Macrobiotics is a holistic philosophy of life and healing, embraced by Steve Jobs when he was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to his biographer. Exactly what is involved in practicing macrobiotics? Macrobiotics advises a balanced diet primarily of whole grains, vegetables and soy products such as miso, individualized according to a person’s constitution and condition. It has helped many people heal themselves from a variety of diseases, including cancer.

However, in the case of Steve Jobs, he may have been better served by taking advantage of surgery as soon as he was diagnosed, in addition to following the macrobiotic way of life. The problem with alternative healing methods, such as macrobiotics, is that they may delay a person from taking advantage of the latest technological diagnostic methods and surgery, when called for.

Unfortunately, in the last ten years, many esteemed macrobiotic teachers and counselors themselves have died of cancer. Is it because they didn’t get early diagnosis? Or because they didn’t take advantage of surgery to remove the tumor and then use macrobiotics or other holistic approaches to remove the cause and the potential spread of their cancer?

The great macrobiotic teacher, Herman Aihara, a student of the founder of macrobiotics, George Ohsawa, was a small, humble man who empowered many to heal through a whole foods diet and home remedies. Aihara often told cancer patients to have their tumors removed first, and then to come back for macrobiotic counseling to learn how to change their lives – physically, emotionally and spiritually – and naturally starve out cancer cells and prevent a recurrence. He cared more about each person’s life than about proving that his philosophy alone was the right one.

Alternative healing methods work best when combined with conventional medical diagnosis and treatment. The hope for the future is “complementary medicine,” which combines the best of both worlds. I see hope with major medical centers including meditation and Healing Touch to their repertoire of treatments.

The Chakra Diaries, novel life stories of people on a healing journey, includes the story of Julie, an alternative healer who did not take advantage of allopathic medicine and was therefore not diagnosed with melanoma until she was in Stage 4 and there was little intervention available. It is a dramatized version of a true story – not the same as Steve Jobs’ story, but with the same end result. And the same moral… take advantage of both alternative wisdom and medical technology. Combine the best of all that is available.

For all you Old West “history buffs,” students, and Western writers out there who have been at this longer than I, can anyone answer the question I’ve posed in the title of this article? Did Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyatt Earp ever meet? If so, can you point me toward information about any meeting(s) or relationship between the two? If not, how or why do you think such a meeting would NOT take place?

Cody and Earp were close to the same age. Sources put Cody’s birth in Iowa in 1846 (1845 in early writings, but since corrected); Earp was born in Illinois in 1848. Cody died in Denver, Colorado, in 1917; Earp died in Los Angeles, California, in 1929. Both men spent time in and out of Kansas and the Great Plains in general. I’ve seen accounts that Earp at least met and may have spent some time with “Wild Bill” Hickok – and Cody definitely can be linked clearly to Hickok, even doing some abortive stage acting with Hickok in the 1870s.

Given such proximity, and given Cody’s and Earp’s quick tendencies as showmen to always try to turn a profit off their images (Cody certainly much more than Earp), I find it amazing that the two weren’t somehow associated.

It’s my understanding, and I am by no means knowledgeable about Wyatt Earp, that Earp never pushed the tall tales and showmanship or reputation as strongly as Cody. Nevertheless, in later years I believe Wyatt took advantage of the not always accurate accounts of his life to make money when he could. He certainly never seemed to seek nor did he attain the mythical status in his lifetime that Cody and Hickok did, probably because he never really cultivated it.

But even if that’s true, I am amazed that there are no accounts I could find of Cody and Earp ever meeting. When you consider that Cody went out of his way to recruit any “big names” he could find for his famous Wild West in the 1880s and ’90s, I’m surprised he didn’t make an effort to locate Earp and make him an offer. Perhaps the ups and downs of “real life” as Earp found it in the various Kansas cowtowns and later in Arizona put Cody off the idea. Or, we could as easily speculate, the hard bitten, sometimes lawman sometimes outlaw reputation Earp had in those years caused him to ignore Cody’s attempts to glamorize the “Wild West” and Earp simply wanted no part of it.

It is fun, though, to speculate how the two may have regarded each other. I suspect they knew enough of the reality of life on the Plains in the 1860s-1890s that both understood what was real and what was showmanship in each other.

So, I ask again: Did Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyatt Earp ever meet? If you have some information on that, and especially if you can direct me toward some sources on it, I invite you to leave a comment on my website!

Shot put history can be found to stretch back thousands of years to the days before the British Isles became Christianized and the land was still governed by chieftains. In modern terms the sport was formalized and became an Olympic fixture in 1896.

Today the sport is done using a heavy metal ball and a special technique is perfected in order to be able to throw the ball as far as possible. In order to be truly successful at this event, the athlete needs to combine technique, form and strength.

Back thousands of years the event was done with stone balls in Scotland. Chieftains would use the event to determine which was the most powerful. They would select one of their warriors to throw the stone ball as far as possible and the winner would be considered to come from the most militarily powerful clan. The event has also become a part of the Highland Games.

The sport underwent changes throughout the Middle Ages through to the 18th century, when it was a popular sport among soldiers who would throw cannon balls. It is from this era of the sport that it gains its name with the “shot” referring to the cannon ball and the “put” part a style of throwing that was used.

Up until the modern Olympics was begun the sport was popular, but it was not formalized. As part of the track and field at the Olympics the sport was finally formalized. It would not become a women’s event at the games however until 1948.

The sport today has not changed too much throughout the shot put history. The balls are today made of lead and it tends to be the technique used that varies more. One of the best known shot put athletes was Randy Barnes who introduced the rotational form of throwing in 1976.

Blizzard Entertainment has made some of the most drastic changes to World of Warcraft in order to regain support of the worlds most popular MMO.

The changes are vast and many players have been complaining that Blizzard has made leveling much too hard with this new expansion. The statistic crunch has proved to change the way players run solo content as well as how dungeons and raids are played, but did they really make it harder to level?

The answer to that has more to do with how you prefer to level characters.

Let’s take a look at a few different ways you used to be able to level:

1. Leveling through Battleground PVP – While you can still level toons through PVP, it has not been a viable option for quite some time and is probably the slowest method for getting a character to the level cap.
2. Leveling though dungeons – This has been the source of most of the push back heading into Battle for Azeroth as many players love bringing up their new characters through dungeon running. The changes to the game have made dungeons much slower. Gone are the days of just rounding up enemies and mowing them down. Players most proceed in dungeons with caution which has slowed down the ability to level considerably.
3. Leveling through questing – While the statistic crunch has made killing enemies a little bit slower, Blizzard has always preferred that players level toons via the quest lines in the game. This is where you will follow the various story lines or “lore” of the game. Questing remains the absolute fastest way to level in World of Warcraft and even more so with the new expansion.

Players are starting to look for and install questing guide add-ons that have not really been necessary for a few expansions and many have either disappeared or simply are no longer updated.

While the in-game quest tracking allows you to know what quests you need to complete, there is very little in the way of and efficient method for picking up and completing the best quest in the most efficient order.

Questing guides were a huge part of World of Warcraft from the very beginning. I can remember the old written guides in PDF format. WHile these guides were very well written, it was a bit of a pain having to constantly stop playing to read what to do next and then go back to the game. It kind of took the natural flow of play out of the game.

Soon after the Burning Crusade expansion, add-ons starting bringing live in game guides into play and the speed of leveling really took off.

This went on for several expansion until Blizzard started making changes in the game to make leveling way to easy for many long time players and I believe was a major source of the loss of millions of game subscribers.

World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth reverts the game at least partially back to the glory days of WoW leveling where you had to earn your ranks. It’s certainly not as hard as it was in the beginning, but they have made strides to put some more challenge back into the game.

A number of years ago I developed a close friendship with someone, and while they had been with members of the opposite sex, they were now attracted to members of the same sex. This was something that became perfectly clear when they spoke about this area of their life, after we had been friends for a little while.

I had thought this might be the case earlier on in our friendship, but I wasn’t completely sure. So, when they started to talk about this area of their life, I asked them if they had felt the need to tell me that they were gay.

An Important Point

They ended up saying that they hadn’t felt the need to tell me this and, soon after, I came to the conclusion that they had the right outlook. Ultimately, I couldn’t care less who they were attracted to.

I choose my friends based on what they are like as people, as opposed to who they are attracted to, for instance. In reality, who they were attracted to was none of my business and therefore, there was no reason for them to tell me.

A Key Factor

I think that the fact they didn’t tell me this directly and simply spoke about this area of their life, showed how comfortable they were their own sexuality. If, on the other hand, they hadn’t felt this way about their own sexuality, they may have felt the need to tell me.

This would then have been a way for them to find out if I would accept them or not. And due to how people can be treated if they reveal that they are not attracted to the opposite sex or are attracted to both, it wouldn’t have been a surprise for them to come out with someone like this.

A Solid Foundation

What I believed played a part in how comfortable they felt with themselves was the support they received at the beginning of their life. I got the impression that their family accepted them then and now.

The early support that they received – and continue to receive – would have made it easier for them to handle the challenges of adult life. When I think about what this person was like, I would say that they were one of the most confident people I have ever met.

The Other Side

I think that this all empathises is how important it is for someone to be accepted during the beginning of their life, regardless of what their sexual orientation is. When this takes place, they will be a lot more secure and resilient as an adult.

When this doesn’t happen, it can be normal for someone to look towards others to give them what they didn’t get as a child. The wounded parts of them will want to be accepted unconditionally, but other adults won’t be able to offer this.

Final Thoughts

If someone does have trouble with accepting themselves, it will be vital for them to reach out for the right support and not to suffer in silence. This is something that can be provided by a therapist or a healer, for instance.

When Gerald Ford became the first un-elected President of the United States, he brought with him the hopes and dreams of the American people, who were tired of hearing about Watergate, and who were filled with humiliation and over the break-ins and lies and excuses they had heard from their elected officials. Most Americans wanted to see President Richard Nixon punished–for what he had done, and for what he had not done. Gerry Ford was an honorable man, one who had already served his country with distinction, so everyone assumed that he would “do the right thing,” and punish Richard Nixon and his co-conspirators.

But that’s not what happened. After agonizing over this decision, President Ford pardoned President Nixon for all crimes that he had committed against the American people. Why did he pardon him, instead of making him stand trial and go to jail? The answers may be found in his autobiography, “A Time To Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford.” In it he states:

“I agonized over the idea of a pardon. But I wasn’t motivated primarily by sympathy for his plight or by concern over the state of his health. It was the state of the country’s health at home and around the world that worried me. I was very sure of what would happen if I let the charges against Nixon run their course. His story would overshadow everything else. It would be virtually impossible for me to direct public attention to anything else. America needed recovery, not revenge. The hate had to be drained and the healing begun.”

And so Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Was that the right thing to do? Absolutely, because President Ford wanted healing for America. What is healing? Healing means “giving up the hope for a better or different yesterday.” No matter what, Nixon had committed crimes against us, but even if he were sentenced to prison, we would not be able to re-live the past, so those crimes would not be erased or obliterated, no matter how much we wanted to travel back in time and begin all over again. What was done was done, and there was no going back.

Healing means “laying them gently down,” not carrying the pains of the past on our shoulders so that they become a burden to us. Healing is not giving anyone else the power to control our lives, our destiny, our souls. When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, he knew that America had to move on, that we had to find a way let go of the past, to let go of our anger against Nixon, so that we could begin to create for ourselves a “new normal,” a future filled with hope and passion. What he desperately wanted us Americans to do was to say goodbye to Nixon and his cronies, and he thought the best way to do that would be to pardon him so that we could together move forward with strength and dignity.

When someone dies, or divorces, we need to move on in our lives, without them, and this is a difficult task indeed. Sometimes we want to keep them around so just so we can be angry with them, as if that anger will ease our pain and sorrow. It won’t, but we think that it will, so we continue to make them the focus of our lives. How often do we give too much power to those who have hurt and embarrassed us? How many times have you heard a woman talk about her “ex,” about how he mistreated her and cheated on her and had only contempt and scorn for her? Well, perhaps that is all true, and I do not mean any disrespect, but “now what?” How long will she focus on his behavior in the past as a way of not moving forward in her life? Will her anger help her move forward? I suspect not, as many of us already know from personal experience. We all need to let the past remain in the past, not to carry it with us into the present. Because the future depends on our saying goodbye to those burdens which have paralyzed us and which have not allowed us to create a future filled with hope and love. Want to stay living in the past? Fine, but you will never ever heal from your wounds that way, and you will never feel the joy of creating a new life for yourself. Healing takes guts, as Gerry Ford showed us. It’s not easy and it’s not quick, but it is necessary.

More from his biography: “When it was done it was an unbelievable lifting of a burden from my shoulders. I felt very certain that I had made the right decision, and I was confident that I could now proceed without being harassed by Nixon or his problems any more.”

When someone leaves our lives, the right thing to do is to forgive them, to issue them a pardon, as President Ford did. When we can do that, we can move ahead “from mourning to morning.” It works for America as a nation, and it works for us as individuals. Gerald Ford did the right thing to pardon Richard Nixon, and it’s just one more reason that he remains so beloved to so many.

While the Pretty Lady and I were dating, I remember mentioning something of a corrective nature about her son. After all eventually I was going to be his stepdad and as a highly experienced, impartial observer I was able to see things more objectively than the Pretty Lady.

Despite my conspicuous lack of previous parenting experience I knew what worked for me when I was a kid so I must an authority at some level. Yeah right. At the time, I didn’t give much thought about what I said or the way I said it. I must have been thinking I know she knows I mean well so she’ll understand my bull in the china closet approach.

But by the look in her face I could tell she was madder than a hunchback in a limbo contest.

Where’s all this anger coming from? It wasn’t until later I learned parents don’t want to hear criticism about their children or their parenting abilities. So how do you go about having conversations about the children without incurring the Wrath of Khan?

Put Yourself in Your Partner’s Shoes

Your partner might be feeling guilty about their children’s present circumstances. Remember the children are grieving the death of their first family either by divorce or death of their biological parent.

If it is divorce your partner may feel responsible for disrupting their lives and causing them to spend their childhood between two homes. Expressing your understanding of your partner’s feelings and your commitment to support their role as a parent will help them keep their defensive shields down.

Where and When You Say It

The conversations about the kids need to take place at a location and time when the kids are outside of hearing distance. The conversation should take place at a time when you both are calm and not still reacting to what the kids did or didn’t do.

How You Say It

Remember to use “I” statements and avoid “you” statements. For example, “I feel upset when Bob raises his voice to you. As compared to, “You need to tell Bob not to raise his voice when he speaks to you.”

In the first statement, your partner may feel some embarrassment/shame but at the same time hopefully they should pick up on your desire to see your partner honored and respected by their child.

The second statement is very likely to create defensiveness and resentment. Not to mention a night out on the couch.

Avoid trigger words like, “You always… “, or “Your never… ” and “There you go again.”

Also consider your non-verbal communication. Are your arms crossed, are you glaring? Do you use sarcasm or express contempt, or roll your eyes? Do you use aggressive gestures, like finger-pointing or raising your voice? Or are you calm, sitting next to your partner and maybe gently touching?

It’s important to let your partner know you are speaking from a place of love toward them and their children. Let your partner know your goal is to raise a great family with them.

Let It Go

Are you hypersensitive to the kid’s behavior because you are on the outside looking in? Check yourself. How often you react to their negative behavior? Do you respond to their positive behavior with the same frequency and energy? Balance and moderation is the goal here. The phrase, “Progress not perfection” comes to mind. Children are not perfect and by the way neither are you.

To always correct and never praise your stepchildren is a fast way to build resentment and impede bonding not only from your stepchildren but your partner as well. You don’t want to be known as the nag, nitpicker, faultfinder, etc.

Let your partner and stepchildren know they are a good parent and great kids after all that’s why you wanted to be a part of their lives. By steadily building a positive balance of praise and kudos you will eventually have earned the right to speak to your partner about the children.

Your parents probably did an excellent job in raising you to be the mature and responsible adult you are today, but understand there is more than one way to raise a child and achieve the same goal. If it’s not life threatening or illegal ask yourself what would happen if you let it go.

There is an ice cream stand located in almost every town. Ice cream has become very popular in America and many companies have made a fortune out of making the tasty dessert. One of the most famous companies is Ben and Jerry’s. Ben and Jerry’s started off small and grew into an American fortune company, now they have done it again by taking their wacky ice cream to countries all over the world.

The founders of the company are Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. They met and become friends in middle school located in Long Island, New York. They moved to Vermont and completed a course in ice creaming from Penn State. For those who don’t know where Penn State is it is located in Pennsylvania. Before they were even known, they had seen a lot of the eastern coast and that helped them come up with some of their early designs.

It was 1978 when they opened their first store. They invested only $12,000 and only borrowed four thousand dollars. This is relatively small amount for start up capital. Today, you wouldn’t even pay your rent with $16,000, but Ben and Jerry made it happen. They opened their first store in Burlington, Vermont. Here they become well known for their parties. They would sell their ice cream and project movies on the side of a wall of a run-down gas station.

It only took them a year and they had already marked themselves in history. To mark their one year anniversary they had free cone day, which gave free scoops of their ice cream to anyone who came to the store that day. This tradition still goes for every anniversary in every Ben and Jerry’s. In the 1980’s, they felt that they should expand. Being open for several years and having success, they wanted to see what their ice cream would do in the grocery stores.

This is when they started to package their ice cream in pints to be sold and shared with thousands of people. They started off small again; Ben dropped the ice cream off at the stores using his own car. Ben and Jerry still didn’t think that was enough and in 1981 they became an ice cream making chain. They were still located in Vermont, but closer to the highways for easy access.

Still trying to grab the world’s attention, Ben and Jerry went for the record. They built the largest ice cream sundae in Albans, Vermont. The sundae weighed about 27,102 pounds. This made Ben and Jerry become statewide known and it started to put them on the map to huge success. After all the publicity in Vermont, they knew they had to expand and so they begin to market their ice up and down the eastern coast started with Maine.

Through the gain of investors and independent distributors, they got their ice cream in ever store through out the New England states. Soon the company would become a publicly traded stock and the company was huge. In the mid 1980’s, the company was selling more than four million dollars worth of ice cream a year.

Today their top selling flavors are Cherry Garcia, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chunky Monkey, Chocolate fudge Brownie, Half Baked, New York Super Fudge Chunk, Phish Food, Coffee Health Bar Crunch, Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt, and Peanut Butter Cup. They have played around with their ice cream combos and have become well known for giving each kind a unique name.

In fact, on the back of the containers you can read the story behind that flavor. Some of the flavors started as a joke and ended up being the best selling flavors of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Metallica’s lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, was listed as number 11 on Rolling Stones list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. While playing with Metallica, Hammett contributed to many songs that were huge hits, developed some killer riffs and earned himself and his band seven Grammy awards. Metallica is considered one of the best-known heavy metal bands and has produced many hugely popular albums, including its self titled album that sold 15 million copies. Four of Metallica’s albums reached number one on the Billboard 200 and their combined record sales for all the albums are somewhere around 95 million. If you are a guitar player and would love to replicate Kirk Hammett’s rock star success, take some tips from the man himself.

Hammett possesses a true love for playing the guitar and for music in general. This might explain why he claims to play his guitar 361 days out of the year. If you are looking for guitar tips from Hammett, the first one is to practice obsessively. Hammett started playing the guitar when he was 15 with an unimpressive guitar that he got from a Montgomery Ward catalogue. He decided he needed an amp to go with his guitar so he made one out of a shoebox and a four-inch speaker. Eventually, he got a job as a dishwasher at Burger King to finance his musical inclination. It wasn’t too long before Hammett was able to upgrade to a Fender Stratocaster, and then moved on to his favorite of all time, a 1974 Gibson flying V. Another hint from Hammett is that you don’t have to be in possession of the best equipment available. You just have to start somewhere and work with what you have until you get better and can upgrade. Hammett definitely didn’t start out with the fanciest music gear, but his love of music and playing the guitar kept him going.

Hammett is a man who is constantly curious and interested in learning new things. He is quoted as saying “a life lived unexplored is a life not worth living.” This character trait played out well for him on a few levels in his guitar career. His curiosity kept him experimenting with different techniques on his guitar in a quest to develop something truly unique. This brought about the “Frankenstein” technique that Hammett invented by using different pick-up and amp combinations. After Hammett joined Metallica, his desire to learn and explore gave him the motivation to join the ranks of some other guitar greats and take guitar lessons from Joe Satriani. This was a great move for his career because it bettered his skills as a well-rounded musician when he learned to play jazz, classical and blues from Satriani.

Lastly, Kirk Hammett is a humble guy. One night at 3:15 in the morning when he was touring with Metallica and staying in a hotel room, he composed the famous riff that is included in Metallica’s most popular single “Enter Sandman”. “Enter Sandman” was the first single from Metallica’s self-titled album, which sold 15 million copies. Hammett could have considered himself a big time, accomplished musician at this point and stopped trying to improve his craft. However, even after Metallica’s huge success, Hammet had the humility to admit that there was plenty more that he could learn about guitars. He enrolled in guitar classes at the local city college in San Francisco to continue improving his skills and working on his craft.

Overall, Kirk Hammett is a passionate guitar player who is consistent with his practice and devoted to learning and improving his skills. He remains humble even after the great success of his band and his music. These traits combine to make Kirk Hammett one of the greatest guitar players of all time.

Up until a few years ago, these funny shaped pillows were barely heard of. Now, all of a sudden, they are popping up in bedrooms, living rooms and even kids rooms. Just where did these oversized mammoth pillows come from and how did the funny looking Euro pillow get its name?

In reality, they are not really funny looking. We are just not used to seeing a larger pillow like this. Because they have been predominately used on beds, where Americans are used to rectangular pillows, the pillows will sometimes cause a double take as they are immediately noticeable.

The pillow itself gets its name because while it is fairly new in the states, it is old hat in just about every part of Europe that you can think of. That being the case, the name Euro pillow has been tagged on it and since it is a little catchy the name will probably stick until the end of time.

Originally, pillows of this shape were very popular in ancient Persia and Asia. At the time, they were used for both decorative reasons as well as something to lie your head down upon. While they did not have the current materials, the pillows that were filled with buckwheat hulls were known to be quite comfortable. As time went by, these items were traded and eventually found their way to Europe where they continued to grow in popularity.

The United States is a little behind on this one, but she is quickly catching up. No “trendy” home is complete without a full selection of Euro pillows in the bedrooms and on all the sofas. If you are going to jump in with both feet, make sure you don’t fall for the imitation 24×24 ones though. A true Euro pillow is 26×26 and you are going to enjoy every inch of it.