Gary Killops

Well it is Victoria Day weekend around here. (Memorial Day weekend in the United States).

So I did a little research to see exactly what the difference in holidays was between Canada and the US.

According to wikipedia:

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed this year on -05-). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country.

Victoria Day is a Canadian statutory holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on May 24 in honour of both Queen Victoria’s birthday and the current reigning Canadian sovereign’s birthday.

It is a long weekend, and around here it is usually spring cleaning weekend and planting flowers weekend. The weather is so-so right now, looks like it will rain later this afternoon so the outdoor flower planting may get up on hold.

Have a great safe weekend.

Running on empty was not a good thing today while in Windsor. The price of gas just hit another all time high of just under $1.30 / litre. (129.9 to be exact).

I needed gas but was able to make it out into the county. When I saw gas going for th cheap price of 121.9 / litre I filled up the gas tank. What a bargain. Normally I do not fill up any more, a pit stop at the station to put in $20 or $0 worth of gas just doesn’t seem to hurt as much but when I saw the gas 6 cents a litre cheaper in Essex filling p was the only option.

I don’t even want to think what the price per litre will be this summer.

Author Michael Jeffreys personally interviewed 15 top motivational gurus in 1997 for his then upcoming book. After talking to gurus from Brian Tracy to Dr. Wayne Dyer, he distilled 8 Secrets to Success they all agreed upon. These secrets are still good today and are as follows:

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life – In a society where people blame everything from their parents to the government for failure, those who don’t buy into this mentality or succumb to the “victim” thinking succeed. To blame something or somebody outside yourself is saying they have control of your life and not you. Someone else’s opinion of you doesn’t have to become your reality.

2. Live Your Life On Purpose – What separates motivational thinkers from the unsuccessful is that they believe they’re doing what they were put her to do. The difference between this and just living, is that the latter is just getting through the week with the least problems. But when you live your life on purpose, your main concern is doing the job right. For the entrepreneur this means finding a cause you believe in and building your business around it.

3. Be Willing to Pay the Price – Be willing to pay the price for your dreams. Wanting a big house, a luxury car, and a million dollars in the bank is all very nice, and everyone wants these things – but are you willing to pay the price to get them? This is one of the major differences between the successful and unsuccessful.

4. Stay Focused – Every day we’re bombarded with hundreds of tasks, phone calls, messages, and everyone competing for our time. Focusing requires giving up something in the present because you are investing your time in something that will pay off big-time down the road. Jack Canfield and Mark Hanson were turned by 30 publishers when they submitted the first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. Instead of giving up, they stayed focused on their goal and did four or five interviews per day for radio, TV, and newspapers, for five days a week for a whole year. Eventually, a small publisher decided to take a chance, and of course now it’s a best-seller that spawned an entire series that have sold more than 10 million copies.

5. Become An Expert in Your Field One striking factor all successful people have in common is how seriously they take their profession. They strive to be the best at what they do, and do almost anything to improve. If someone followed you around all day with a video camera at your business, would it be a tape you’d be proud of or embarrassed about? Make the decision today to work at being the best in your field. How? By finding out what the “best” in your field are doing, and do what they do.

6. Write Out a Plan for Achieving Your Goals – Write out an action plan/map for how you’re going to achieve your goals. Trying to reach your goals without a plan is like trying to drive from Los Angeles to Chicago without a map. A goal that isn’t written down is merely a wish or fantasy.

7. Never Give Up – Never, never, never give up. When you’re fully committed to achieving your goal, giving up is not an option. You must be willing do whatever it takes to make it happen. The power of perseverance is an awesome force. As someone once said, “inch by inch it’s a cinch”. Think of the lowly inchworm – if it pondered the length of the trip from start to finish before it started, it probably would never move. To a worm’s point-of-view, the garden path must look like a trip to Mars. Never give up! Keep on going like the Eveready battery bunny, and pretty soon you’re there.

8. Don’t Delay – Nobody knows how much time they have left to accomplish their dreams, and we must remember that we don’t have forever. The clock is ticking, and sooner or later your number comes up and you’re gone. Successful achievers know this too, but they don’t view it as a “negative”. Achievers use it to “spur them on”. They go after what they want as energetically and as passionately as possible, for as long as they have.

I had a friend who used to say, “Today is a check – cash it! Yesterday is an I.O.U. – forget it! Tomorrow is a promissory note, don’t bank on it!” I think that’s a pretty good summation of life, so go out there and cash in on that “today” check.

Forex trading has always been something that interested me. I just didn’t have a clue were to begin. I stumbled my way around and slowly figured a few things out, made a few mistakes along the way. if you share my interest in forex I invite you to check out the forex information site that I created.

You can view the information here: http://www.GaryKillops.com/forex 

Who is participating in forex market trades?

The forex market is all about trading between countries, the currencies of those countries and the timing of investing in certain currencies. The FX market is trading between counties, usually completed with a broker or a financial company. Many people are involved in forex trading, which is similar to stock market trading, but FX trading is completed on a much larger overall scale. Much of the trading does take place between banks, governments, brokers and a small amount of trades will take place in retail settings where the average person involved in trading is known as a spectator. Financial market and financial conditions are making the forex market trading go up and down daily. Millions are traded on a daily basis between many of the largest countries and this is going to include some amount of trading in smaller countries as well.

From the studies over the years, most trades in the forex market are done between banks and this is called interbank. Banks make up about 50 percent of the trading in the forex market. So, if banks are widely using this method to make money for stockholders and for their own bettering of business, you know the money must be there for the smaller investor, the fund mangers to use to increase the amount of interest paid to accounts. Banks trade money daily to increase the amount of money they hold. Overnight a bank will invest millions in forex markets, and then the next day make that money available to the public in their savings, checking accounts and etc.

Commercial companies are also trading more often in the forex markets. The commercial companies such as Deutsche bank, UBS, Citigroup, and others such as HSBC, Braclays, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, and still others such as Goldman Sachs, ABN Amro, Morgan Stanley, and so on are actively trading in the forex markets to increase wealth of stock holders. Many smaller companies may not be involved in the forex markets as extensively as some large companies are but the options are stil there.

Central banks are the banks that hold international roles in the foreign markets. The supply of money, the availability of money, and the interest rates are controlled by central banks. Central banks play a large role in the forex trading, and are located in Tokyo, New York and in London. These are not the only central locations for forex trading but these are among the very largest involved in this market strategy. Sometimes banks, commercial investors and the central banks will have large losses, and this in turn is passed on to investors. Other times, the investors and banks will have huge gains.

http://www.GaryKillops.com/forex

Deciding on whether to stay on Disney or Non-Disney World hotels is sometimes challenging. To better come up with the best choice for a hotel accommodation, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of staying on or off site.

Advantages of Staying Off Site

• When staying off site, the hotels usually offer more variety of amenities to compensate with its location and they also offer lower prices since staying at hotels situated near Disney World are quite costly

• Normally, hotels located outside Disney World are larger, one huge advantage for those who are traveling in large groups since these hotel rooms are good for 5 to 6 people while Disney hotel rooms are only good for four people regardless of the age of the guest.

• Most offsite hotels offer free transportation to Disney World as well as to other attractions such as Universal and Seaworld while hotels onsite only offer free transportation to Disney parks and they will not take you to the other area attractions in the city.

• Apart from Disney World, Orlando has many other tourist attractions worth exploring and by staying in an offsite hotel, there is an easier access to these smaller scale tourist spots all over the place such as shopping venues, great restaurants and golf courses too.

• A lot of these hotels also offer discounts for Disney World tickets as well as with SeaWorld or Universal if you choose to have you accommodation with them.

• As for the food, breakfast is free and last minute specials even on peak season while Disney properties have no freebies to offer and dining on these onsite hotels can be very costly for what you will get

• A lot of the Disney hotels are already a little old compared to a lot of new hotels being continually established offsite.

Disadvantages of Staying Off Site

• In terms of quality, there is a great difference between onsite and offsite hotels.

• A free transportation to and from the International Airport will be provided by these onsite hotels.

• A free shuttle service to all of the four parks in Disney World will also be provided. Unlike those in offsite hotels where some share the same shuttle services resulting to a crowded ride, there will be no difficulty finding these free shuttle services even during the busy seasons since they run for every thirty minutes.

• Disney World offers one Magical Hour as they call it to those who choose to have their stay in these Disney properties. The guests will be allowed to enter the park an hour before the guests who are not staying at the Disney World Resort gets to enter.

• Most of the employees working in offsite hotels are not very familiar with the Disney World or perhaps, Orlando in general unlike those who are staffed in these onsite hotels who are trained well to attend to your needs.

• Of course, if you will have your accommodation in these Disney hotels, you will be able to charge stuff to your room giving you a less hassle tour to the park.

• Disney guests also have the chance to have a character tuck the kids to bed before they have that wonderful slumber.

The server that host this web site was down this morning for approximately 6 hours. The server is now back online however everything seems to be running very slow right now. Perhaps time to look for a new server / host.

E-books: The Next (Really) Big Thing?

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If you’re still undecided on where to go to during your next vacation, then you’ll want to consider going to Orlando, Florida. The area has no shortages of tourist attractions to go check out, and you can take your pick on where to stay while you’re there. The best part is that you can check out some of the greatest theme parks in the whole world, and it’s all in one city.

Staying in hotels or resorts

You can choose to have your accommodations in resorts or in hotels located near or at the sites of theme parks. For the former, these resorts typically boast everything from golf courses, tennis courts, horseback riding and sailing. Their areas are also large, and hold multiple areas like convention centers, so you can have your business meeting right at a resort where you won’t have to be far away from luxuries that you crave.

If it’s a spa that you want, you can unwind at these resorts’ fine spa services. The same goes for hotels, they have fitness areas and spa services to help you relax and stay fit while on vacation. Every spectrum of hotel accommodation is covered, from economical-minded but still luxurious locations to big-bucks ultimate luxury suites available.

Where to go and places to see

Disney World and Universal Studios – two things that come to mind when thinking about Orlando, Florida. These are probably the biggest pulls to tourists that want to go to Orlando, and for good reason. Disney has lots of theme parks, with different appeals so that everyone can have a different experience every time they go to Disney World, and four hotels, also with their own flavors.

Universal Studios has six islands to its credit, and each, like Disney, has a different set of attractions so that no two islands offer the same thing to their visitors. Universal Studios attractions are inspired by Universal movies and they make the visitor live the experience of the movie, like being on set themselves. Something you definitely won’t come across everyday.

Aside from Disney and Universal, there is also SeaWorld, a park dedicated to marine life on Earth. But still, even if it is all fun here, with attractions for everybody in the family for all ages, one can still learn something new and gain new respect for the world’s sea creatures here. Unlike Disney or Universal, these attractions are not categorized according to their appeal, though the entire park is separated into areas as well. For example, there’s Shamu’s Happy Harbor, for kids to have fun while visiting there.

Wherever it is you go, and whatever destination you choose, Orlando offers the best of both worlds, because you not only can choose from a multitude of places to stay in and relax, but there are also plenty of things to do and places to go while you’re in Orlando.

Even in the summer heat, things aren’t a worry, there are resorts you can go to and stay in to cool down in or near the water and have some fun in the sun. Having an Orlando vacation will be something that you can look forward to, for you and your whole family to get away from the hassles of everyday life, and you can be sure that you won’t be bored there as well.

I recently bought a nice web site template package that came in Adobe PSD format. No problem as I have Photoshop C3 and while I am not expert I have most of the basics down well enough to muck my way around and create some cool graphics.

Each template had its own PSD file that had to be sliced into web images. I had no cluse how to do this but the template package came with some quicktime videos that would walk me through each step.

Great! I clicked on the videos and started to watch them only to discover that they would not work on my lap top. I upgraded to the latest version of quicktime and still not luck. I have no idea it it was a Windows Vista thing or some other thing but no matter what I tried the videos would not work on my computer.

I contacted the vendor and he was going to reformat the videos in AVI to see if that would work. It was late at night and he promised to do it first thing in the morning. I didn’t want to wait so I googled video file converters looking for a quicktime to AVI conveter.

I found this one: http://www.freemov2avi.com/

This is a FREE quicktime to AVI file converter. I was concerned that this might be some program that installs malware, spyware, or some other virus so before downloaing it I did a bit of research to make sure it was safe. I downloaded the program, ran it through my virus software and only then installed it on my computer.

This is an amazingly simple program that does exactly as it is intended to do. This freeware program gets a thumbs up from me!

If you are planning on going to Disney World in Orlando I really recommend that you stay on site at one of the Disney properties. They have everything to meet your needs from value resorts up to deluxe 5 star resorts. Disney’s transportation system makes it easy to travel between theme parks and best of all they do not charge or this service.

If Disney World is not in your plans you may want to consider an off site location in Orlando. Some are close to Disney World and may use that as a feature to get you to stay there.

Just by being able to find the perfect resort to stay in, you can already experience Orlando at its best. Over the years, the hotel industry of Orlando has flourished and more and more hotels and resorts have been established to cater the increasing number of tourists that come and visit the place once in a while. Of course, the stay would not be complete without the best resort wherein one can relax after a long day of theme park stopovers.

Bahama Bay Condo Resort

Located near a lot of Orlando vacation attractions such as the Disney World, this resort is one where you can enjoy the atmosphere of a tropical island. With its beautiful landscape and a lot of amenities to take pleasure in, this resort is a community of condos stretched over an area of 70 acres.

Four heated swimming pools coupled with their own whirlpool spa, these water features would definitely add to the fun and relaxation uniquely provided by this resort. The nature trails provide a good walking or jogging path and there are also courts for basketball, volleyball and tennis for the sporty ones. Once you feel hungry, there is an on-site restaurant with a bar and an atrium with a balcony overlooking the pool and the lake. Best of all, the balcony from each condo provide a good spot to enjoy the nightly Disney World fireworks while overlooking the lake.

Caribe Royale Orlando

Only one and a half mile from the entrance of Disney World, this resort offers complimentary transportation to all Disney theme parks within the vicinity as well as evening transfers to the Downtown Disney. However, if you opt for a private transportation, the main reception has a reservation desk for a rental car.

The beautiful waterfall will be the first thing that will catch your attention upon entering the resort. With the exceptional and tropical landscape, you will already be given an idea of what to look forward to in your whole stay at the resort.

Upon reaching the lobby, the grandeur of this open 3-storey atrium with the highlights of the Florida sunshine flowing through the windows will surely impress you plus the breathtaking view of the central lagoon, a free-form pool with the vibrant sound of a waterfall. With 1,218 one bedroom suites and 120 two bedroom villas, you will surely have the best relaxation in Orlando.

Polynesian Isles Resort

Still located in the Disney World area, this resort offers a lush, tropical surrounding that feels like a slice of Hawaii. Just minutes away from the major attractions, you will never run out of things to do in this beautiful hideaway. The resort offers a lot of activities for the entire family, from pool parties to scavenger hunts and many more exciting things to pamper you with.

The suites are spacious and with bubbling hot tubs, this is surely a great place to relax after a day of adventure. Indeed, a hidden jewel amongst all the others as many of those who stayed here speaks about it.

Westgate Lakes Resort and Spa

The resort complex is located near the Orange County convention center. With so many things going on in it, it can be considered a little village on its own. It has seven swimming pools and every sort of ball court. It also has several restaurants in it and a spa plus supervised activity programs for the little ones.

Another addition to this wonderful resort is that they have a market you can go shopping for groceries and have your pictures full developed in one hour.