Going out on a date is easier for some more than others, so if you fall in the category of needing a little extra help not freaking out, going to the movies is a rather common choice to give you something to talk about later. You also happen to be in luck because the current movies being offered up at your local movie theater are some of the best that have been made in a while.

Now, that’s a rather bold statement, but given the ways the movie industry has changed over the last few decades, you could actually make a strong argument that current movies are just better overall in terms of presentation. Script-wise, well, now you’re looking for a real argument.

Back to your date. So, you’ve got options for watching a movie for your date. If you’re the kind of person that tries to really make a splash, you may be taking a whirl at a local cinema brewery which offers full meals, service, and even killer beer while you watch a movie. It’s taking the dinner and a movie date to another level.

When it comes to the movie, though, you want to choose a movie that you’ll both actually enjoy. No one wants to spend money on a bad film, even if it is fun tearing it apart later. So, it’s important for you to know a little about your date. Are they into action? Adventure? Romance? Comedy? Even a simple detail like a preferred movie genre can really help narrow things down. But don’t think of it as something to check off a list. Use it as a great way to get to know your date a little more.

If you’re still having some real trouble getting a read on your date’s movie preferences, here are five current movies that are pretty good bets for a date night:

Ant-Man and the Wasp – This movie has stirred up some serious buzz based purely on the timeline it follows compared to that of other Avengers movies and the protagonist’s place in the Marvel Universe.

Hotel Transylvania 3 – You might find that a kids movie might be a weird choice for a date movie, but it also shows a willingness to have fun. Even a few movies into this franchise, it’s not hard to follow the action and the overall theme of opposites attract. Plus, the voice cast is a who’s who of Hollywood talent.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – If the over-the-top musical numbers set to the music of ABBA from the first film weren’t enough, the sequel promises so much more, including an origin story for the ages.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – A quarter of a century after the first Jurassic Park movie was released, it’s amazing to think that there is still plenty of story to tell about these prehistoric creatures and mankind’s inability to understand that nature always wins.

Christopher Robin – What happens when we put childish things aside and grow-up? It’s a question we never ask because we’re too caught up in it’s taking place. Luckily, your old friend Winnie the Pooh is at hand to help you remember. This is one to watch for sure.

It’s nice to know that you’ve got some variety in the current movies being offered at your local movie theater. Moreover, it’s nice to know you might even have an option for a cool experience with a cinema brewery. Nonetheless, just remember that you’re on a date, so be calm & composed, and don’t try so hard.

Napoleon and Chess

“A leader has the right to be beaten, but never the right to be surprised.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was with no doubt one of the greatest military leaders of his time. For him, failing to prepare meant preparing to fail. Without a plan there was certainly no victory. Without a great strategy you were doomed to lose in battle. And back then that meant your life.

And Napoleon had all the attributes a great leader must have to be successful, and he worked on them by playing an ancient game; a game that has never lost its popularity: Chess. And he sharpened his strategic senses by playing it on a regular basis. And as you might have correctly assumed, he was a master at it.

So I asked myself:

What are the specific positive side effects by playing this game?

And how can we profit from it?

Reason #1 – Creativity

Playing chess will benefit your creativity. While the various opening scenarios of the game might appear similar (I have never played a game that was totally the same), the possibilities afterwards are simply too complex. In this way you really encounter new situations with every game you play – guaranteed. And there are no limits to your creativity. Every game asks for new ways to beat your opponent, you need to vary your tactics in order to outsmart your opponent. For Napoleon these patterns were important for his military strategies: Every battlefield had different conditions and different settings; and not to mention the many different moves of his opponents. Chess seemed to be the perfect practice for this kind of thinking.

Reason #2 – Concentration

In Chess situations can get really complicated and difficult. You have to take several options into account before you finally make your move. This demands a lot of concentration and focus. This is the tough part of chess. Having the will to really think things through.

Imagine how Napoleon would sit over a plan for hours and hours. I don´t know how many hours of the day he used for sleeping but I bet he was simply to focused and concentrated on the task at hand that he might have forgotten to go to bed.

Reason #3 – Logical Thinking

Another great attribute that chess is adding to your life is the improvement of your logical thinking processes. In chess the playing figures are inter dependent, this means that you have to use the figures in harmony with each other. And you do this by logical thinking. You also have to take your future moves into account and most importantly how your opponent might react on this move. You need to think in logical patterns.

Reason #4 – Problem Solving

One of the greatest feelings a chess player can get is the feeling of a successful solution of a problem. Sometimes you can literally feel the pressure when a player is in the aggression mode and is attacking your armies. You need to bring all of the mentioned aspects together to master this difficult situation. By playing chess you not only get used to problems you also get used to start thinking about reasonable solutions. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don´t, but the important thing is that you start the process of trying to solve them.

Reason #5 – Importance of Sacrificing

Back in the days of Napoleon sacrificing was certainly not the best option – resulting in the death of a lot of soldiers. But in chess it sometimes becomes inevitable. You sacrifice in chess in order to get an edge either in your position or in material. Great players are masters of this principle of sacrificing. They draw the attention of their opponent to the initial sacrifice while planning a completely different, more complex way to beat them. I highly recommend to study the following game that was played in 1871 between Glinksberg and Miguel Najdorf. It is called the “Polish Immortal”. In this game Najdorf sacrifices like crazy only to beat Glinksberg with a tiny bishop move at the end. This is art.

Reason #6 – Decision Making

In life and as well in chess you are presented many options. And you are the one to figure out which move is the best in each situation. And it is so nice to see how a chess game develops. With only one move of your opponent many new options are created and presented. And with every new move you have to think them through and make the best possible choice. What a great practice for real life.

Napoleon recognized all these benefits and sharpened his mind by playing a lot of chess. This was a part of his preparation. This was his way of making sure never to end up being surprised.

Today, most of us are not facing a military battlefield but there are a lot of personal ones in our lives:

Our careers, our relationships and even our faith.

So let’s use chess to sharpen our minds and prepare ourselves for all the possible battlefields out there.

I believe that all of us want to express something: an idea, a theory, an opinion or a statement. I also believe that the majority of human beings would love to be creative in the expression of these ideas, theories and statements. Creativity permeates in everything our mind does and is challenged to do. I am certain that if given the chance, most or all of us would love a career in the creative and entertainment industry because it is there where we can express ourselves in the most creative of ways.

Thus, there are many of us who are into art, acting, music, photography, modeling, writing, designing or crafts. We enjoy doing these for many unique combinations of reasons and it would be ideal if we could do it for a living for the rest of our lives. Why do we need to go to work every day, doing something we do not really like as opposed to something that we do enjoy?

So if one has something: a talent, an innate skill, or even simply years of knowledge and experience in one of the arts of expression, it would seem to be a waste if all of a sudden, that person decides to stop dreaming and hoping altogether.

At any point in time, an individual in the creative and entertainment industry can be categorized into one of the three groups described below:

1) Those who have given up on the idea: This group may have already conceded that being say, a rock star was just their teenage dream and that their hours of singing and songwriting had its purpose. However, for it to be a career now would already be too late: now that they are married or now that they have children, etc… etc. If we are not careful, we may stay in this phase for the rest of our lives and always wonder what might have been and perhaps even become bitter because of it without even knowing why.

2) Those who are still hopeful but are not doing anything about their goals presently but would like to get back to them later on: They are doing something else now, like selling, working in a call center, or maybe even managing a manufacturing plant, however they are not setting aside time, money and effort to their goal of being able to create music or take photographs for a living. They can always go back to it later, I suppose, ‘when there’s a bit more time’. Perhaps after they get married, after the first child, after the second child, after they get promoted or after they pay their debts, whatever their unique circumstances may be.

3) Those who are willing and able to allocate time, effort and money to progress their art and talents: The people in this group are doing something with their art and talents. They still believe in the idea that they can become who they want to be — that life can be the way they once saw it, not withstanding all the years of ‘reality checks’ that ensued. They may have actually finished a painting, or have just sold one. They maybe strutting on a catwalk or maybe they are designing a client’s logo this very minute. Or perhaps, it could be something preparatory like preparing the first exhibit in their portfolio or reading a book to learn how to protect their copyright. Regardless of what the effort is, big or small, as long as they are taking active steps, a person will belong to this group.

In the first phase, we experience a very frustrating and demoralizing event in our ‘careers’. We cannot help but feel defeated when our work does not get the reaction we have hoped for or expected and perhaps we begin to believe that we are only fooling ourselves and that we should give up our foolish hopes and dreams.

However, doesn’t it turn out that eventually, you start taking action again (in the 3rd stage) after you have been brooding, perhaps even making tons of excuses for a while (in the 2nd stage)? You come to realize, time and time again, that no matter what, ‘it’ is still what you want to do regardless of what has happened in the past and what may happen or not happen in the future.

After years of experiencing this cycle, I have decided years ago that regardless of what I was doing, and regardless of whatever ‘career’ decisions I may have to make, it must be to advance or support my creative endeavors. It makes more sense because every time I have tried to suppress it, tried to ignore it and tried to pretend that the urge is not there, all I ended up doing was wasting my time. I have learnt to embrace my urge to express myself in creative ways and have accepted that it is part of me and the less time I spend defeated, the sooner I could get to work towards what really matters. Perhaps you can use something from my experience and if what you are experiencing is the same, hopefully you would not spend too much of your life thinking that your ‘passion’ is not really what you want to do. Because honestly, what would be better than doing things to make your life happen the way you dream it?

Over the years, I’ve been very impressed with what Sir Ken Robinson has to say about creativity in our schools. He explains the problem with rote memorization, and seems to speak with the aversion that most Americans have with the No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB). Some of my friends have called the NCLB Legislation; the No Child Allowed to Advance directive. I guess in some regards I do agree with that observation. In one of Sir Ken Robinson’s most famous TED Talk, he suggests that we ought to be teaching dance in our schools, yes dance.

Why you ask? Well, it is a creative exercise and it helps your brain develop and think. He’s right and now neurologists know why. The nerve endings are attached to nerves which run up the spinal column and right into the brain, it’s an extension of that system. In fact, if you’d like to learn more about all this, maybe I can save you some trouble in your personal research as I had recently asked myself some of these questions, trying very hard to confirm what many teachers and educators have speculated for decades. If this topic also intrigues you there are some very good books I’d like to recommend that you read;

1. “The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity,” edited by Mark Turner, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2006, 314 pages, ISBN: 978–0-19-530636-1.

This book is a compilation of academically peer reviewed articles and essays on the topic, much of which has taken all the old works of white dead men famous psychologists and merged it with modern day neuroscience. Some of which proves what we inherently already know and have readily observed in case studies, other essays challenge the status quo and knowledge we thought we believed turning everything on its head. A very important set of reads for sure, for anyone researching this topic.

2. “Dance/Movement Therapists in Action: A Working Guide to Research Options,” edited by Robyn Flaum Cruz, Cynthia Florence Berrol, Charles Thomas Publishers, Springfield, IL, 233 pages, ISBN: 978-0-39-80750-40.

Edited in a similar format, but the essays focus on what to do with all this new information and how to best utilize it for therapy. Not only does it do tremendous physical good, but it can be used creatively in therapy and learning to do wonders for cognitive ability, helping the student to overcome challenges and increase their ability to think. It all starts with a little dance. I hope when you get a change, you will choose to dance. Please consider all this and think on it.

This was my first music festival at sea. I got to hang out at the mid-ship pool with 2000 new friends and watch Alabama perform on three different occasions. I enjoyed the music of bands I had never heard of but will not forget. My girlfriend and I line danced in the atrium, played bingo with Randy Owen and wore our bell-bottoms on the 70’s theme night.

The Pearl left Miami on 10/24/13 for a four-day cruise to Nassau, Bahamas, and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas, which is Norwegian’s private island. The spa offered discounts on services while in port. So after a short walk to the straw market in Nassau, I was back on board for a facial and a relaxing afternoon in the thermal suite.

The coed area of the thermal suite included a large mineral pool with lots of bubbles, a smaller hot tub and two shower stalls with color-changing lights. Heated, tile benches were available to relax and take a nap. Lounge chairs faced a large floor to ceiling window that overlooked the bow. The women’s only side had a sauna, a steam room and a cold plunge pool. The spa charged $38 for a one day pass to the thermal suite or $68 for a four-day pass. Since I was in the thermal suite every day, the four-day pass was a real value.

I have been on the Norwegian Pearl before. So whenever I saw someone with a dazed look on their face, I would ask if I could help. It is a great way to make new friends. Our room steward, Eric, made the best monkey I have ever seen out of a blue and white stripped towel. He also kept our small balcony cabin clean and neat. We ate breakfast and lunch at the garden buffet on the pool deck, and had dinner in the Summer Palace at the rear of the ship. I could always find something good to eat. If you don’t like a dish, the waiters are happy to replace it.

Sixthman organized the cruise and did a great job. Before the cruise, they sent me name tags and luggage tags. On the ship they had a representative at the front desk to answer questions. I told her I had left my name tags at home, and she immediately gave me new name tags. While on the ship, we also received Alabama and Friends beach towels, an autographed poster and special Alabama pins. On top of that, everyone got to have their picture taken with Alabama at assigned photo sessions. When I got home, I received an email with a web address where I could download my picture with Alabama. Other pictures from the cruise were also available for free download.

More than half of the people on the ship were over 50 and married. It was a friendly crowd which shared a love for country music and left me with wonderful memories.

At times a Palm Pilot will not turn on. It might appear to be dead, but in most cases it is not. There are a few simple tricks to reviving the Palm Pilot so that you can continue to use it.

The first is to do the needle trick. Palm Pilots were designed with a reset button on the device. They made it hard to hit on accident so you will need a needle or a pin in order to hit the button. One some models you can unscrew the stylus which will have thin plastic device that will fit into the slot. Push the button firmly for a few seconds and the device, assuming it has a charge in the battery, will turn back on. At times the device resets itself while other times it does not. There is data loss at times because the Palm Pilot crashed which was the cause of the problem.

At times you are simply working with a dead battery. Let it charge for at least half a day and try turning it on again. At times the battery itself became too hot or too cold and won’t function properly. After being indoors at a normal temperature for a few days has revived these devices.

Many times, since Palm Pilots are fairly old technology, the batteries have completely died just like they eventually do in devices like your laptop. You will need to replace the battery in order to get your Palm Pilot to function again. You can find used batteries for cheap on sites like eBay. Just make sure it will work with your model before purchasing.

Simply unscrew the back of it and lift off the outer shell. The battery is easily accessed right there. You can unplug the battery from the device and replace the new one pretty simply. After recharging the device it will be in working condition again. Unfortunately this will cause you to lose all your data.