music that her fiancé left behind, she started to write...still joined by the soul during the writing process, she completed each song and healed a little more with every written word.

Releasing her pain into passion couldn’t have been easy. Looking ahead, finding strength to keep going, all of these things led in one direction....forward.

At the time of her musical transition, Elli may have been unaware just how powerful she really was. Each step and decision Elli made, to keep moving on, would become the footprints to someone else’s ‘healing inspiration’. Every time she wrote another word, someone who would hear that would find hope and if even just a little, would be encouraged to ‘keep going’.

Reaching out with her soul, to the world, Elli’s music is now ~free~. Her title track “On My Way”, was written and recorded in a time of Elli’s life that she was feeling much stronger. It wasn’t until Aug. 29th of this year, Elli had to go back in time, back to the pain, to record one of her most engaging hits, “Tragic Fairytale”. Being able to move forward in life from tragedy requires so much strength, but being able to ‘go back’ and relive that pain, is what inspires me most about Elli.

How it must have felt to stand in front of that microphone, with the studio engineers and

recording managers....watching and waiting....to finally hear the ‘real’ story revealed through the music. I am so encouraged by Ms. Elli Bennett, she is now so much more than a model or actress to me, or even just a singer, she is a true inspiration and her magazine covers and TV appearances were merely just our introduction to this beautiful woman, like “here I am world” in the faces of millions. Now we know her on a much more personal level and we couldn’t love her more!

Intelligent, strong, beautiful within, these are the true words that describe Elli Bennett.

Working solidly with MMG Model, Talent and Celebrity Management, (NYC, Toronto and Vancouver), Elli is now in great hands and catching global attention with her powerful new music.

She is recording, arranging, conducting all her own background vocals and even producing.

Elli Bennett is a household name across the globe, some may always see her as the cover-girl on the magazines, some may always remember her as the beautiful guest on Jay Leno, but most after reading the true story of Elli, will now know her as The Artist and the real human being, who didn’t let life’s worse situations shatter her soul and keep her from reaching her ultimate goals.

Elli has risen up above her tragedy and has inspired so many people like myself,

to keep fighting and stay strong no matter how much pain we feel at times.

Every time we grieve, fall apart, or reach despair, we truthfully rebuild upon who we were ‘before’ and that is why we really do ‘only get stronger’ from each of these trials.

Elli Bennett has given us all, so much more to believe in with her story and her music is now the driving force behind a whole new era of musical legends!

Join me as we talk with Elli...

MSMS: The journey through life can be challenging at times, what ways do you find to balance everything and still be able to face the world with a smile?

EB: The journey of life can definitely be challenging at times and I find that surrounding myself with true friends really helps me stay balanced. I see life as a beautiful gift and by being grateful for all my blessings I am able to smile every day. None of us can control life but we have the power to choose how we deal with the circumstances we are presented with.

MSMS: The world sometimes seems to think that just because a person is

beautiful and living in the spotlight, they must have a perfect life. How do

you want the world to see you?

EB: Unfortunately, most people do have the preconceived notion that just because one is beautiful and living in the spotlight that their life must be perfect. That is definitely far from the truth and after suffering my own tragedy of losing my fiancé suddenly and unexpectedly 3 days after we got engaged, I know this for sure. I want the world to know that I am human, just like everyone else, and that I have had to work very hard to find my strength and courage and pick up the pieces and move forward with my life.

I contemplated suicide and took 6 months out of my career to heal and be strong enough to face the world again. My fiancée had written and recorded the music for my album "rEvolution" just before he passed away and during my time of grief and trauma

I wrote the lyrics. It was very cathartic and in turn saved my life. I feel very blessed to have had that gift to channel my deep emotions into my music during my soul's darkest hours.

MSMS: Music and modeling are some of your passions, what are some other

passions you have that are not listed in your bio?

EB: I am also very passionate about acting and dancing but outside of the arts I am very passionate about animals! I just adore them and have a real affinity with them. I really hope one day to be able to work with them and be a voice for them and their rights.

MSMS: Singing songs that reflect on a painful time in our lives can really help get us through to stronger healing. When recording your new songs, did you feel a weight lifted? If so, how did this change you?

EB: "Tragic Fairytale" was written 5 weeks after my fiancé passed away on the way to my twin brother's wedding. Then "On My Way" was written 4 months later after I had decided that my life was worth living and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I found that I was writing my album in chapters, like a book, and I was healing each time one was finished. I realized the power of music in that it was transforming my heart and releasing my pain.

Now as I am recording and releasing them I have found that the same thing is happening again. "Tragic Fairytale" was released on the 29th of August, 2010 (the 3 year anniversary of losing my fiancé) and it marked the end of my 3 year healing cycle. I now see life through new eyes and don't take anything for granted, I live in the moment and go with the flow and find joy in the simplest of things.

MSMS: Are there any movie projects in the works for Elli Bennett?

EB: As far as movie projects go I feel that because I have written my story from my heart and soul my music would be a great soundtrack for a Hollywood movie. My songs are from my own personal experience but the subject matter is universal and I am finding they resonate with people from all walks of life.

MSMS: Music is always evolving! In what direction do you feel your music is

going?

EB: I feel my music is actually taking people back to the 60s and 70s when there was a message behind the songs. I am very inspired by the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Neil Young and feel my music is similar in that they have meaning. There are so many pop stars these days singing other people's songs and it's all about their image and lifestyle. We have become a very superficial society and I feel people are craving songs that touch them and they can relate to. Growing up I loved buying a new album and learning the lyrics to all the songs and the story behind them, it was magical to me!

MSMS: If there is one thing you could do for the rest of your life that would truly make you happy, what would it be?

EB: The one thing that would make me truly happy for the rest of my life would be to know that I am making a difference in this world. I plan to set up my own foundation in the near future to help women around the world that are suffering from the sudden death of their spouse. I found that during my time of grief there were no support groups for women of my age and I was inspired then to one day set up my own to help alleviate their pain. Healing other people's hearts is definitely my dream.

MSMS: What advice would you like to give to models who want to make that transition into their music career?

EB: The advice I would give models wanting to make the transition to music would be to finish modeling and concentrate purely on their art. I was in development for 5 years, living and breathing music and honing my craft. It takes passion, dedication and sacrifice to write a great album. I would also advise that they pursue music because they truly love it not because they want to be famous. Being true to yourself and following your heart is where fulfillment comes from.

MSMS: Where do you see the music industry heading?

EB: The music industry has made a huge shift in the last 10 years with the digital age. The days of traditional record deals and record companies developing artists are definitely over but people will always want to listen to music. I think the by having the internet it has made music much more accessible and people are sharing the favourite songs with their friends.

MSMS: Every great Artist leaves an imprint on the walls of music history, what would you like yours to be?

EB: The imprint I would like to leave on the walls of music history is one of inspiration.

Creating my music has been very healing for me and I hope that it has the same effect on others. I want people to know the story behind my songs and help them during their life by knowing that I have lived through my own tragedy and now living a happy life anyway. I hope my music makes people feel all emotions and that they realize I am human, just like them.

To hear Elli Bennett’s Music, please visit: www.ellibennett.com

As seen in the October Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/

The KC Metaphysical Fair

2010-10-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

The KC Metaphysical Fair is a bright new star on the psychic fair scene. The debut of Kansas City’s newest gathering of metaphysical practitioners and vendors was this past July. We are getting ready for our second Fair, to be held November 20^th & 21^st, 2020.

We are excited to offer Tarot readers, aura photographers, intuitive artists, wonderful herbs & body products, a henna artist, gems, crystals, and much more.

Come and meet Jeanette Roth from Tarotgarden.com, one of the largest online sources for Tarot and Oracle decks. She is exclusive to our fair here in the Kansas City area.

Other exclusive vendors include locally owned Wicca Wares and Urban Crone; two new and exciting Pagan accessory suppliers Wicca Wares has an eclectic array of items, from small hand-crafted furniture, to tarot bags. Cindy also has a selection of tea leaf reading cups, antlers, artwork, and she personally makes voodoo messenger dolls that she sells. At this Fair she will be offering bone readings on a limited basis. Urban Crone, offers spell kits, gem elixirs, spirit boards, and more. Laurie is also a gifted tarot card reader and will be providing that service as well.

Your admission to the fair not only includes the many amazing vendors featured but free workshops throughout the weekend. One of the spiritually stimulating workshops includes a workshop on Crystal Skulls by Rainbow Woman, one of Kansas City’s best known intuitive psychic/artist.

Find our fan page on Facebook for up to the minute news and interviews with some of Kansas City’s most exciting metaphysical ground breakers, as well as information as to how to save $1 at the door off a day’s admission. You can also download a coupon form our website at www.kcmetaphysical.com

Mark your calendars and don’t miss of the hottest new psychic fair in Kansas City!

2010-10-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

Tips & Decorating Advice for Your Home and Garden
Fall Garden FAQ:
About the Author: David Beaulieu's career as a landscape and garden writer builds on a decade of prior work with landscaping plants in the nursery business, and on a lifelong love of plants of all kinds.
Question: What is the most easily overlooked chore in fall gardens?

Answer: Many landscapers are so busy winterizing their lawns, gardens, shrubs and trees that they quite forget about a piece of equipment that has served them well on all those areas of the landscape during the spring, summer and fall -- the garden hose. Our garden hoses lie around on their garden hose reels for so many months consecutively that they become a landscaping fixture that we take for granted. But northern gardeners pay a great price for this oversight when winter arrives, bringing temps in the teens. Bring garden hoses in for storage prior to winter! Also bring their reels in for storage, especially if the reels have any metal components. And more important than a garden hose being ruptured through freezing is what the garden hose is connected to -- your water pipes. Ruptured pipes are costly and inconvenient to replace. So remember:
• Drain your garden hoses, and bring them in for storage and...
• Turn off the outside water supply.
•
Question: How long into the fall season should I continue to mow the lawn?

Answer: This one's a lot easier to answer than you might imagine. Simply continue to mow the lawn until the grass stops growing! Weather will determine this, not some artificial deadline.

Question: Why should I be watering trees in fall?

Answer: You should be watering trees properly in fall, for the same reasons given for watering shrubs. The winter damage that trees sustain often stems from their inability to draw water from the frozen earth. Watering trees properly in fall can minimize the damage. The following is the proper regimen for watering trees in fall:
• Stop watering trees, both evergreen and deciduous, throughout early autumn, until the time when the leaves of the deciduous trees fall. This will allow both evergreen and deciduous trees to enter a transitional phase, not unlike the "hardening off" undergone by nursery plants in spring. What you're trying to avoid here is causing spurts of new growth that won't be winter-hardy.
• In late autumn, after the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, give both evergreen and deciduous trees (and shrubs) a deep watering. This should be done before the ground freezes. Following this regimen for watering trees is especially important for the evergreen trees, which, although their growth slows down, do not enjoy the period of dormancy that helps protect deciduous trees.
It even helps to water evergreen trees during "January thaw" and other warm periods that pop up unexpectedly in winter.

Question: What maintenance should I perform on the lawn mower before storing it away?

Answer: Drain out the lawn mower's gas in late fall. You'll be glad that you did, next spring, when you go
to start up the lawn mower again. Letting the old gas sit around in the lawn mower all winter and get gummy is not conducive to having easy lawn mower maintenance next spring, when you begin mowing again –the lawn mower won't start up easily.

Note: Thanks to Jim Hagon of CTE Engineers for his input in this answer. It must be emphasized that it is the gas that you should drain out of your lawn mower, not the oil! Oil is serving a function in lawn mower maintenance even when the lawn mower is in storage. Gas, by contrast, serves no such function.

Gardening Tip of the Month
Don't cut back perennial plants all the way to ground level. Leave 2-3 inches of stem remaining. They will trap leaves and snow that will mulch the plant crowns and they will help you remember where the plants are, in the spring.

© Copyright, 2010 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the October Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
www.mainstreetmagazine.net

LOL

2010-09-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

LOL

MSM's funny for September---as seen in the September issue of Main Street Magazine

A New York boy was being led through the swamps of Louisiana by his cousin. "Is it true that an alligator won't attack you if you carry a flashlight ?"
The cousin smirked and replied, "Depends on how fast you carry the flashlight."

A NOVEL IDEA

2010-09-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

AS SEEN IN MAIN STREET MAGAZINE
COPYRIGHT 2010, MAIN STREET MAGAZINE ISSN: 1940-4299- PAGE 5

Serpent Singer and Other Stories

AUTHOR: M. H. Bonham
PUBLISHER: Yard Dog Press
ISBN: 1893687643
APPROX COST: $8.00
URL: www.yarddogpress.com

Sea Serpents, demons, and trolls, oh my...
Serpent Singer & Other Stories" is a collection of short stories following Shadowhelm as he embarks on a quest through the high seas. Even before Shadowhelm became embroiled in the fight of his life against the demon emperor Allarun in Prophecy of Swords, Shadowhelm was fighting on the side of good....
This is a classic epic fantasy that fans will simply relish and love, how could you not with adventures of his battles? Slaver of sea serpents, trolls, shape-shifters, pirates and a very nasty demon...
“Serpent Singer & Other Stories" delivers a satisfying yarn for readers to devour in these three short stories sure to entertain and delight all who love epic fantasy and sword and sorcery.
A choice pick.

Have a suggestion for a featured book? Contact “A Novel Idea” books@mainstreetmagazine.net

GO Green: Summer Tips

2010-08-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Top Green Summer Tips

Steppin’ light
Find local activities with low environmental impacts like a trip to the local park, woods, zoo, ballgame, or beach with friends to relax. Time spent with friends and family can be a great way to catch up and have fun. Picking up that new book you’ve been meaning to read while lounging on the deck is another great way to pass the time and leave a smaller footprint behind. The Deathly Hallows ought to keep you busy for a little while. Once you’ve gotten out of the city, check out below: How to Green Your Outdoor Sports.

Cool and Easy
Air conditioning can offer much-needed respite from the heat and can make sweaty nights bearable, but be sensitive to overuse. Turning up the thermostat a few degrees on your AC is a great way to save tons of cash while making the planet a cooler place at the same time.

Up in your grill
Love to BBQ? Propane burns much cleaner than either wood or charcoal briquettes. If you can’t resist charcoal, try a natural product like those produced by Cowboy Charcoal—(http://www.cowboycharcoal.com/) much cleaner than your traditional briquettes. Of course, when you’re done grilling, use natural cleaning products such as SoyClean (http://www.soyclean.biz/) organic grill cleaner to keep your summer as chemical-free as possible. Tests show it’s just as tough on grime as traditional cleaners, but won’t leave that chemical residue behind to leach into your next burger or grilled tomato. Plus, if you want to give your neighbours something to gossip about, try a solar over from a company like Solar Cookers International—grill.

The local roundup
Buy food locally. Farmers markets are great places to shop, and ensure that the veggies you’re eating hot off the grill or mixed in a salad haven’t traveled thousands of miles just to reach your plate. That cuts down on the use of fossil fuels, which leads to significantly reduced levels of pollution and resource depletion over your typical tomato bought at the local supermarket. Websites like Local Harvest (http://www.localharvest.org/)can help you find one in your area, even if you’ve never seen one in your life.

The green plate special
Use reusable dishes rather than plastics or Styrofoam. If you absolutely must use disposables, make sure to pick up compostable varieties beforehand to put in the compost bin when you’re through. For more, check out Where to Get This Stuff below.
Greenie bikini

You don’t have to go so far as wearing a biodegradable or solar bikini to make your summer accoutrements more sustainable. Look for eco-friendly products like clothing, swimsuits, sandals, towels, and skin care. Each of them is a step in the right direction, and you might just fall in love with a product or style you never knew existed. Lots more to learn at How to Green Your Wardrobe. (below)

Charge!
Pick up a solar backpack or device like the Freeloader or the Solio to take with you on day trips. That way, whether you’re at the beach or on the go you’ll be able to run and recharge a wide range of portable devices on solar energy. Save a buck by cutting out the electric company and giving your re-chargeables the solar power they deserve.

No poison, please
Remember those carefree days of running alongside the DDT truck as it sprayed the happy townspeople and iced all the bugs? Well, we’re a little smarter now, so use products like garlic barrier to ward off mosquitoes. Traditional products certainly do the job, but they can end up turning your backyard into a deathtrap for every other kind of living thing that drops by for a visit. That means birds, butterflies, ladybugs, and even the family dog gets an unhealthy dose. Not to mention yourself, the kids, the neighbors’ kids, and even your bratty nephew who lives down the block. Make sure to apply it when you think it won’t rain for several days, and the garlic alternative should treat you right. Planting rosemary is a natural and low-tech way to block skeeters. Then there are always the big guns like the Mosquito Magnet. (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/11/mosquito_magnet.php)
Wet and wise
Water usage levels are a big deal throughout much of the U.S. and the summer drought season can really make things tough. Be certain to watch what you use, water plants only when necessary, and take a few minutes to install a low-flow showerhead. They’re simple steps that can make a big difference. For more, check out How to Green Your Water. (below)

The greener road
Have to travel long distances to arrive at your dream destination this summer? Consider making it by road or rail rather than by plane, but be sure to offset your carbon emissions no matter what mode of transportation you choose. Companies and non-profit groups like Terrapass, Climate Care, MyClimate, Native Energy, and American Forests all offer ways to offset the damage done when you pick up and travel to places unknown. Our guide for How to Go Green: Carbon Offsets is a great launch pad. (below)

How to Go Green: Outdoor Sports-by Warren Mclaren

We love our wild, outdoor places. The problem is, we're loving them to death. Flying to visit the distant ones is contributing carbon dioxide to the ever-growing greenhouse gas overload; all the clobber we take with us demands greater extraction of diminishing resources both to manufacturer and to reach us in our homes; and when we arrive at our beloved open-air domains, our combined weight is directly impacting already fragile ecosystems. Take, for instance, the mountains.

"Like the earth's oceans and rainforests, mountains are crucial to life. Mountains are the source of freshwater for half of humanity. They are storehouses of genetic diversity that help feed the world. Yet, mountains are under threat from climate change, overexploitation and environmental degradation. Mountain people are among the world’s poorest and hungriest: a disproportionate number of the world’s 840 million chronically undernourished people live in mountain areas." Although covering only 3% of the earth’s surface, they contain an astonishing 10,000 species of plants, the highest biodiversity per unit area of any ecosystem in the world. They are also critically important to millions of people in the lowlands as sources of fresh water for drinking, agriculture, and hydropower.
So, in this guide we consider outdoor adventure sports such as surfing, sailing, kayaking, skiing, snowboarding, backpacking and camping to see how they might be made greener. (For the most part, we'll leave biking for a whole separate guide.)

How to Go Green: Wardrobe

Here's the irony: fashion is ephemeral, while fabric and pollution are not. After all of the inspiration, image-making, and excitement pass, the clothes remain in wardrobes everywhere. Pouf skirts. Acid-washed denim. M. C. Hammer pants. They're out there still, in closets, thrift stores, and land fills.

Eco-savvy fashion choices mean not only reducing post-consumer refuse, but also pre-consumer waste and pollution. After its origins on the farm, forest, or oil field, that jacket spent some time morphing into its present form. What chemicals were used to grow it? Were the dyes safe?

As more designers and manufacturers create with eco-concerns in mind, it's easier to find satisfying answers. Through smart wardrobe management and consumer choices, you can cut down on closet clutter, support clean industry, and look fabulous. Our tips will help you navigate all of the terminology and find the best ways to green your wardrobe.

How to Go Green: Water

There is no resource more precious than water. There is also no resource that is misused, abused, misallocated, and misunderstood the way water is. Safe drinking water, healthy and intact natural ecosystems, and a stable food supply are a few of the things at stake as our water supply is put under greater and greater stress.
The picture might look grim, but opportunities to be more efficient abound. Many people have had water-saving etiquette pumped into them at one point or another, so hopefully we can make a good case for conserving the stuff with practical, everyday water-saving strategies as well as some more high-tech approaches.

How to Go Green: Carbon Offsets

Newspapers, radio, television, magazines, blogs, podcasts, in fact any media you can think of, has awoken to the issue of climate change or global warming. When mainstream publications, the likes of Sports Illustrated, Main Street Magazine and Vanity Fair, cover the topic you know there is something going on. Not to mention that a documentary full of graphs, statistics and grainy photos of glaciers can scoop up an Oscar. And thousands of eminent scientists, the world over, sign a document concurring that there was 90 percent certainty that the planet has a temperature and it is a human induced fever. To reduce the patient's prognosis of increased convulsions; such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, heat waves, etc; experimental treatments are underway.

Carbon offsets: a tool to fight global warming

One of these is carbon offsets. Carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas, is emitted into the atmosphere as a result our intensive use of fossil fuels like oil and coal. In simplistic terms this is 'bad'. One means of doing ‘good’ is by paying to balance (or offset) the equation, by funding projects that reduce our emissions of carbon (and other greenhouse gases). If only it were as simple as it sounds.

As seen in the August issue of Main Street Magazine

July 2010 Issue :Country Mouse

2010-07-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Barn Dance has changed!

A barn dance is any kind of dance held in a barn, but usually involves traditional or folk music with traditional dancing derived from Schottische. The term “barn dance” is usually associated with family-oriented, community-oriented events… WAIT A MINUTE>>>>>> have you been to a barn dance lately?

SLAM on the brakes, smell the burning tires….sorry all, but a barn dance has CHANGED! Now more commonly referred to as keggar, rave, or barn bash…even our MSM Country Mouse puts on the bling for this amazing party!

Where once upon a time Barn Dances where for step-dance and socials, the modern barn dance is THEE place to be among the young set. Even the worst die-hard city dwellers are willing to risk those possible ‘funky fresh’ air {*ahem*} smells and savage beasts like chickens and cows for a tripped out keggar party!

Country kids know how to party! The best part? They have the location all the time. Clean up might be interesting though….but a little ‘mood’ lighting, some entertainment, friends and lots of ‘kegs’ the once barn is now party paradise. Did we mention music and dancing?

Two step? Sure if you really want to, but it might be hard to step-to-the-beat of the rockers on stage!

Note to the city slickers: No worries if you hear one of the ‘beasts’ making noise, just move closer to a good looking country kid! We’ll protect ya!

This article is copyright of Rain Enterprises/ MSM, July Issue 2010.

Karma-Vore

2010-06-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

June, we all know it had to happen, while the college kids have been longing for the sun and the beach, parents have a different, and not so happy event this month: The kids finish school. For most working parents this summer time break can be hectic, the children want to sleep in, and you need to hustle them to the baby sitter or day camp! Things like breakfast can suddenly become a nightmare! How do you make sure they start the day healthy while keeping it simple? Easy-peezy my friend, no need to pull your hair out, and no need to stock up on that sugar coated cereal! As a matter of fact this smoothie recipe is perfect for breakfast, lunch, snacks or dessert, and made with only natural ingredients. Kids and yes you-- mom and dad will love this healthy smoothie recipe.

I would also like to introduce you to a great kitchen product called the Vita-Mix, information and review below the berry smoothie recipe.

Berry Smoothie
Two kinds of berries are paired with lemonade concentrate and lemon yogurt in this cool and refreshing fruit smoothie recipe. Fruit smoothies are a great way to help you get your daily servings of fruits and vegetables. A good smoothie recipe, like this one, packs in two to three servings of fruits per glass. So drink up and the best part? Prep time is 5 minutes!

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups dark sweet frozen cherries (pitted, unsweetened)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup non-fat vanilla soy milk
1 Tbsp. frozen lemonade concentrate
1/2 cup low-fat lemon yogurt

Preparation:
Place frozen cherries and blueberries in the bottom of a blender, Vita Mix, or food processor, fitted with a metal blade.
Top with vanilla soy milk.
Add remaining ingredients.

Puree until smooth. If using a blender, you may have to stop to press the fruit down into the blades in order for it to puree smoothly. Make sure the blender is turned off, and use a long spoon to push the fruit down. Continue blending until all of the fruit is ground up.
Makes 2 servings.

Vita Mix Blender Review
I am a big fan of the Vita Mix blenders. On performance and durability alone, however, the Vita Mix is just so darned expensive. That having been said, there is a place for a Vita Mix blender in many kitchens with kids. You just have to figure out how often you will use it, whether or not it will fit in your space, and if you have the money to spend on the Vita Mix.

Pros
 Works better than any other kitchen tool for making smoothies.
 Has multiple uses, from pureeing soups to making bread crumbs and ice cream.
 Easy to clean.
 Has a variable speed control.

Cons
 Expensive, very expensive ($500.00 and up)
 May be too tall to fit under some kitchen cabinets.
 Takes up counter space and is heavy, if you plan to store under the counter.

Description
 Can puree whole fruits and vegetables easily.
 Has a powerful, variable-speed motor, which allows you to adjust the speed for which foods are processed as you are using it.
 Has easy-to-read measurements in ounces, cups and metrics printed on the container.
 Container is large (64 ounces), and made of durable, unbreakable plastic.
 Comes with a DVD, a tamper, and a cookbook.

As with any expensive kitchen tool, the Vita Mix ought to deliver a lot of performance for its price. Fortunately, it delivers. From making smoothies and soups to bread crumbs and ice cream, the Vita Mix can perform a wide range of kitchen tasks quite well.
The Vita Mix is a Healthy Cook's Best Friend. If you're into healthy eating, the Vita Mix blender can perform tasks like pulverizing an entire orange, skin and seeds included. Or make raw nut butters. Although the Vita Mix does not extract pulp like a juicer, it can get you to the same place as a juicer. That is, you can use that whole pureed orange in a smoothie or drink that is as healthy as a fresh-juiced drink. Indeed, some say it's even healthier, because the fibre and nutrients from skin, seeds and pulp are not lost when you use the Vita-mix. What's more, the Vita Mix is fast, durable (the container is made of high-quality plastic), and easy to clean. Just put a few drops of detergent and a few cups water into the Vita Mix, turn it on, and voila! It cleans itself.

~Rosemary Peters~
© Copyright, 2010 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Healthy Relationships - Focus on Your Spouse

2010-06-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Focus on your spouse

The 3 A's of a Healthy Relationship with Your Partner

Overtime for whatever reason many couples either call it quits or wind up staying in an unhappy relationship. However there are a number of couples who manage to beat the odds and go onto a very healthy relationship. How do they do it?

Have you ever met a married couple that was so lovey dovey that it just about made you sick to your stomach? You wouldn't mind so much if they were newlyweds, but for crying out loud these two have been together for years. Yet every time you go out with them, they are in full mushy mode. They openly vow endless love and one refuses to make any decisions without consulting the other. It's enough to make you want to sue the pastor who presided at their wedding ceremony.

The cynic in you says this is nothing more than an act they put on to fool the public at large but you know in your heart that is not true. You have seen these two in action when they didn't think anybody was looking (no not like that!) and from your observations, they are the real deal. The love, trust, mutual respect and sheer enjoyment they get from being in each other's company is as genuine as a Sunday morning.

So how did they beat the odds? In the US alone roughly 49% of all marriages end in divorce. While the good news is the divorce rate has dropped to its lowest level since 1970, the reality is 49% is still a high number.

Yet even when couples decide to stay together many are trapped in a marriage that has plenty of routine but little else. Somewhere during their relationship, the marriage went from fun and romance to a chore that saps the energy out of both parties.

It doesn't have to be that way. There may not be any full proof guaranteed cure alls for the relationship blues but every little bit helps; like the 3 A's.

1. Attitude
Marriage is a chore if you convince yourself it's a chore. Do you look at every bump in the relationship road as a crushing obstacle or a challenge to overcome which brings the two of you closer together? It's all in the way you perceive it. When you change your attitude, don't look for your spouse to make the initial move. "Saying I'll do it if you will" means that it may never get done. Work on your outlook first. Hopefully, your significant will notice what's going on and get on your wavelength.

2. Attention
Your spouse has been exercising or upgrading their appearance to please you. Are you taking notice? What about your communication and listening skills? When it's just the two of you, neither spouse should have to compete with the TV, newspaper or internet to get your attention. Keep it mind that what they want to tell you is not always going to be of the earth shattering variety. Sometimes they just want to talk or vent or see what's on your mind. Either way, show them your undivided consideration.

3. Appreciation
Too often when we think "we've got it like that" we tend to take the other person for granted. Break the mould and start buying your significant other a small gift even when it's not a special occasion. This is an excellent way to show gratitude; however it does not have to be monetary. For instance, they do the same household chore day in day out but now you start thanking them for doing it. In fact you surprise them occasionally by doing the work for your spouse without being asked to do it. When it comes to appreciation within a marriage, little things mean a lot.

The goal in any relationship is to be selfless enough so you both are a team that just keeps getting better and better. Trying the 3 A's can help considerably with your game plan. You might not ever win Couple of The Year but stick with it anyway. Eventually when people see the two of you coming, they also will start reaching for the Rolaids.

Article written by Daryl Campbell; Writer and home business owner. CEO of Campbell Marketing LLC.

© Copyright, 2010 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Dating Again

2010-06-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

There are little white lies, and then there are whoppers. When meeting someone for the first time, we tend to use harmless white lies to blur facts about less impressive or unimportant details - such as how you really feel about hockey, or opera, or breast feeding in public. Or how about ‘No, no, really I just ate!” and then a second later your tummy grumbles calling your bluff! This behaviour indicates a certain sensitivity and normal desire to put one's best foot forward, and isn't necessarily bad. However, when someone starts telling you they recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, it's clearly a problem.

Being able to identify who is lying to you, might help save you time, energy and even heart ache. We were always told that when people lie, they look up to the left? Or is it to the right? In fact, it doesn't matter, that theory has long ago proven to be little more than an old wives tale.

There are however symptoms of telltale signs that someone is lying. If you have joined a dating site, going to a club, or church social, it is helpful to know whether a person you are interested in is telling you the truth.

We hope the list of hints below will help you spot the lies…

Eye contact

This is probably where there "looking up to the left" legend comes from. It doesn't matter where they are looking, if they can't make eye contact with you it's a pretty clear sign that they are lying. A low self-esteem can also cause people to avoid eye contact, however you can usually tell these poor souls from the liars because they will consistently look down. Liars on the other hand, will look anywhere and everywhere (but you) when lying, but will be able to stay focussed on you when answering a question truthfully. If you suspect you are talking to a liar, try asking a question that you know is easy to answer honestly (such as, "do you like hockey?") and watch for a change in demeanour and eye contact: if they are lying you will notice that they immediately relax, and latch on to the new topic very quickly.

Subject avoidance

Liars are usually trying to cover up a detail about themselves or a topic they are embarrassed for you to know about. They will almost always do whatever they can to avoid talking about it, changing the subject which is where lying comes in. However before you decide this is a lie, it may be a subject matter that is very intense, or uncomfortable, such as your religious beliefs or family values. Be sure the topic avoidance, is truly something that is not a heavy subject matter to test the waters for reactions

Long, unnecessary explanations

Lies, by default, are made up stories. Stories take a lot of construction and reflection. When someone lies to you, they often feel the need to tell more detail than necessary. This is because they are not only proving the story is true to you, they are in a sense doing the same for themselves. Going into detail allows the liar keep track of the lie, kind of like how criminals have to go over every detail of their alibi to ensure it checks out. Because they are worried you will see through the lie, they will often keep providing "evidence" that it's true. A variation of this third sign is exaggeration. Liars will often over-exaggerate in their long-winded discourse, in the hopes that it will strengthen the lie.

A person may act like this and still be telling the truth; it's just highly unlikely, especially if they exhibit more than one sign. Take note of the three indicators and use them to help decipher honesty next time you meet someone new. Bear in mind that telling the truth is the easiest option, while constructing a lie takes thought and energy. Most people will take the path of least resistance, and opt to tell the truth; However, there are countless social situations - meeting new friends, speed dating 10 or more unknown singles, examining your blind date, etc. - where being able to discern the liars from the truthful will come in handy. Keep your eyes open, and your own ethics clean, and you will always come out on top.

Inconsistencies In Comments And Claims

One way to detect whether the person you are interested in an online dating site is lying is by paying close attention to the comments and claims made by them. If at one point of time they made a comment regarding certain issue and the next moment made a different comment on the same issue, this can be a cause for concern.

Not Having Enough Personal Information About The Other Party

When you sign up with any dating sites, it is important that you should not divulge too much personal information for fear of a possible personal attack or internet frauds that may occur to gain access to your financial information. However, if you have been chatting with a particular person for a long time and yet still do not know basic personal information like occupation, then this person could be suspicious because they do not want to take the risk of being exposed of their lie. It is after all easy enough to pick up the phone and ask the receptionist to be connected to Mr. X

Wanting To Move Too Fast

You may have met people in dating sites who wanted to take you to a level of relationship which you may feel uncomfortable. Beware of those who talk dirty most of the time during your online chat. Then they may request to meet in a hotel for the first meeting. Take your time, this is your dating schedule and choice not theirs.

Liars have a tendency to fidget a lot while they talk with somebody. Shifting foot positions, touching their face and mouth area, swaying, rapidly moving hands, and the like, are signs that the person feels uncomfortable while speaking with you. The question to ask is why? Are they uncomfortable with the subject? Lying? Or nerves? Go with your gut instinct, if it doesn’t feel right, move on.

A good liar will ask you to repeat your question in order to give them more time to make up a lie, or ask you a question in response to your question, gauging your reaction.

Liars, especially if they are married, will mysteriously be unavailable for phone calls or e-mail responses. The will also exhibit other inexplicable behaviour that makes you wonder if they are telling the truth. Believe your instincts if you feel this way.

Ultimately, whether a single person meets a date through a dating service, or matched up from a friend it’s YOUR responsibility to keep safe. Do not go on every date thinking that he/she is a liar or a psychopath, but do use caution, common sense and keep these tips in the back of your mind!

Next Month: Where to meet someone.

As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

A Novel Idea - Interview with Author Simon Clark

2010-06-15T05:58:00.001-07:00

Simon Clark

Mini-Bio

Born, 20th April, 1958, Simon Clark is the author of such highly regarded horror novels as Nailed by the Heart, Blood Crazy, Darker, Vampyrrhic and The Fall, while his short stories have been collected in Blood & Grit and Salt Snake & Other Bloody Cuts. He has also written prose material for the internationally famous rock band U2.

Raised in a family of storytellers – family legend told of a stolen human skull buried beneath the Clark garage – he sold his first ghost story to a radio station in his teens. Before becoming a full-time writer he held a variety of day jobs that have involved strawberry picking, supermarket shelf stocking, office work, and scripting video promos.

He lives with his wife and two children in mystical territory that lies on the border of Robin Hood country in England.

Are there any secret novels hidden away in your attic that may or may not see the light of day?

In my teens I wrote a horror novel called HOBSCROSS. That definitely will never see the light of day! But it was personally satisfying to complete it and finally in the early hours of one summer’s morning type 'The End'. Even though the novel will never be published it did prove to me I had the tenacity to write 80,000 words.

What authors do you like to read?

My all-time favourites are Arthur Machen and William Hope Hodgson; they have that extra ingredient that transports their work to some other realm. Also, I'd include Dylan Thomas, John Wyndham, Paul Finch, Mark Samuels, Shirley Jackson, Paul Kane, Gary McMahon, Stan Barstow, Stephen King; the list goes on. And on. Being a writer means that I read a lot of authors to analyse their technique, which can distract me from the story. Lately, I've been studying the likes of HP Lovecraft and Joseph Conrad. Often it's worth reading and re-reading a few paragraphs of a story and unravelling the mechanics of it all.

What is your favourite book?

Paul Ferris's biography of Dylan Thomas. I can read that book every year and still be fascinated and moved by it.

What is your real guilty secret favourite book?

Leo Walmsley's PARADISE CREEK. It's an autobiography about a man living in a hut up a Cornish creek where he tinkers with engines and spends a lot of time fishing. I don't like tinkering with engines or fishing but the book is strangely soothing. I take it with me to read in airports.

What can we see from your in the future?

I'm currently finishing one novel: GHOSTMONSTER, and then I'm just about to start WHITBY VAMPYRRHIC. My Vampyrrhic series features vampire-like creatures from Viking mythology -- the readers' response to the series has been amazing. People have even asked for story locations so they can visit them.

What is THE MIDNIGHT MAN about in no more than 30 words?

Part fact, part fiction it features Vincent Van Gogh, murder, madness and ghosts. THE MIDNIGHT MAN blog can be found here. There's also a short film, too.

What's the strangest fan request or gift you have had?

Nothing weird or troubling. I sometimes get asked for signed photographs, which is flattering as it is surprising.

What is your daily writing routine, if you have one?

I keep office hours, working from around nine until five. Sometimes work creeps into weekends, too.

What advice would you give the great unpublished out there, who wish to follow in your exalted footsteps?

Exalted? Thank you for the compliment. The key to becoming a published author is persistence. Keep writing, just keep writing. Also pick a favourite story and study the mechanics of it. Ask yourself how it works, and what passages hook your attention.

How excited are you to be on a Doctor Who DVD extra?

Enormously. I've been a fan ever since I was knee-high to a Dalek.

Which of your books would make the best film?

THE MIDNIGHT MAN was a real labour of love -- Van Gogh was an amazing artist and utter visionary. If that was produced I'd sit there at the back of the cinema with a tear in my eye.

I and a few others think the horror novel is about to have its 2nd, 3rd or 666th coming, what are your thoughts?

Everyone has a theory about a renewal in horror -- the economy, terrorism, climate; but there does seem to be a new interest in horror in everything from TV to books to computer games. All, I can say is, yes, horror is popular again. So, to all horror fans out there I'd suggest we dive in and enjoy!

Want more great interviews / book reviews? Visit www.thenovelblog.com

~Peter Mark May~

As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Quick Tips

2010-06-14T05:12:00.002-07:00

Finding activities to keep the kids busy is an important part of my family’s summer plans. The last thing I want is to have the kids starting at me saying, “Mom, I’m bored.” Boredom doesn’t lead to a fun summer for anyone.

Now that we’re in the heart of summer, many families find themselves running out of fun, yet frugal, things to do with the family this summer

Chances are you are drawing a blank as to what you can do to keep the kids occupied this summer. The days on the calendar keep coming closer to that moment when you hear the famous phrase: “I’m Bored!”

Before summer gets underway, I’ve learned to identify different activities that the kids can take part in that won’t break the bank. My hope is always that if I have a list of ideas prepared, I won’t get caught scrambling to find something fun for the kids to do., frustrating both them and me.

The Library, and / or ELC

I work hard to foster a love of books in all of my kids, so it’s not a big surprise that we go to the library a lot. Little kids love story hour at the library. If your kids are older, though, don’t overlook summer reading programs that allow your kids to earn books as a reward for reading. They also have movies and CD’s you can sign out with your library card for rainy days or the days in which inside can be fun. Let each of the children take turns picking a CD or a movie to watch. Some libraries or Early Learning Centers also have activities and toy borrowing programs as well.

Michael’s Craft Projects

Michael’s craft stores offer children’s craft programs once a month or so. For little or no cost, you can take your kids into the store and let them make something new. Fun project s like a Father’s Day gift, Joann’s craft centers have programs like these sometimes, too, so don’t forget to check out their websites.

Trips to the Zoo

Does your area’s zoo have a “free” day? If it does, why not take advantage of it? We go to the zoo three or four times during the summer months. We don’t try to see everything in one day, so we don’t experience as many cranky moments as some other families. We pack lunches too, to save on food costs.

Sidewalk Art

Once or twice a summer, we have a sidewalk art fair. Granted, this idea isn’t captivating enough to pass the entire summer, but used sparingly it can provide enough entertainment to pass an afternoon. We buy sidewalk chalk at our local dollar store. Then, when it’s sidewalk art day, we spend the afternoon drawing designs all over the sidewalk leading up to our front door. The kids get so excited as they imagine how impressed my husband will be when he gets home from work and sees their designs. Sometimes, we even write notes for him in the artwork. Let your kids show off their artistic skills to the entire neighbourhood by drawing colourful designs on the sidewalk in front of your house. Most dollar stores will have buckets of sidewalk chalk for a dollar or two. Challenge your little ones to draw the best picture they can. When your spouse comes home from work, they can give him a tour of their gallery. Or if you get the neighbourhood kids involved, host a ‘showing’ with the all the parents in attendance.

Picnic in the Park

What family wouldn’t enjoy a fun picnic together? Pack a lunch (or dinner) into a basket or tote bag and bring along a large, comfy blanket. If you can walk to the park, by all means do so. Suddenly, a routine meal is turned into a memorable event. Don’t forget to bring along a Frisbee or ball to play with after you eat.

Marbles

Have your kids ever played a classic game of marbles? If not, now is the time to introduce them to it. A bag of marbles is very inexpensive, but your kids will spend hours perfecting the art of “shooting.” You can use sidewalk chalk to draw the necessary circles onto your driveway and turn the kids loose.

Lemonade Stand

Foster an entrepreneurial attitude in your kids by letting them host a lemonade (or Kool-aid) stand. If your neighbourhood hosts a neighbourhood-wide garage sale, this is the perfect day for this project. Otherwise, you can allow them to open their stand in conjunction with your own family’s garage sale. Help them post signs advertising their little venture, select flavours for their drinks, and gather the necessary supplies. The kids will love having their own spending money and may even learn to appreciate how hard money is to come by.

Science Experiments

Who says summer vacation isn’t educational? A quick visit to your local library could reveal a ton of experiments that your family could complete in your own backyard. Look for one that doesn’t require a lot of special equipment and turn your little scientists loose.

Make a list

Make a list ahead of time of all the things your children like, is one into video games? Why not have a ‘game-off’ where your child invites a few friends and they take turns ‘gaming’. You could also have small prizes for them to win, which can be bought at Party Packagers or the Dollar Store for next to nothing. Does one like to bake? Buying pre-made cookie dough can save the mess and lets the children start rolling and cutting the dough right away for baking. Maybe one is into nature? A few bottles of water and some granola bars in a back pack and away you go for a walk- the key is to be prepared with some of your children’s favourite things, while keeping it simple and not breaking the bank.

~Janice Collins~

As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

Main Street Music Scene - Bryan Adams

2010-06-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

It is with great pleasure that this month’s article for Main Street Music Scene welcomes the Canadian great: Bryan Adams.

Bryan Adams is considered extremely prominent in the Canadian music industry, and no wonder he is the best-selling Canadian male artist of all time, holds the distinction of being the first Canadian artist to sell one million copies of his album in his homeland, not once, but twice with ‘Waking Up the Neighbours’ & ‘Reckless.’

“I always knew I'd be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn't know if I'd be successful at it, but I knew I'd be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.” Bryan said.

Adams has become more then just a ‘star’ he is a music legend. Inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998 and in April 2006 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards.

In January of this year he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his part in numerous charitable concerts and campaigns during his career, and on the first of May (2010) was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his 30 years of contributions to the arts.

In February 2010 Adams released "One World, One Flame" - a track which was used as a theme song by the major German TV station ARD for the Olympic TV Coverage of Olympic Games in Vancouver.

On February 12, Adams, wrote and performed "Bang The Drum" as a duet with Nelly Furtado, for the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics Games in Vancouver, BC in front of 60,000 people. With Wayne Gretzky and Jaromir Jagr at the opening ceremonies, this brought all three together once again, following Gretzky's final game in 1999 at Madison Square Garden, when Gretzky then played for the New York Rangers and Jagr was with the Pittsburgh Penguins. At that time (1999) Adams sang the Canadian national anthem and altered the line to reflect Gretzky's departure, saying, "We'll miss you Wayne Gretzky."

Adams is also the owner of one the biggest hits of all time, "Everything I Do, I Do It For You". It is often known as the biggest hit of the 90's and holds the record for the longest running no. 1 in UK singles chart history (4 months). "Summer of 69" and "Run To You" have become rock radio staples. The album Reckless is considered by some to be a landmark recording of the 80's and for melodic rock.

Most of Adams's philanthropic activity is dedicated to his foundation "The Bryan Adams Foundation", which aims to advance education and learning opportunities for children and young people worldwide, believing that an education is the best gift that a child can be given.

The Foundation’s area of support is broad and far-reaching, enabling grants to be given for projects supporting the elderly, victims of war and natural disasters, and those suffering from mental or physical illness. The foundation is completely funded by his photographic activities.

"Thoughts are things; they have tremendous power. Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure. Thoughts crystallize into habit and habit solidifies into circumstances." Quoted Bryan.

As is the case with most creative people, there is a cross over from one artistic out let to another. In Bryan’s case it is Photography, coincidently a passion close to my own heart. Bryan however is internationally renowned; his photographs have been published in British Vogue, L'uomo Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Interview magazine and I-D, among others.

In June of 2005 Bryan and Calvin Klein published a book of photos called American Women; the proceeds went to breast cancer research for programs at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

As a photographer, Adams has worked with many of his musical peers, a sample listing includes: Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Robert Plant, Joss Stone, Placido Domingo, Celine Dion, Billy Idol, Moby, Amy Winehouse, t.A.T.u., Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz and Morrissey.

In 2002, Adams was invited, along with other photographers from the Commonwealth, to photograph Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee; one of the photographs from this session was used as a Canadian postage stamp in 2004 and again in 2005.

Singer, song writer, philanthropist or photographer? Perhaps just a man with a great passion, a great vision and amazing talent!

~Cheers Bryan~ It is an honour to have you as part of MSM!

*Source of Information, Bryan Adams & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Adams

~Tilly Rivers~

As seen in the June Issue of Main Street Magazine.

Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises

To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out

www.mainstreetmagazine.net

June History - Part 1

2010-06-09T06:13:00.001-07:00

June History

Flower – Rose

Birthstone – Pearl, Moonstone, Alexandrite, Agate and Opal

Meaning – Good Health

Colors – Light Blue, White and Cream

June 1

4000 BC - Approximate domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes near Dereivka, central Ukraine (hypothesis only)

1495 - 1st written record of Scotch Whiskey appears in Exchequer Rolls of Scotland; Friar John Cor is the distiller

1638 - 1st earthquake recorded in US, at Plymouth, Mass

1880 - 1st pay telephone installed

1949 - 1st magazine on microfilm offered to subscribers (Newsweek)

1969 - Tobacco advertising is banned on Canadian radio & TV

June 2

1780 - The Derby horse race is held for the first time.

1835 - P T Barnum & his circus begin 1st tour of US

1857 - James Gibbs, patents chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine

1910 - Pygmies discovered in Dutch New Guinea

1928 - Velveeta Cheese created by Kraft

1966 - US Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum; 1st lunar soft-landing

1968 - Canadians must get government permission to export silver

June 3

1620 - Construction of the oldest stone church in French North America, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, begins at Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

1789 - Alex Mackenzie explores Mackenzie River (Canada)

1851 - 1st baseball uniforms worn, NY Knickerbockers wear straw hat, white shirt & blue long trousers

1875 - Alexander Graham Bell makes 1st voice transmission
1876 - Lacrosse introduced in Britain & Canada

1889 - The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed from coast to coast.

1935 - One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario.

1946 - 1st bikini bathing suit displayed (Paris)

1959 - Eisenhower routes Canadian premier Diefenbaker message off the Moon

1968 - Canada announces it will replace silver with nickel in coins

June 4

781 BC - The first historic solar eclipse is recorded in China.

1070 - Roquefort cheese created in a cave near Roquefort, France

1769 - A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in history.

1784 - Madame Elizabeth Thible becomes the first female balloonist.

1896 - Henry takes his 1st Ford through streets of Detroit
1907 - Automatic washer & dryer introduced

1929 - George Eastman demonstrates 1st Technicolor movie (Rochester NY)

June 5

1805 - 1st recorded tornado in "Tornado Alley" (Southern Illinois)

1876 - Bananas become popular in US, at Centennial Exposition in Phila

1967 - Royal Canadian Mint ordered to start converting 10 cent & 25 cent coins to pure nickel as soon as possible

1977 - 1st personal computer, Apple II, goes on sale

June 6

1813 - US invasion of Canada halted at Stoney Creek (Ont)

1850 - Levi Strauss made his 1st blue jeans

1882 - Electric iron patented by Henry W Seely, NYC

1946 - Henry Morgan is 1st to take off shirt on TV

June 7

1800 - David Thompson reaches the mouth of the Saskatchewan River in Manitoba.
1832 - Asian cholera reaches Quebec, brought by Irish immigrants, and kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada.

1860 - 1st US "dime novel" published: "Malaseka, The Indian Wife of the White Hunter," by Mrs. Ann Stevens

1866 - Irish Fenians raid Pigeon Hill, Quebec

1887 - Monotype type-casting machine patented by Tolbert Lanston, Wash DC

1944 - Canadian 50th division occupies Bayeux

1953 - 1st color network telecast in compatible color, (Boston Mass)

1963 - 1st Rolling Stones TV appearance (Thank Your Lucky Stars) & release 1st single "Come on"

1965 - Sony Corp introduced its home video tape recorder, priced at $995

1975 - Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.

June 8
1786 - Commercially made ice cream 1st advertised (Mr. Hall, NYC)

1824 - Washing machine patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec

1896 - 1st car is stolen

1918 - Nova Aquila, brightest nova since Kepler's nova of 1604, discovered

1936 - 1st parking meters are invented
1937 - World's largest flower blooms in NY Botanical Garden, 12' calla lily

1968 - 1st reduced-gravity golf game is played on the Moon

1979 - "The Source," 1st computer public information service, goes on-line

June 9

1456 - 23rd recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

1534 - Jacques Cartier 1st sails into mouth of St Lawrence River

1790 - 1st book copyrighted under constitution, "Philadelphia Spelling Book"

1822 - Charles Graham patents false teeth

1902 - 1st Automat restaurant opens (818 Chestnut St, Phila)

1909 - Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, in fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York, to San Francisco, California.

1923 - Brinks unveils 1st armored security vans

1931 - 1st rocket-powered aircraft design patented (R Goddard)
1934 - 1st Donald Duck cartoon, Wise Little Hen, released

1972 - 1st all-night grad parties

June 10

1720 - Mrs. Clements of England markets 1st paste-style mustard
1752 - Ben Franklin's kite is struck by lightning-what a shock!

1793 - 1st public zoo opens in Paris

1857 - England passes an act putting Canada on the decimal currency system

1869 - 'Agnes’ arrives in New Orleans with 1st ever shipment of frozen beef

1902 - Patent for window envelope granted to H F Callahan
1905 - 1st forest fire lookout tower placed in operation, Greenville, Me
1908 - 1st flying club, Aeronautical Society of NY, opens

1915 - Girl Scouts founded

1925 - Inaugural service for the United Church of Canada, a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches held in Toronto Arena

1932 - 1st demonstration of artificial lightning Pittsfield Mass

1935 - Dr Robert Smith & William Wilson of Akron form Alcoholics Anonymous

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character, by MGM, debuts

1940 - World War II: Canada declares war on Italy.

1947 - Saab produces its first automobile

1955 - 1st separation of virus into component parts reported

1957 - John Diefenbacker (C) elected PM of Canada

1977 - Apple Computer ships its 1st Apple II

June 11

1517 - Sir Thomas Pert reaches Hudson Bay

1644 - Florentine scientist describe invention of barometer

1742 - Benjamin Franklin invents his Franklin stove

1788 - 1st British ship built on Pacific coast begun at Nootka Sound, BC

1793 - 1st American stove patent is granted to Robert Haeterick

1870 - 1st-stone Amstel Brewery opens in Amsterdam

1892 - The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
1895 - 1st auto race
1895 - Charles E Duryea patents a gas-driven automobile

1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "Case of Jonathan Drew," is released

1935 - Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States, at Alpine, New Jersey.

1939 - King & Queen of England taste 1st "hot dogs" at FDR's party

1955 - 1st magnesium jet airplane flies

June 12

1839 - 1st baseball game played in America

1849 - Gas mask patented by Lewis Haslett (Louisville KY)

1903 - Niagara Falls, Ontario incorporated as a city

1913 - "Dachshund" by Pathe Freres, early animated cartoon, released

1939 - Shooting begins on Paramount Pictures' Dr. Cyclops, the first horror film photographed in three-strip Technicolor.

1962 - 3 convicts used spoons to dig their way out of Alcatraz

June 13

1777 - Leonard Norcross patents a submarine diving suit

1898 - Yukon Territory of Canada organized, Dawson chosen as capital

1912 - Capt Albert Berry made the 1st parachute jump from an airplane

1920 - Post Office says children could not be sent by parcel post

1924 - Gaston Doumergue elected as 1st protestant French premier

1930 - 1st Nudist Colony opens

1933 - 1st sodium vapor lamps installed (Schenectady NY

1942 - 1st V-2 rocket launch, Peenemunde, Germany; reached 1.3 km

1946 - 1st transcontinental round-trip flight in 1-day, California-Maryland

1963 - Vostok 6 launched, pilot is 1st woman cosmonaut

June 14

1623 - 1st breach-of-promise lawsuit: Rev Gerville Pooley, Va files against Cicely Jordan, he loses

1755 - 1e edition of Dr Johnsons "Dictionary"

1834 - Hardhat diving suit patented by Leonard Norcross, Dixfield, Maine
1834 - Isaac Fischer Jr. patents sandpaper

1841 - 1st Canadian parliament opens in Kingston, Ontario

1847 - Robert von Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner

1872 - Trade unions are legalized in Canada.

1881 - Player piano patented by John McTammany Jr. (Cambridge, Mass)

1901 - 1st golf championship is played

1923 - Recording of 1st country music hit (Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane)

1942 - 1st bazooka rocket gun produced Bridgeport Ct

1942 - Walt Disney's "Bambi" animated movie is released Thumper's 1st job

1946 - Canadian Library Association established

1951 - 1st commercial computer, UNIVAC 1, enters service at Census Bureau

June 15

1762 - Austria uses 1st paper currency

1844 - Goodyear patents vulcanization of rubber

1878 - 1st attempt at motion pictures (used 12 cameras, each taking 1 picture) done to see if all 4 of a horse's hooves leave the ground

1902 - Canada's Maritime Provinces switch from Eastern to Atlantic Time

1916 - Boys Scouts of America forms

Main Street Magazine. Blogspot 2

PLEASE NOTE

A LITTLE INSPIRATION - About Love

Just a Moment

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Games

Winter Fun & Games

POWDER-PUFF FOOTBALL

The Game

Business Today

Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business From e-mail to health care, and from artificial intelligence to the end of HR as we know it, here are forecasts of how different the world of workforce management will be 10 years from now.

Just a Moment

Healthy Relationships

Fashion Sense

Just a Moment......

Quote It

nazareth love hurts (1976)

Going Green

Budget Travel

Just A Moment

Main Street Music Scene

The KC Metaphysical Fair

LOL

A NOVEL IDEA

GO Green: Summer Tips

July 2010 Issue :Country Mouse

Karma-Vore

Healthy Relationships - Focus on Your Spouse

Dating Again

A Novel Idea - Interview with Author Simon Clark

Quick Tips

Main Street Music Scene - Bryan Adams

June History - Part 1

Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business
From e-mail to health care, and from artificial intelligence to the end of HR as we know it, here are forecasts of how different the world of workforce management will be 10 years from now.