People cannot be blamed for not understanding about any secret differences that exist between the meanings of eternal, infinite and perpetual. For thousands of years scholars have written complicated theories about that issue and many great thinkers were executed, imprisoned, or placed into exile for their efforts. Nonetheless, the matter has now become one of global human survival concern. Simple explanations, instead of complicated conspiracy speculations, are long overdue.

The molecule of emotion was discovered by Dr Candace Pert in 1972. Because of that discovery we can see why these secret differences have caused so much emotional chaos throughout history. The molecules evolve emotion by increasing the speed of their molecular movement. As well as evolving emotion, they also evolve the functioning of the endocrine system. This is essential for maintaining a healthy adaptation to a perpetual change of environmental reality. Platonic-Fullerene medical chemistry has now been rigorously established from the fractal logic of the ancient Greek Science for Ethical Ends . Based upon the physics principles of Sir Isaac Newton's unpublished Heresy Papers, the new chemistry reveals the electromagnetic difference between aesthetics and ethics. The former functions within an entropic quantum mechanical environment to produce cerebral recognition of evolving survival information through the process of quantum biological entanglement.

The molecular speeding up process can be shown to be obeying a property of fractal logic belonging to the functioning of an infinite universe. Accepted modern science realises that fractal logic can extend to infinity, but it is unable to associate that process with the living process. This is because the existing general understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, now governing all accepted science, holds that all life in the universe must be destroyed when the universe descends into a thermodynamic Armageddon. Under entropic law, it is just as impossible to make a perpetual motion machine as it is to make perpetual peace on earth. Newton's heresy was to balance mechanical decay with an evolving infinity, belonging to his infinite universe theories.

By revealing the secret confusion in society between concepts of eternity and infinity we become free from the merciless entropic yoke that has been imposed upon civilization by entropic law.

The process of universal change is obvious, infinity becomes definable as perpetual change, while eternal religious lore imposes upon civilization a fixed fictitious Armageddon of universal entropic death and destruction. Once again, science has been contaminated by the Church as it was when the earth was forbidden to revolve around the sun. All life sciences were forced to be only about a species moving toward total universal death and destruction for the religious objective of providing a fictitious redemption for an immortal soul deemed unfit for an infinite evolutionary purpose.

Scholars such as the 15th Century Nicholas of Cusa, tried to explain these matters about the Philosophy of the Infinite to the Vatican and developed profound mathematical theories about such matters, but he was later imprisoned and exiled for doing so. His work led on to the 18th Century electromagnetic theories of Immanuel Kant, of a God like perpetual peace on Earth. Kant's electromagnetic ethic was banished from science, while his Aesthetics art appreciation theory went on to become the basis of Western Moral Jurisprudence Law for perpetual economic growth to sustain civilization.

The love of beauty can be considered part of the evolutionary process and its fractal logic functioning within the cerebral functioning is now understood in terms of quantum biology. The ancient Platonic concept of Wisdom Through Beauty is considered to be an electromagnetic phenomena. It is now morally essential that WesternMoral Jurisprudence Law be rewritten to accommodate Immanuel Kant's theories about perpetual peace. By modifying the existing moral law from its entropic disposition by exposing the secret social difference between eternal and infinite we might then be able to legally make sure that the world becomes a better, healthier place.

Professor Robert Pope ©

Technological disruptions and innovative business models have made traditional ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) almost extinct while transforming every business into a digital business. Some of the key drivers of this transformation include the adoption of the cloud and SaaS-based business model, which allow vendors to make a rapid transition from a cloud-first approach to cloud-only approach.

Clearly, ISVs have to modify themselves to reveal a higher level of technological competence in order to meet the exponential technological requirements of the businesses. In simple words, they need to acquire the expertise to deliver inventive solutions to their customers. On the contrary, if ISVs fail to modernize themselves, chances are, they may get extinct by 2025.

The challenges that a typical ISV faces in its modernization pursuit is that majority of the companies are still struggling to understand the need of transforming their business and systems. It is imperative to undergo the transformation of legacy systems and processes, nevertheless, the involved costs and risks are comparatively high. Transforming existing legacy systems without disrupting new systems and infrastructure, requires a system that provides an access to the existing systems.

Software products and their future:

· Let’s check that how technology and disrupted business models are impacting software products and ISVs.

· We are witnessing a shift from traditional software licensing model to Software as a Service (SaaS) licensing model. Also, the enterprise software is rapidly transforming into enterprise SaaS.

· As businesses are gearing up for the adoption of transformative business models, they have started utilizing utility computing and SaaS, while moving from Capex to Opex model.

· The revolutionary shift to platform-centric world empowered businesses to operate in new ways. New platforms will support every software product as a producer, consumer or match-maker.

· Since businesses are becoming more interdependent and connected, ISVs will no longer have to handle software product’s configurations, integrations, and functions independently.

· Micro-services based architectures and digital applications will rapidly replace monolithic architectures and standalone applications.

· Universal computing, high-quality performance and consumer grade UX/DX/CX in enterprise SaaS applications will be driven by customer’s expectations and demands.

Factors stopping ISVs from getting modernized:

Though businesses are looking for technology modernization, still ISV’s are holding back themselves from modernizing their software products, why? Let’s check:

Outdated technologies and skills: The ISV are still running their thousands of software products on legacy technologies like Progress, FoxPro, COBOL etc., due to which their maintenance becomes difficult. Also, the developers and engineers who have built these software products, have the outdated skillset which is one of the biggest hindrances for ISV’s modernization. However, these engineers have skilled expertise in various legacy technologies, they lack much-needed skills required for modernizing ISVs.

Cost consideration: Undoubtedly, ISV had invested their significant resources, time, money to build enterprise-class software products/applications. Therefore, even after knowing the fact that the obsolete technology and the product have no future, they continue to run those software products. It is very usual for ISVs to get trapped by such cost considerations and finding it difficult to consider future requirements.

Fear of failure and risk aversion: Many ISVs have a perception that modernization is inherently risky practice with no certainties. Possibly, they are unsure of the right modernization strategy or maybe lacking required capacity and resources. Thus, for various reasons, risk-aversion and fear failure, ISVs keep the modernization discussion off the table.

Modernization and transformation is the only solution:

In this rapidly changing technological landscape, businesses are moving to digital platforms. If an ISV fails to do so, it may become extinct or die after a certain period. To avoid this death spiral, ISVs must rethink to adopt new technologies to transform their legacy software into digital native applications.

The traditional intentions for the holidays are family, friends, food and socializing. Chanukah, Christmas, Advent, Kwanza, Yule… so many cultural events, this is the spirit of the season. Yet, it is well known that there is also a risk of stress and overwhelm.

Winter is a season of celebration, it is also the season of the element of water. Water can be turbulent and have us flailing and feeling like we are drowning. It can also be a season of rest, renewal, and going with the flow.

My intention is to share simple tips for helping you to choose rest and renewal. Guiding you to navigate the energies and emotions and arrive at the new year rested, renewed, and ready to create and prosper. My gift to you and your gift to yourself.

Following are a few simple tips to help you balance the fun doing and the restful yin energy of the winter water element and enjoy a holiday with less or no stress.

The ideas are simple and may be familiar. However you relate to them please receive them as reminder-invites to be in practice.

I invite you to:

1. Join the fun – Remember it is your holiday too! This sounds simple but often we focus on giving, creating, and making it wonderful for everyone else and forgetting it is our holiday too. For years I was guilty of working to create the holiday then sitting back to observe while others enjoyed my creations. My energy and appreciation for the season changed when I put myself first and remembered to join in the fun and celebration.
2. Be Sense-uous – At least once a day, stop the doing, breathe and take in the spirit of the holiday with all of your senses. By pausing, breathing and bringing your whole being to the experience it will feel like a mini-retreat. The other day, I stopped along Sixth Avenue to take in a deep breath and enjoy the fragrance of the pine trees for sale on the sidewalk.
3. Boundaries – Allow yourself to set boundaries on your time and energy. Be intentional about your time, your eating, your drinking, your helping, and when you say “Yes” or say “No”. Some days will be all about the party and others will be about your needs and desires. It is OK to say “No” when you are doing too much. The winter element calls us to simplify, let go, and conserve energy whenever possible.
4. Big-Kid-friendly – Be sure to add some mindful and mindless fun to your holiday. Get in touch with your inner child, reveling in art, music, and play. Be intentional about activities that get you out of your head with all the thinking and planning and into a lighter body and mind. It can be as simple as joining your children, grandchildren or pet on the floor with their toys, building a snowman or flying a kite. As long as it includes some movement, laughter, or using your hands more than your head.
5. Retreat & Renew – Plan time just for you. This may be a quick break during the busyness or more time after the holidays. Put it on the calendar NOW! It can be part of a day, a whole day or more. It may be a day you enjoy being home alone with a bath, book, and music, or going out to a spa. A day of art and creativity or a walk in the woods. A day when you enjoy your first nap in years, or maybe a simple day with nothing on the calendar. Even if you don’t know what you will do, set the time aside and put the date on your calendar now.

Wishing you and yours a safe, warm and happy holiday of joyful energy.

Bed rest is a common practice designed to help stabilize a variety of complications that may crop up during your pregnancy. Most times the period of rest is short, and you may resume normal activities such as working. In some cases, the period of inactivity may be much longer and may require hospitalization. Below are a few tips to make this time more affordable so you can relax more and worry less. Stress can worsen any health issue. Don’t let financial worry get in your way.

Your gynecologist may prescribe bed rest to improve your chances of having a healthy pregnancy. Common medical reasons precipitating rest at home include: high blood pressure from pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, cervical changes, vaginal bleeding, pre-term labor, high order multiples, diabetes, and placenta disorders such as placenta previa, and placenta abbrevia. Your period of inactivity may last a week, a month, or in rare cases the entire length of your pregnancy. In more severe cases you may be admitted to the hospital for monitoring.

If you have a full-time job a prescription for bed rest may create some unexpected financial concerns such as: how long will I get paid, will I be able to keep my job, and how do I cut my expenses. Finding good answers to these questions can dial back some of the financial pressures. Don’t ignore the advice of your doctor because you can’t afford getting the rest you and your baby need.

Replacing Your Income

Many couples rely on both incomes to make ends meet in their family budget, and leave little financial cushion. Often an extended period of time away from work may translate into lost income. Check on your number of accumulated sick days, and look into any short term disability insurance coverage you might have. Most policies will cover complications of pregnancy, provided that your coverage started prior to conception. Check to see what your monthly benefit amount might be: some policies will cover up to sixty-six percent your salary. Five states have mandated programs that can help: California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.

Keeping Your Job

Missing a few days here or there rarely results in job loss. But when months of work are missed, your employer may consider hiring a replacement. The Federal Family Medical Leave Act provides for up to twelve weeks of job protected leave. If your combined bed rest along with your maternity leave after delivery exceed the twelve weeks, you may be at the mercy of your employer. Not all employees or employers are bound by this legislation, so make sure you meet the qualifying criteria. Ten states have laws which the amount of leave and/or populations covered. Check to see if these apply.

Cutting Your Costs

Your bed rest may also translate into added expenses – which may come at a time when you can least afford them. You may need special medical monitoring equipment, extra doctor visits, or home adaptations. Many insurance plans come with co pays that add up quickly. A hospital indemnity plan may fill the biggest gap: a stay in the hospital. Check your policy for admission benefits, daily benefit amounts, and policy language surrounding re-admission for the same or similar medical condition. Keep track of all your medical expenses as these are tax deductible. Use your employer’s flexible spending account whenever possible as your tax savings will almost always be highest using this vehicle. When your baby is born, you can increase your annual election, as this is a qualifying life event.

Urban survival means to be able to survive when disaster strikes. It could be an earthquake, tornado, economy collapse or social unrest. A large number of natural disasters can kill hundreds and thousands of people. They can displace thousands of families and destroy billion worth of properties. And so are manmade calamities.

To survive, one must be aware of his surroundings. This is how he can prepare for any unforeseen events. You can prepare for such situations by observing the geography of your area. Are you in close proximity with the coastline? In the past, was there any occurrence of mudslide? What is the history of your locality?

Another important tip is to store large quantities of water. Store up water that will enable you to survive for at least four weeks. You might not be able to go out and buy provisions when a calamity occurs. If it rains, fill all empty containers with rainwater. You can later purify it with purifying tablets or water filter.

Stockpiling your survivalist apartment with enough food is also a sound advice. Powdered, pickled, dehydrated, cured, canned and instant no-cook food products are best for this purpose. They have a longer shelf life and are easy to stash. Rice and pastas are excellent staple foods. They are a great source of carbohydrates that provide an energy boost. Unfortunately, they need to be cooked first before they can be eaten.

Another thing to consider is having enough clothing, preferably the layered ones. That is because the first layer will provide ventilation and prevent excessive sweating. The second layer offers insulation and helps you to keep warm in cold weather. The third layer should be waterproofed. GORE-TEX is considered the best fabric for clothes like this.

In times like this, you should also have a first-aid kit ready with you. The kit should have all the basic medicines, bandages, antiseptics, cotton balls, thermometers and first-aid guide.

Additionally, you must be equipped with fire building tools such as waterproof matchbox. A durable sharp knife, some sturdy rope and waterproof garment should also be included in your list. They can come in handy when building a temporary shelter, hunting for food, or looking for escape. A knife can also be used to defend yourself against unexpected assailants.

Do you want to know more about urban survival? Pay us a visit by clicking the link at the end of this article.

Into the Wild will you explore the beauty of nature or take a stress-free adventure. Before getting to such a risky itinerary of your life, you must secure yourself a wilderness survival gear. Even pilots and forest trekkers are wary about getting their safety. So you must be on the lookout of your welfare as you discover Mother Earth’s greatness.

Wilderness survival gear will keep your cool. It’s not anything that you must only have when emergencies take place. It is a necessity that you take along with you. Your survival kit comprises sustaining gear, paraphernalia and stuff that are all designed to stay you out of danger. These are all secured in a single bag that comes in handy.

To survive your day or days out in the wilderness, you require the basics such as water, shelter, food, fire and first aid kit. But wilderness survival gear includes beyond these. You need a tent, sleeping bag, stove, backpack, etc. You will also require a map, compass or GPS for navigation purposes. Without these, you will lose track of your destination. Or worse, you can end up running around the bush without hitting your targets.

With wilderness survival gear, you will have higher chances or sustaining life when stranded or stuck in place where there isn’t any food, shelter or water. You can purchase some pre-packaged survival kits online if you a complete set of quality emergency tools, medical first aid kits, emergency supplies and outdoor devices that may allow you to survive the days in backwoods.

To mountain trekkers and foresters, the things a wilderness survival gear would include are whistle, signal mirror, sparker light, fire starter, water and food. Either a tent or emergency blanket will serve as your wilderness shelter in case there is nothing out there to sleep the night off. Trekking the boondocks can be fun but risky, so always make sure you have your survival kit with you.

Wilderness survival gears are supposed to be lightweight, handy and not bulky so that it’s convenient to be tagging the supplies along with you. Choosing the appropriate gear is significant to secure yourself. But the most vital gear there is to prepare is your inner strength and prepared mindset aside from knowledge in first aid and wilderness skills.

In choosing your wilderness survival gear, you must choose according to your type and taste of wilderness adventure. Are you just up for plain camping? Or are you going into the wild to do some hunting and logging? Custom-fit your gears and equipment based on your itinerary. Test your gadgets and equipment if they function well before bringing them with you. Make sure you have the know-how to manipulate them.

Most families or individuals are overwhelmed by information when it comes to emergency preparedness. There are just hundreds of websites offering tips of emergency preparation, experts giving out advices and authors writing about survival. There are tons of things to learn and do in a short time.

Don’t be overwhelmed. Instead, we should be thankful that there are a lot of information in our fingertips, helping us become aware of the situation we can face and giving us advice on how we can avoid that situation.

10 Emergency Preparedness Books You Should Read

If you want to learn how to be prepared for emergencies, then we’re giving you top ten books where you can learn how to be prepared.

1. Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in Crisis. This book provides important advice on what you need to purchase and store for your family which can last for days and even until three months. The book includes 10-steps for creating an affordable food storage program for the household. Tips included in the book are simple and economical, which is important for families.

2. SAS Survival Handbook: For Any Climate, in Any Situation. This is an updated version of the international bestselling SAS Survival Handbook. Campers, outdoor enthusiasts, and hikers can find this book very useful. Readers are taught basic camp craft and navigation to help them cope with natural disasters.

3. Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family. Another useful guide for families who would like to start with emergency preparation. Long term food storage are discussed, as well as firearm selection and use. There are steps provided which can help families face five different and deadly natural disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods.

4. 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive. Cody Lundin, a naturalist and survivalist, who can be recognized from Discovery Channel’s Lost in the Wild and Dual Survival wrote this book. It is both funny and direct in teaching basic survival skills in every scenario the author can cover.

5. How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques and Technologies for Uncertain Time. This book attempts to cover necessary preparation whether it is during a time of terrorist attack, economic downfall, or spread of disease. The book focuses on accumulating the rights supplies to help you survive unfortunate future events.

6. When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes. Another entertaining and informative book from survivalist Cody Lundin. Provides necessary advice when it comes to basic emergency preparation. The book tackles simple sanitation needs such as lack of toilet paper to dead body disposal.

7. When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Planning and Crisis Survival. A thorough and practical guide in preparing for unpredictable events. This book can be easily understood by families who are trying to learn about food storage, first aid, shelter needs, and give valuable advice in building outdoor survival skills by sharing real survival stories.

8. Emergency Preparedness and More: A Manual on Food Storage and Survival. A comprehensive book covering food packing for 3-days and long-term storage, medical supply kits, water purification and creating emergency communication plans during disasters and emergencies.

9. When Technology Fails (Revised & Expanded): A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency. The book provides valuable information from food storage, providing for shelter and energy needs, and even crisis-management skills. It teaches survival skills and being ‘green’ which can be both useful during good and bad times.

10. Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive. Written by Survivorman Les Stroud. The book provides valuable tips on how to survive in the wild, desert, jungle and even during urban disasters. Tips are punctuated with stories to drive the author’s point on the value of being prepared.

Why Read These Books and Be Prepared?

There are different kinds of disasters, which can interrupt our perfectly stable lives, whether it is natural calamities, economic instability, or man-made events. Properties can be damaged, health affected and the entire family can be traumatized by these events.

However, we can avoid or lessen stress and trauma during these events, by being prepared. Emergency preparedness is not only about storing food, water, and necessary supplies. Understanding possible situations and having a plan can help your family cope with the situation, like a meet-up or exit plan.

Involving the family in the entire process of preparing for disasters and emergencies can raise their awareness and help them deal with their fear. In case a natural calamity happens, your family would be prepared on how to handle things.

Imagine yourself getting caught in an unfortunate and unexpected survival situation. Now, think about what kind of survival knives you want to be on your side in this situation. Maybe you would be happy enough to have any knife with you. But since we have learned how being prepared has always been better, of course you would want to have the best one possible.

Here, we have laid out the best survival knives and a short description of each one that will help you decide the best one for you.

Best Survival Knives Available

• Gerber BearGrylls Ultimate Knife, Serrated Edge

Gerber's 70 years of expertise brought about a collaboration with Bear Grylls which resulted in the development of the 4.75-inch Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Knife that can help you withstand even the toughest environments. Some of the best features are its ergonomic grip which makes it comfortable to hold.

The dependable stainless steel blade is composed of a versatile serrated edge. The half-serrated blade is designed for a quick work of cutting rope and other fibrous materials. It has a full-tang construction and hard stainless steel in order to serve overall durability and excellent edge retention. This is highly recommended to every adventurers, backpackers and hunters in the wilderness.

• Ka-Bar Becker BK2 Companion Fixed Blade Knife

KA-BAR Knives, Inc. has been known for their high quality military, hunting, sporting as well as outdoor survival knives and any all-purpose utility. You can bring this with you for your next hunting or camping trip as it is lightweight, durable. It is made of 1095 cro-van steel blade that is suitable for outdoor activities such as splitting kindling, skinning game or even chopping spices and herbs for your campfire grill.

• Gerber 22-01629 LMF II Black Infantry Knife with 4.8-Inch Blade

Decades of innovation has made Gerber unstoppable when it comes to survival knives. They have engineered the 10-inch Gerber 22-01629 LMF II Black Infantry Knife with 4.8-Inch Blade to help you survived any conditions even the worst ones. You can use it for cutting firewood, building a survival shelter or even cutting through your seat belt since this knife has been designed to adapt a wide variety of situations.

• Cold Steel SRK Kraton Handle, Black Blade (Concealer Sheath)

This one has 3/16 inches thickness made of AUS 8A Stainless steel which is fine enough for any of your delicate work, yet efficiently capable of cutting, slashing and skinning strokes at the same time. It provides the sturdiest potential point and edge configuration, without sacrificing sharpness.

Survival knives are not only a tool for every outdoor enthusiast who have happily adapt to an extreme lifestyle in the wild. However, it is a tool that everyone should keep and carefully consider since it has proven to be very useful in a range of situations. Moreover, we will never know what Mother Nature might bring and how it can get so much rougher on us.

If you are planning to go on an outdoor survival trip, be sure you are physically and mentally able and prepared for such a daring and risky adventure.

We suggest you take the time to gather some notes and plan your trip way in advance. All though this will be an awesome experience, and a lot of fun, it could be very dangerous and potentially life threatening if not prepared for it. There is a big difference between hiking or camping then going on a real live survival trip. A survival trip means your only taking accentual items to live off of. A survival trip is not for the beginning hiker or camper, but for the experience outdoor enthusiast, an outdoor person that has done a lot of hiking, camping, fishing or hunting in the wilderness, or has had some kind of military experience in the wilderness. One thing for sure, is to never try to do something like this on your own, always have a partner or two to go with you.

Depending on what kind of trip your going to take, you need to give it a lot of thought. Do you have all the right outdoor gear that your going to need to survive? Are you going to take a trip for a week, a month or several months? Are you going to the mountains or a desert? Are you taking a trip in the wilderness or just in the back woods?

There are many different types or ways of taking a survival trip. Like, you could take a trip threw the swamps of Louisiana, or a wilderness trip threw the hills of Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. No matter where you decide to go, it takes a lot of planning and preparation. By all rights, it would be wise to plan many months ahead.

What kind of outdoor gear and how much are you going to take? What route are you going to take? What time of the year do you want to go? Is it going to be extremely cold or unbearably hot? Is it going to be hot in the daytime and cold at night? Are there going to be any rivers to cross or canyons to scale? Are you going to be able to get in touch of the outside world, if there was an emergency? I could go on and on about things that could go wrong, and that’s why it takes a lot of planning.

If you are an experienced outdoor enthusiast and have quite a bit of knowledge in hiking and camping, but have never been in, or done a real life survival trip, I believe you would like to take your first trip to the Appalachian Trail in the eastern United States.

The Appalachian Trail is a marked trail for hikers and campers. It is approximately 2,200 miles long and runs from the state of Georgia all the way to Maine. It is the longest continuous marked trail in the United States. The Appalachians offer some of the most beautiful sites of landscape that America has. There is some pretty big rivers that you are going to have to cross too. These rivers also provide some mighty fine fishing also. Even though it is a marked trail for hikers and campers, it still offers an awesome challenge to under take and would be a great achievement for anyone that has never done a real life survival trip.

To just get out and hike this whole trail from south to north or vice verses, would take you about 6 to 7 months if you wanted to do the whole trip at one time. There are plenty of small towns to get to off the trail if you needed to stock up on supplies, but that is just like taking a long hiking trip instead of a real life survival trip.

A survival trip consists of getting off the beaten path and actually live off the land, another words, do it the hard way. Yes, this is just like taking a hiking trip, but if you take and live it the hard way and do things that are unnatural like starting your campfire with two sticks or getting your water from little ponds and creeks and having to boil your water to purify it, and eating things like worms or grub worms, eating berries and mushrooms and so forth, then your doing it the hard way. Finding or building a shelter from mother nature instead of pitching a tent is a great experience. Making and setting snares to catch animals like rabbit, squirrel or wild pigs so you can eat is a great experience. Finding certain plants that hold water that you could drink is another good experience.

Make sure that when you do plan a trip, study up and get information on the area you will be going in. You need to know what type of edible plants there are. What kind of animals inhabit there? Are there animals of prey, like bear or mountain lion, or even wolves? Are there snakes, and how many different species, and are they venomous or not? What kind of insects or spiders are there, and are they venomous?

Doing things like this is all part of survival, and this is a good learning and training experience. You may never know when something bad could happen, so you need to be prepared for the worse. Remember, this is only a practice survival trip and not a real one, but if you don’t plan it well, it could go awfully wrong for you and turn in to a real life survival situation.

For more information on the Appalachian mountains, look it up on the web or call just about any of the eastern states of commerce for literature and maps.

You can find more outdoor survival articles of mine and other well known authors at many other article directories sites. Gather all the information you can get before taking on such a wonderful adventure.

Being vegan can be tough around the holidays. Holiday celebrations in the UK, Canada, Asia, Australia and especially the United States are not necessarily conducive to a vegan, or even vegetarian, lifestyle. You can make it through though, without falling prey to the tasty animal-based foods and deserts that seem to be everywhere. Remember these 7 smart holiday tips for vegans, and you may even convert a few friends or family members to your way of life.

1 Host Your Own Holiday Celebration – The best way to ensure you stick to your vegan beliefs is to throw your own holiday feast in your home. You probably have plenty of friends and family that would love to let you do all the cleaning, cooking and hosting. This gives you a chance to fool some meat-eaters with Tofurky, and you also benefit from not having to drive a long distance after overindulging.

2 BYOV – You could always Bring Your Own Vegan. That's right, why not just cook a few entrees and side dishes you would enjoy eating and carry them to your holiday get-together. What host wouldn't appreciate you doing some of the cooking, after all?

3 Dine Out – There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a holiday meal at your favorite vegan-friendly restaurant. There is no messy cleanup for you to deal with afterwards, and some of your friends may surprise you by wanting to tag along and try something vegan.

4 Throw Down the Gauntlet – Do you have friends and family who are very competitive in nature? Issue them a vegan challenge. Even meat-eaters know the risks of a predominantly meat-based diet. Challenge your competitive friends and family members to enjoy a meatless holiday. The result might just be helping someone you love live a much healthier lifestyle.

5 Get Creative – Get online and start looking for creative vegan alternatives to holiday favorites. All of a sudden, egg nog becomes "veg nogg", and you can find stuffing recipes that are just as delicious as the traditional varieties. You will even discover that you can make yummy dishes like mashed potatoes and gravy that adhere strictly to your vegan mindset.

6 Be Considerate – The holidays are a time to spend with the ones you love. You can stick to your personal vegan beliefs without belittling others or making them feel like an outsider if you host a holiday vegan celebration.

7 Add Calorie Counts – Why not include a nutritional value placard, chart or tag to any vegan dishes you contribute to a holiday celebration? Meat lovers are just as concerned about their calorie counts as vegetarians and vegans. When they taste your delicious vegan dishes and see how healthy they are, they may begin to see the light.