There is so much information available on the internet right now regarding travel. There are online travel sites for cruises, hotels, air, trains and any other type of travel. But what is the correct product for you? Is the location of the hotel where you want to be? Is the type of room or cabin the right fit for you? Is that cruise line the one you should be booking? Not all products are created equal nor are the products right for everyone. How do you tell? Contact a travel professional.

Do travel agents exist?

There have been multiple articles, and even the President of the United States, has said travel agents don’t exist or are going away. In a way they are right. Travel agents in the past were just someone who booked a trip for someone who called or came in to the storefront office of a travel agency. Storefront travel agencies are few and far between now a days as most of the “travel agents” have gone home to work. Even the term “travel agent” is going away because what they do now is different than what they did before.

Travel Professionals/Travel Counselors

Travel Agents are now more a counselor and an adviser so they are now called Travel Professionals or Travel Counselor. Even the travel industry is trying to get away from using the term “travel agent”. They no longer just book a trip for someone, they know more than what is available to the traveling client. The travel professionals now are constantly learning, constantly traveling, receiving input from other travel professionals about where they have traveled and are a resource for what is required to travel now a days.

When you use an online travel agency like Expedia, Travelocity, etc. you aren’t able to have someone protect your back. They book the travel for you and then you are pretty much on your own. Say your flight gets cancelled, who is going to book a replacement flight? You are, not them. If you use a travel professional that travel professional will do it. If something goes wrong on your trip, if the room you booked is not like what you thought it would be, who is going to make it right? A travel professional will also check constantly for price drops before final payment and whether a new promotion offered would be more beneficial than what was booked with a deposit. All these things can be addressed before final payment.

A travel professional works with you from the time you first talk to them until you are home safe and sound and any and all problems have been solved or addressed.

It Costs More to Use a Travel Professional

This is not always true. True, some travel professionals charge fees but not all of them do. This is because some vendors, like airlines and some hotels, don’t pay commission or some of the vendors have decreased the amount of commissions paid to the travel professional. In order to make ends meet, some travel professionals charge fees. I charge $50 per person for airline reservations domestically and $100 for airline reservations internationally. I will also charge a fee sometimes for hotels for the same reason or if I am putting the various sections of the trip together myself. If I book a cruise or a tour, I don’t charge a fee as the vendor pays me a commission. Remember, whether you use a travel professional or not the commission is still being paid as it is automatically included in the price from the vendor. So, why not use a travel professional and avoid the hassle and save your time?

The rules for traveling are constantly changing and it is the travel professional who is able to keep their clients on track with them.

Examples: Passports

For instance, did you know that come January, 2016 you may need a passport to travel by air domestically? This is due to a law called the REAL ID Act. This requires all travelers to have a REAL ID compliant identification that includes all of these fields: full legal name, signature, date of birth, gender, unique identifying number, a principal residence address and a front-facing photograph of the applicant. Unfortunately there are still a handful of states that are non-compliant. Do you know which states are compliant and which aren’t? Your travel professional does. By the way, outright non-compliant states/territories are American Samoa, Louisiana and New Hampshire. The states of Minnesota and New York offer an optional Enhanced ID at a cost, so because it is optional, a large percentage of residents don’t have one. Some states have applied for additional extensions, but it is unclear if those will be granted. Currently, only four states (Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New York) and American Samoa are technically non-compliant.

Also, we still don’t know if January 1, 2016 will be the date of the requirement or will it be later? Because of this law, the passport processing time for all will be affected. All the passports issued in 2006 to meet the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative that went into effect in 2007 are now expiring, causing a slew of renewals. So, because of those renewals coupled with the possible REAL ID enforcement, passport waits are expected to further increase. As of October 11, the current wait has already increased a week to four to six weeks for standard passports and three weeks for expedited. Expedited in person could be up to eight days based on travel need.

Ultimately the REAL ID Act will require all state-issued drivers’ licenses to include “machine-readable technology” or chips to help keep us safe and secure while traveling. For more information on the REAL ID Act go to http://www.dhs.gov/real-id-public-faqs.

Also, passports are recommended for cruises just like they are required to fly outside of the United States. The reason being is if you do need to fly back to the United States from a foreign port you have a passport to do so. Just because you are on a cruise leaving a United States port, technically you are traveling internationally just as soon as you step on the ship as most ships are registered outside of the United States!

Example: Visas

A travel professional would be able to help you determine if visas are required to travel to where you want to go. If they don’t know for sure, they know where to send you for that information and get confirmation that you do or don’t need one for the type of travel you are taking. For instance, for most cruises if you leave an U.S. port and return to the same U.S. port you probably don’t need a visa to visit the ports. This is called a “closed loop” trip. But, again, most of the cruises. Always double check to see if one is needed.

Example: Travel Insurance

Again, not all travel insurance is created equal. Should you purchase travel insurance? Absolutely!!! I recommend to my clients not to purchase travel insurance, for the most part, from the supplier of the cruise or product. The reason being the coverage is not as comprehensive as third party policies. Travel insurance is not only purchased for travel delays, luggage lost/damage or cancellation protection. Some health insurance companies do not cover you when traveling outside of the United States. Medicare does not. Travel insurance will act as your primary health insurance during your travel, from the time you leave to the time you return to your home. Also, it provides emergency evacuation for health reasons and protects you for other items. Always read the policy and information provided by the issuer of the travel insurance to see what is covered. Your travel professional will know which is a good travel insurance issuer.

Physical abuse and verbal abuse can be inflicted on you by others, and also by your self. People can make the choice to yell, swear, slam doors, and break things, hit, punch, drive like a maniac, and a million other ways of expressing frustration and anger. Likewise one can make the choice to self-harm and take extreme risk in multiple forms of self-abuse such as cutting, drinking, smoking, taking drugs and unsafe sex.

Emotional abuse, in my experience however, is self-inflicted. Where are a person’s emotions when they are demonstrating anger and other abusive behaviours? There is only one emotion, one form of energy in motion, and that is love. It is either flowing freely and feeling great, or not flowing freely and feeling not so great. When I feel hurt (love-less) I get angry (defensive action), hence anger is not an emotion but a choice of action.

Physical and verbal abuse is an outward expression of frustration. Frustration runs on a continuum from slightly frustrated to extremely frustrated or anger. Frustration occurs when mind and emotion are in conflict, when thoughts interfere with the flow of love. The mind holds an expectation of how things should be, and when the scenario is not playing out as expected one has two choices.

First choice is to connect to your love strongly and explore loving options and solutions for change. This is a wise choice. The second choice is to disconnect from your emotions and become defensive. This is not a wise choice. This is self-inflicted emotional abuse. In truth, only you have the ability to choose love or fear, and no-one else can make that choice for you.

Your love is your power and energy supply. To shut it down through conflicted thinking is to be power-less, to be love-less. When love is the only power than can resolve a difficult situation, to shut it down is insanity! It is also self-abuse.

This practice, when used frequently and regularly, can become an automatic habit that functions faster than you can think on an unconscious level. We then project the feelings of discomfort outward and blame others for our discomfort, not realizing it was our own unconscious habit that caused the discomfort in the first place.

This habit has been carried by our society for centuries and is well entrenched at a genetic level. Old habits are hard to break but new ones can be made. To deal with self-inflicted emotional abuse you need to practice and rehearse the choice to go to love always, and just like driving a car, do it till it becomes automatic.

One day, someone will hail abuse at you and you will actually feel calm and loving towards yourself and empathy towards them, knowing they are feeling love-less and that there is only one true response to that. You will feel sure of yourself and confident in the love that you are. From here you will make loving choices for yourself and for others. Is staying with an abuser a loving choice?

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your inner voice; have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.

Whether you admit it or not, one of the very reasons why us men want to get tattoo in the first place is to be attractive to the ladies. We want to look cool yet sexy at the same time and we believe that an amazing piece of skin art can help us achieve this purpose. However, the wrong design and execution can make us appear uncool and unattractive. It is therefore important to give your tat journey careful planning and forethought so there will be no regret in the end.

Animal Instinct

There are different kinds of animals that symbolize qualities and characteristics that men wish to possess all the time. These are qualities like bravery, strength, speed and wisdom. The powerful felines like tigers, leopards, lion and jaguars can create authoritative and commanding statement when rendered as skin art. Birds like swallow, eagle and dove, on the other hand can express flight, freedom and peace. The mythical dragon, cunning snake and fearful scorpion all possess qualities like fearlessness and wildness. Choose what quality you specifically want to emanate so you can decide which animal symbol to go for.

Tribal Art

Tribal art would never lose their appeal because they rooted from tribes of pre-industrial times where tattoos are part of their social and religious values. However, rather than going for just some random tribal art you found on the web, make this tattoo as authentic and interesting as possible. You can do that by defining which kind of tribal art you would want to be inked on your body, perhaps something to do with your heritage. Will it be from the Maoris of New Zealand, Samoans from the Polynesians or maybe Aztecs from Mexico? There are actually tattoo artists who specialize in this certain kind of genre as they can be complicated and intricate to draw on the body.

Old School Appeal

Old school tattoos seem to be making a comeback these days, perhaps some people would not want to go as elaborate or as intricate when it comes to their skin art. Moreover, these traditional tattoo piece seem to have never lost their appeal as their message are clear and outright stated. Symbols like skull, rose, cross, pin-up girl and heart be charming and pretty as long as you work with a talented tattoo artist to execute these designs perfectly.

My advice to guys like me, cool and sexy tattoos are not hard to achieve, just be sincere and true to its meaning and the rest can follow.

A good friend of mine had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with Dr. Charles Garnier who is a government research scientist in French Polynesia who specializes in researching Morinda citrifolia (noni). He received a Masters Degree from UCLA with his thesis on the components of noni. He also holds a Doctorate in agronomy science. His specialty is to analyze plants and break down all the materials that are contained in the plants, including all the minerals, vitamins, nutriceuticals, and so forth. He has proven that the materials contained in plants come directly from the soil in which they grow. The makeup of the terrain, the weather, geographic locale, and other factors, also affect what is contained in the plant because they affect soil conditions.

He has shown that soil has such identifiable traits (with regard to what it contains), that a specific piece of ground leaves its “fingerprint” on plants that grow there. The combination and levels of minerals, vitamins, and other trace materials in the plant will be found in a certain configuration if the plant grew in a specific spot. Thus, a plant that grows in one location on an island can be distinguished from a plant that grows in another location. And it can be proven, by meticulously analyzing the soil and other plants in the vicinity, that the plant grew in a very specific location.

Dr. Garnier has applied these same principles to the study of noni around the world. For many years he has carefully analyzed the makeup of noni plants from various tropical locations, including among others, all the islands of French Polynesia, Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Central and South America and various parts of Asia.

In fact, Dr. Garnier’s research has shown that some noni plants growing outside French Polynesia can actually be harmful to the body. He found that noni plants growing on islands that are relatively active volcanically (such as many places in the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines) absorb high levels of mercury and lead. Some of these levels that he measured were dangerously high, enough so to make a human ill.

When a person ingests this noni containing high levels of heavy metals, the mercury and lead poison the body. There have been numerous reports of people in the Philippines becoming ill when they drink homemade noni juice produced from local noni plants. About five years ago, the government closed down a noni capsule business (Japanese owned) in Hawaii because the product was making consumers ill.

There are no active volcanoes in French Polynesia, and have not been for a long, long time. In fact, the French Polynesian Islands are geologically millions of years older than the Hawaiian Islands. Dr. Garnier also found that noni plants which grow on flat terrain contain fewer beneficial nutrients than noni that grows on sloped terrain. Also, noni growing where there is too much rainfall (which leaches out the soil nutrients) or too little rainfall (which doesn’t allow for adequate plant growth), produced inferior fruit.

Dr. Garnier noted that even among the 118 islands of French Polynesia, there is a difference between the noni plants, depending on which island they come from (and even which area on the island they come from, such as in the valley or up on the ridge).

To make an effective noni product a company must first have a thorough understanding of the science of noni, including the ability to analyze in minute detail all the materials that are contained in the various noni plants. Second, the company must have available a wide cross-section of noni plants, grown under optimal conditions, that they can harvest and scientifically blend to provide the ultimate natural product to bless the body.

Noni is a very complex gift of nature — you be the judge.

Polynesian people are descendants of those early mariners that crossed the great waters and became the original inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands. In order to survive those long cold oceanic journeys, their Polynesian bodies evolved to develop maximum muscle building capabilities as a means of generating and preserving body temperature.

This was a direct adaptation to an environmental factor. Those that could not adapt died, whereas the survivors carried with them genetic advantages, creating a hybrid body of sorts, capable of performing enormous feats of physical labor, on very little calories, and very little water.

Colonization of the Pacific Islands only encouraged the Polynesian body to propagate these gene characteristics, as the early Islanders literally hacked their homes out of the forests with their bare hands. Domesticating wildlife and horticulture, was a herculean feat, and the scarcity of fresh water developed a need for the Polynesian body to store fluids efficiently.

These early evolutionary patterns form the basis of the contemporary Polynesian body. It enables Polynesian bodies to:

1. Build muscle easily

2. Possess unique strength to mass capabilities

3. Withstand harsh environmental conditions more easily

4. Endure long periods with little food and little water

Unfortunately these adaptations also mean Polynesian bodies will

1. Store excess energy more easily in the form of body fat

2. Store excess water subcutaneously

3. Burn calories at a slower more gradual pace

In the absence of the extreme physical labors performed by our Polynesian ancestors, and the readily abundant food in western cultures, it is no surprise that Polynesian bodies have a tendency to gain unsightly body fat. This storage of excess energy was a survival adaptation for the days of leanness prevalent in the island cultures, but completely absent in western cultures.

Here are 3 of the best tips to improve a Polynesian Body

1. Exercise, choosing intense weight training over cardio.

Polynesian bodies are designed to work out with maximum intensity. Once or twice a week is sufficient. If you are weight training 5 – 6 days a week, I guarantee that you can train twice as hard once or twice a week. Another way of looking at it is this: If you can weight train for 90 min’s, I assure you, you can train harder for 40 min’s. Remember that you can train hard or you can train long, but you can’t do both. Always choose to train hard. Intense training triggers the release of muscle building hormones into the blood stream. Jane Fonda workouts do not. Polynesian bodies respond well to incredibly intense training regimes performed less often.

2. Don’t eat everyday.

This one may come as a shock to you, especially if you are Polynesian, but it is true. You may have heard that if you don’t eat every few hours then your body goes into starvation mode, yada, yada, yada. Who came up with this idea, did they get the rest of the day off for such brilliance? It is simply not true. Polynesian bodies have descended from a genetic strain of humans that could survive for weeks without food and rest and very little water.

Early man tracked herds over vast expanses, on foot, and when they finally engaged their prey they could somehow muster the strength and energy, in this depleted state, to run down and kill a beast more than ten times their size. I know one thing’s for sure. Put a bunch of these early hominids in the NFL and they would stomp the snot out of those juice heads. We need to tap into that power, and utilize the body’s stored energy.

The idea that you feel tired all the time, and that you need to eat constantly to maintain your energy levels are fabrications of the weak modern mind that prevent us from exploiting the vastness of our true human potential.

3. Eat real, natural, unprocessed foods indigenous to the islands, and eat just enough to be satisfied.

A Polynesian body can store more water, so drink plenty to discourage water retention.

Organic fruits, vegetables, seafood, coconut oil, taro, along with chicken, pork and beef are the mainstay of the Polynesian diet. These are the foods which Polynesian bodies have adapted to assimilate efficiently through hundreds of years of evolution. Polynesians should not consume processed foods. Canned foods and commercially packaged foods combined with the naturally high fat Polynesian diets create metabolic mayhem in the Polynesian body. Eliminate all processed and man made foods gradually.

Through the evolutionary process of natural selection, Polynesian bodies can become the ultimate muscle building powerhouse, or an unsightly storage system for excess energy and water weight. Polynesian bodies can build muscle more efficiently because they possess slightly lower metabolisms, and have a genetic propensity to store more water. Over 70% of muscle is water. This is a wonderful adaptation for gaining muscle mass, but slightly detrimental when the desire is to burn body fat, and flush subcutaneous water. Polynesian bodies also possess a unique hormonal environment that allows muscle gain to take place more effectively. A gift to the contemporary Polynesian body from their ancestors who survived some of the most brutal oceanic endeavors.

To approach genetic potential a Polynesian bodybuilder should train with extreme intensity, less often, control caloric intake and manage their water correctly.

Tattooing has been in practice over a period of thousand years in the Pacific islands. In Hawaii, tattoos are used in the form of expression, celebration and to distinguish between the members of different tribe. Here, they use a tool that is traditionally said to be borrowed from nature, unlike the other technology; used my tattoo machine. Some of the tools used in tattooing are Bird Beaks, Bones and claws of large fish. The Hawaiian tattoos were initially symmetrical geometric design but later changed to beautiful pictures of animals, by the influence of the western culture.

Each tattoo has a different meaning depending upon the placement of the tattoo on the body. In Hawaii, women clothing designs and stone press focused mainly on the feet, hands, calves and fingers. Tattoos on the face was the common one in Hawaii, you can always find one at the ridge forehead, chin, cheek bone and on the cheeks. The Hawaiian tattoo designs have hidden meaning, which express much deeper feeling and its more personal. This is the main reason why a tattoo of these pacific regions differs from the rest of the world. Hawaiian tattoos look bolder and has forms of Samoa because the tattoos gives you the closest characteristics of the individual and concentrating less on ceremonial purpose.

Hawaii is a beautiful island in United States with a unique land structure and climate that allows the growth of a variety of flowers and most of these flowers can be seen only in Hawaii and not in any other country. Some of the lovely flowers seen in this island are Yellow hibiscus, pikake, orchids and plumeria. The pikake and plumeria has the best fragrance among the other flowers. The yellow Hibiscus is the state flower in the region and includes a lot of varieties like Hibiscus waimeae, Hibiscus syriacus, Hibiscus clayi known as the Hawaiian Hibiscus and Hibiscus kokio. The colors of the flower varies from purple, pink, yellow, white and red but when tattooing, the yellow color is preferred the most because that is color of the state flower.

While choosing a flower tattoo design from a variety of Hawaiian flowers, you must have one thing in mind that what does the flower symbolizes. Hawaiian flower tattoos have become popular all over the world with its exotic and unique designs that have thick black lines with little color detail. An orchid leu is the famous among the Hawaiian flower tattoos which come in various colors that depends on the meaning the flower conveys. People from every part of the world just visit this place, to get a flower tattoo done that looks so realistic.

In ancient Greece, the cynics proclaimed themselves as citizens of the world and were strong supporters of free speech. Their most famous leader was Diogenes (400-325 B.C.E.) who was often referred to as the “dog” and who famously lived in a tub. In fact, the word “cynic” itself meant dog since most of the adherents of this group decided to shun social conventions and to live in a natural, animal state. It involved even urinating and defecating in public and living with as few worldly possessions as possible.

Their philosophical stance was an act of rebellion against the accepted, often hypocritical, corrupted and materialistic forms of living. They claimed that human laws of etiquette are illusory and that humans may be rational and social, yet they still pertain to the animal group and ought not to aspire towards a supposedly higher nature. Plato used to refer to Diogenes as a “Socrates gone mad”.

The romantics of the nineteenth century were another group that may have been an inspiration for the hippie movement in the 1960s. The romantics felt out of touch with a world that was growing more and more technological and logical and that seemed to be losing touch with both personal feelings and nature. They claimed that humankind cannot be reduced to simple scientific formulas and that the focus of the Age of Enlightenment on reason and rational thought was erroneous because it was ignoring a major part of the human make-up, the capacity for feelings.

Romantic sentiments and all forms of passion, no matter how destructive or irrational, were exalted; to express one’s deepest emotions and one’s individuality were the primal concerns of the movement. As such, the romantics contributed greatly to the formation of national identity and a growing sense of individualism.

The hippies themselves began to reject accepted norms and regulations that were imposed upon them by the government and their conservative society as a whole. Similar to the cynics, they decided to undergo social customs by not cutting their hair and by wearing their own distinctive clothing and often rags to protest against the clean-cut hypocritical tendencies of their age, especially the picturesque and well-groomed family ideal of the 1950s.

The hippies resembled the romantic movement in that they preferred to base their actions on spontaneous outbursts of feeling rather than on rational thought or deliberation. They circumvented social restrictions that limited their freedom and with the aid of the sexual revolution, they helped redefine gender roles while opposing rigid and institutionalized ideas on love and marriage.

The fact that the hippies used drugs was nothing new since the romantics had already experimented with hallucinogenic drugs, mostly absinthe and opium, which they saw as not only increasing spontaneity but also as a means of bringing forth creativity as well.

The ideological beliefs of returning to nature and living in harmony with it had been largely fueled by field studies of the anthropologist Margaret Mead, especially her work entitled Coming of Age in Samoa in which she demonstrated that there were other alternative lifestyles practiced in different parts of the world. The Samoans apparently lived in perfect harmony with nature and each other and felt sexually liberated as they were purportedly not being limited by the stigmas and prohibitions of stifling communities that the modern world experienced at the time.

As can be seen, even modern movements have not only roots and foundations in the past but those historical events may even serve, consciously or subconsciously, as inspiration or fodder for other times to come. For instance, the growth of technology has often been associated with alienation towards nature and others, especially since the industrial revolution. In addition, conflicts with rigid and inflexible values and lifestyles have been common since ancient Greece and they are prone to return in different time periods, similar to Vico’s cyclical conception of history.

It seems every year of the new millennium has seen some huge events occur; little perhaps of the magnitude of September 11, 2001 or the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, but still, here are the ten biggest, most memorable events of the year MMIX (so far), in reverse order:

NUMBER 10

July 22 – Longest total solar eclipse of the 21st Century takes place

Lasting six minutes and 38 seconds this was the second of three (the first and third were more minor penumbral lunar) eclipses in one month and it was observed by millions over China, Japan, Nepal and India. The next comparably-sized solar eclipse will occur beyond our time in 2132.

NUMBER 9

January 20 – President Barack Obama is inaugurated 44th President of the USA

Heralding a new hope, President Obama comes into office amid depths of uncertainty surrounding the Global Financial Crisis. His slogan, ‘Yes, we can,’ is apt; he’s appears the man of the hour for such a time as this.

NUMBER 8

March 3 – Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lankan international cricketers; eight people are killed

Not a large terrorist event but one that was significant by virtue of the target. International teams are now put on further notice as they travel to the world’s trouble spots.

NUMBER 7

February 7 – The Black Saturday bushfires kill 173 people and leave 7,500 homeless in Victoria, Australia

A shockingly devastating set of climatic conditions and a combination of electrically and deliberately lit fires spark unprecedented fire emergencies throughout the State. The event transforms the Australian culture toward bushfire from generally lax to vigilant almost overnight such was the depth of human tragedy experienced. The national response to the plight of the victims via charity is an unprecedented success.

NUMBER 6

May 25 – North Korea announces it has conducted its second successful nuclear weapon test

This was a significant event from the perspective of the future peace and sustainability of the world and major country diplomatic unity. North Korea continues to defy international convention and arrogantly sets itself as one of the key dictator and recalcitrant countries of the 21st Century.

NUMBER 5

September 29 & 30 – Tsunamis off Samoa and Sumatra kill over 1,000 people and destroy critical infrastructure

After the Boxing Day tsunamis of 2004 there is heightened awareness of the cost and scope of tsunami events in terms of human tragedy. This was fortunately almost nothing in comparison to the 2004 event in terms of human loss, where over 300,000 are thought to have lost their lives.

NUMBER 4

June 1 – Air France Flight 447 flying from Brazil plunges into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228

Mystery surrounded this event for days after and it still does. Only 51 bodies of the 228 killed have been recovered and the black box flight data recorder has also not been found, precluding the investigation significantly.

NUMBER 3

April 24 – The World Health Organization is concerned at the initial outbreak of Influenza (later known as Swine Flu [H1N1])

This was later deemed a global pandemic on June 11. Although this pandemic was the first of its order since the Hong Kong strain in 1967/68 its virulence was less than expected though many lost their lives and millions suffered a very debilitating influenza.

NUMBER 2

November 25 – Rumours begin to circulate about Tiger Woods extramarital affairs

No one likes to see a superstar, especially one with such a slick and clean image as Tiger had, plunge and lose an amazing amount of credibility, destroying his reputation–but this has happened. This event sparks a world of media and popular interest, inappropriate humour and condemnation.

NUMBER 1

June 25 – the death of “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson

For much of the world this was a shocking and horrifically sad end to the King of Pop, who was concluding his rehearsals of “This Is It,” his fifty London shows, the curtain call of his musical career. The event of the reporting of his death and the later memorial service (July 7) pushed internet traffic to unprecedented levels–an electronic tsunami.

So, there we have it–a big year in anyone’s language. What lies ahead in 2010, apart from changing our naming convention of the year? (i.e. instead of two-thousand-and-nine/ten we’ll start to call the years proceeding from now, twenty-ten, and so forth.)

Will there be a more massive or catastrophic natural disaster–and more to the point, will we be ready? (Can we be ready?) Which famous figures will die? Will there be a key assassination? Will the world be plunged for a time into ‘electronic darkness?’

It all remains to be seen.

© 2009 S. J. Wickham.

Source data: “2009.” Wikipedia, Retrieved 10 December 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act was enacted by the Congress in 2010 as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act to combat tax evasion by US persons holding investments in offshore accounts. The United States Treasury Department and the IRS continue to develop guidance concerning FATCA. The Act generally requires foreign financial institutions to report certain information about certain financial accounts held by U.S taxpayers or by foreign entities in which U.S taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest and pay the taxes they owe.

FATCA generally requires the reporting of foreign financial assets, including some common ones such as, financial accounts held at foreign financial institutions. Foreign stocks or securities not held in a financial account. Foreign partnership interests and mutual funds. Some less commonly reported are ones such as, investment assets held by foreign or domestic grantor trusts for which you are the grantor. Foreign issued life insurance or annuity contracts with a cash value. Foreign hedge funds and foreign private equity funds.

U.S law treats U.S persons and foreign persons differently for tax purposes. U.S national refers to an individual born in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S Virgin Islands. Individual who were born in American Samoa or were born in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands who have elected to be treated as U.S nationals. The Child Citizenship Act, applied to both adopted and biological children of U.S citizens which provide for the automatic acquisition of U.S citizenship after meeting certain conditions. An alien is any individual who is not a U.S citizen or U.S national, you are considered a nonresident alien unless you meet one of two tests. You are a resident alien of the United States for tax purposes if you meet either the green card test or the substantial presence test for the calendar year (January 1-December 31). You are a resident, for U.S federal tax purposes, if you are a Lawful Permanent Resident of the United States at any time during the calendar year. This is known as the “green card” test. To meet the United States resident for tax purpose test, you must be physically present in the United States (U.S) on at least:

1) 31 days during the current year and

2) 183 days during the 3 year period that includes the current year and the two years immediately before that.

Under FATCA, U.S taxpayers holding financial assets outside the United States must report those assets to the IRS. It’s in addition to the long-standing requirement to report with tax return known as FinCEN Form 114 Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts known as FBAR. FATCA require foreign financial institutions to report directly to the IRS information about financial accounts held by U.S taxpayers or by foreign entities wherein U.S taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest. The reporting institutions not only include banks, but other financial institutions such as investment entities, brokers, and certain insurance companies. Some non-financial foreign entities also have to report of their U.S. owners. We can see that’s the reason when one try’s to set up a new account with a foreign financial institution, they ask information about citizenship.

FATCA requires U.S taxpayers who hold foreign financial assets with aggregate value of more than the reporting threshold (at least $50000) to report information about those assets on Form 8938 along with tax returns. Reporting thresholds vary based on whether you file a joint income tax return or live abroad. If you are single or file separately from your spouse, you must submit Form 8938 if you have more than $200,000 of foreign financial assets at the end of the year and you live abroad or more than $50,000, if you live in the United States. US Citizen whose tax home is in a foreign country and has been present in a foreign country or countries for at least 330 days out of a consecutive 12 month period is considered to live abroad. When you are filing married joint tax return and living abroad, one should file Form 8938 when the total value of foreign financial assets is more than $400,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $600,000 at any time during the year. These thresholds apply even if only one spouse resides abroad. If you are not married then the total value of financial assets is more than $200,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $300,000 any time during the year.

One should file Form 8938 if you file as single and total value of foreign financial assets is more than $50,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $75,000 at any time during the tax year. In case filing tax return as married filing jointly, then the total value of foreign financial assets is more than $100,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $150,000 at any time during the tax year. If you file as married filing separate then the total value of foreign financial assets is more than $50,000 on the last day of the tax year or more than $75,000 at any time during the tax year. While calculating the value of foreign financial assets, threshold, include one-half the value of any specified foreign financial asset jointly owned with your spouse. But for reporting purpose the entire value is to be reported on form 8938.

Foreign Financial Assets:

Foreign financial assets include foreign financial accounts and foreign non-account assets held for investment (as opposed to held for use in a trade or business), such as foreign stock and securities, foreign financial instruments, contracts with non-US persons and interests in foreign entities. These are to be reported.

Foreign currency is not a specified foreign financial asset. Foreign real estate is not a specified foreign financial asset if used as a personal residence or a rental property. If the real estate is held through a foreign entity, then the interest in the entity is to be reported if the total value of all specified foreign financial assets is greater than the reporting threshold that applied. Directly held tangible assets, such as art, antiques, jewelry, cars and other collectibles, are not specified foreign financial assets. Directly held precious metals, such as gold, are not specified foreign financial assets. However, gold certificates issued by a foreign person may be foreign financial asset and need to be reported based upon reporting threshold.

Exceptions:

You don’t have to report an asset if a financial account is maintained by a US payer. A US payer includes a US branch of a foreign financial institution, a foreign branch of a US financial institution, and certain foreign subsidiaries of US corporations. Therefore, financial accounts with such entities do not have to be reported. You don’t have to report assets if the person having beneficial interest in a foreign trust or a foreign estate, don’t know or have reason to know of the interest. If you receive a distribution from a foreign trust or foreign estate, you have the knowledge of your interest in the trust or estate. You don’t have to report if you have interest in a social security, social insurance or other similar program of a foreign government, as these are not considered specified foreign financial assets. If specified foreign financial assets has been reported on other Forms then you don’t have to report them a second time on Form 8938.

Normally a reasonable estimate of the highest fair market value of the asset during the tax year is reported and one needs to determine the value of specified foreign financial assets to know whether the value exceeds the threshold applicable based on the filing status etc. To determine fair market value of a specified foreign financial asset a reasonable estimate is sufficient based upon the publicly available information from reliable financial sources or other verifiable sources. For foreign assets the value is denominated in foreign currency. One has to use the US Department of Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service’s foreign currency exchange rates to convert the denomination into US dollars. The exchange rate is based on the exchange rate on the last day of the tax year.

Effect of Non-Compliance:

Penalty for non-compliance is huge. If one has to file Form 8938 but does not file it, then IRS imposes $10,000 failure to file penalty, an additional penalty of up to $50,000 for continued failure to file after IRS notification, and a 40 percent penalty on an understatement of tax attributable to non-disclosed assets. If one fails to file or properly report an asset on Form 8938, statute of limitations is extended by three years following the time one provides the required information. If one omits from gross income more than $5000 attributable to specified foreign financial assets, the statue of limitations is extended to six years after you file your return. Exceptions apply if the failure is due to reasonable cause, then the statute of limitations is extended only with regard to the item or items related to such failure and not for the entire tax return. If the failure to disclose is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect, no penalty will be imposed. Reasonable cause is determined on a case-by-case basis, based on facts and circumstances.

IRS has announced new streamlined compliance procedure, if you are a non-resident US taxpayer. Contact a tax professional to get your case visited to ensure compliance with FACTA.

My husband and I decided to lose some weight about a year ago, but because I have asthma I have problems doing any vigorous and high impact exercise like walking, running, and jogging. I love the water and I enjoy the outdoors so we decided to try a fairly new sport that we had heard about from my husband’s brother Mike who lives in Southern California. It’s called stand up paddle boarding or SUP for short. Most people like to use their surf boards and just buy a paddle since a SUP is basically a surfboard and a paddle, but a lot of your newer SUP’s have a non slip surface on the top, so you don’t need to use Surfwax on it.

The first time I used a SUP I had borrowed Mike’s, he has this banged up surfboard and a paddle he rigged up by taping a broom handle and a kayak paddle together with some waterproof tape, it’s not very conducive to learning how to SUP, and after a few wet episodes, I think I landed in the water a grand total of three times before I found the “sweet spot” on the board and the proper paddling stance I was cruising along and paddling like a champ. I kept at it the whole week we were in California and lost about an inch and a half around my midsection and my arms felt tighter and well more muscled than they did before, of course that well defined arm feeling could have just been my imagination but it makes me feel good. My husband on the other hand is quite a bit shorter than I am and got the hang of everything a lot quicker though he did jab himself with the longer paddle more often.

My husband and I wanted to continue doing the stand up paddle boarding at home, so I have been checking into buying us our own Stand up Paddle Board and paddle. I have decided that I am going to go with the Sevylor Samoa Inflatable Stand Up Paddle Board, and a Cannon Adjustable Stand Up Paddle. Now we both will be able to use the same SUP and paddle because it will adjust to my taller height, and his shorter height with just a couple of clicks. I am also buying Mike an adjustable paddle for Christmas so the next time we are out in California we can race to see who is the better SUP’er, and because he really needs a proper paddle to compete with me and my hubby. Cannon paddles make a really good Christmas gift idea for him too because he can pack it down into his suitcase to take it back to California instead of us having to foot the bill on the shipping cost.

If you’re interested in buying your own SUP or adjustable paddle, or you just want a great holiday gift for someone. You can check them out at PortableKayaks.com. Stand up paddle boarding is a lot of fun, it’s a great way to get out and enjoy the water from a unique point of view, it is great exercise, and a fun way to spend time with your family.