The importance of efficiency

When considering all my experience as a businesswoman, I would personally say that it is extremely relevant that we always do our best in order to guarantee the financial balance of our businesses if we really want to make them successful.

Keeping this in mind, there is a great possibility for both residential users and company owners to save hundreds of dollars with the help of the Compact fluorescent bulbs which require a lot less energy than the regular bulbs that we often find on the nearest store.

So, would you really like to bring your business to the next level in what relates to efficiency and energy savings? If you do, then I would personally advise you to take some time to visit the website above and discover more about this interesting topic.

Boston: a city where visitors feel like home

Have you ever been to Boston before? Would you like to finally visit this famous city where all tourists seem to have a great time? If that's the case and if you are looking for some basic tips, then you need to read the extract below of the original story at msnbc.com :

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By Stephen Heuser

I can't remember the first time I was quacked at, but I remember how I felt: You've got to be kidding.

I'd be walking somewhere in the city, and suddenly a giant amphibious bus full of people would materialize, quack loudly at me and my fellow Bostonians, and vanish.

Soon enough I would learn that these were Duck Tours, shuttling tourists from one Boston landmark to another. And just as quickly, I'd learn to avoid going anywhere they went.

Like a New Yorker who never sets foot in Times Square, I have long made a fetish of keeping clear of the stereotypical Boston — the Revolutionary War monuments, the walking trails, the souvenir-strewn streets around Fenway Park. Let the out-of-towners move through their Boston, I figure, and I'll stick to mine. After 15 years of living here, I still look at the tourists and wonder: What are they seeing — and what am I missing? And what are they missing? I decided there was only one way to find out.

Paul Revere: Closet Frenchman?
If I'm going to play tourist in my hometown, I know where to start: The Paul Revere House. If you live in Boston, you would never, ever go there. It's in the middle of the Freedom Trail, the more than two-mile-long path that guides people through the most important Revolutionary War monuments while letting them skip everything else. Somehow it precisely evokes my fifth grade conception of creaky old Boston.

The house today sits incongruously in its neighborhood, its three floors of spooky brown clapboard dwarfed by apartment buildings. Revere's house isn't crowded the day I visit, which is a good thing because it's absolutely tiny. It's also wildly off-square in every way, as though someone squeezed a normal house into a lozenge and set it down on tilted ground.

I push the wooden door open and promptly find myself in a kitchen — a stone hearth with a bewildering array of iron implements for everything from toasting bread to ironing frilled cuffs. Unless you're a history buff, you won't care exactly which turned-wood chairs belonged to the Revere family and which are here just for show. The house is an imperfect museum of Paul Revere himself, whose wartime heroism was exaggerated and whose major role in the city was as an entrepreneur who made a fortune in metals after the revolution. (Also, surprise: He was half French! His father was Apollos Rivoire, who anglicized the name.)

Yet as a little diorama of Boston's colonial history, the house is unparalleled. In the years after Paul Revere, it sheltered the waves of immigrants who transformed the city, and today it sits in the middle of an Italian neighborhood abutted by gleaming new condos — the setting itself a little diorama of Boston.

The North End my way
A block from Paul Revere's house is Hanover Street, the lively main drag running through the North End, a neighborhood full of Italian restaurants and pastry shops. Stop in for a cappuccino at the longtime fixture Caffé Vittoria and admire the collection of vintage espresso machines. Survey the assortment of cheese, artisanal salami and prosciutto, and aged balsamic vinegar at Salumeria Italiana on Richmond Street. If you want to eat where Bostonians eat, make your way to Carmen, a trattoria made cozy by brick walls lined with wine bottles and an embossed-tin ceiling. Alternately, cross Hanover Street, turn left toward Salem Street, and head to Neptune Oyster: Its white tiles and dark wood evoke an old-school seafood bar, and the menu merges the classic (shrimp cocktail) and the creative (shrimp gazpacho with baby fennel moustarda).

America's oldest ballpark
Not all of Boston's tourist attractions have centuries of history behind them. The baseball stadium is a relative newcomer, a wee 97 years old.

What still amazes me every time I approach Fenway Park is how intimately it's tucked into the city: You're strolling through a Boston neighborhood and hey, whaddya know, one of the buildings just happens to be the oldest major-league ballpark in America. As easy as it is to stumble upon Fenway, it's not nearly as simple to gain entry. Every single game since 2003 has sold out. But there is another way to see the park: Fenway runs tours for $12.

I buy a ticket and squeeze into a luxury suite on an off-season Saturday morning. A video tells the history of the stadium in photographs and newspaper headlines. We watch footage of Ted Williams's last at-bat here, in 1960; the ball sails over center field and into the bullpen and fixes him in baseball legend. I am pleased to notice that the video's narrator really is from Boston; beneath his polished voice are the city's lost-and-found r's — "pahk," and "ah-chi-tect."

Afterward, we walk out into the seats and take pictures of each other in front of the Green Monster, Fenway's famously high left-field wall. The tour visits different spots in the park depending on when you go; the only truly off-limits area is the field's sacred grass. "I've been working here a year," says our tour guide, "and I've never even stepped on it." That might seem extreme, but then again, Fenway is such a shrine that fans build small models of it and wear them as hats. Seriously.

Fenway my way
If you have managed to score a pair of tickets to a game, the next challenge is food. My advice: Pick up an Italian sausage with peppers and onions from the sidewalk cart of the famed Sausage King, parked outside Gate E for many games. But if you haven't gotten tickets, all is not lost: Walk along the Lansdowne Street wall of the ballpark and look for The Bleacher Bar. It's a hopping sports pub actually built into the left-center-field wall — its ceiling is the underside of the stadium seats, and a garage-door-size window looks straight onto the field. A few blocks away, Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks offers a more stylish setting; the airy restaurant and lounge is best known for its craft cocktails like the whiskey smash and the Sazerac, served at a long marble-topped bar.

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Disney World: some great moments

Even considering the fact that I am now a businesswoman, the truth is that I will never forget the great moments that I have spent in Disney World theme park, in Orlando, when I was still a little girl! In fact, the super exciting moment of my first ride on a runaway train at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! In fact, I could easily say that was one of the most memorable moments in all my life and I still think about it when I see the young children playing on the backyards. The obvious reason for this is the fact that mountain railroads are tremendously exciting and they often make us feel as if we are about to reach the sky!

Keeping this in mind, I am already considering the possibility of taking my own children to Disney World in Orlando so that they can also experience some of the greatest moments of their lives, while also having the chance to discover even more about the great Disney series that they have always loved to watch on the TV. Moreover, the Disney theme park will also be a great opportunity for me to provide my children with a new refreshing and memorable experience that will almost certainly give them even more energy for school.

In what relates to accommodation and Disney Tickets, I am already planning and trying to discover the best way of saving money. As a matter of fact, I personally believe that orlandofuntickets.com has the best deals on Disney tickets, making it possible for us to save some money if we take full advantage of the great deals that we may find on the website above.

So, have you also been dreaming with the possibility of taking your children to one of the greatest Disney Theme Parks ever? If you are considering doing so, then you definitely need to take some of your time to visit the website to which I have linked above and see how incredibly affordable it will be for you and your family. Furthermore, if you take in consideration the joy that you are going to get there, then I would personally say that we only pay a small amount of money when comparing it to all the fun that we get!

Airport chapels offer new conditions

Airports seem to be trying to attract many new customers now that the financial crisis is really menacing thier financial stability. Keeping this in mind, airport chapels will now have more room for an increasing number of travelers who would like to take some time to relax and pray. Below you may read the original msnbc.com story:

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ATLANTA - Ordained a United Methodist minister, the Rev. Chester Cook has now become a jack of all faiths.

On a recent day, Cook welcomed a Christian-oriented Army chaplain, a Muslim family and a Buddhist ticket agent to his interfaith chapel at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — a snapshot of the grab bag of faithful who make a stop in the chapel.

Across the country, chapels designed to offer passengers refuge and reflection in bustling airports are making changes: Removing denomination-specific decor, adding special accommodations and hosting services geared to accommodate an increasingly diverse group of travelers flying with faith.

In Atlanta, it means a simple stained-glass window marking the entrance to the 1,040-square-foot chapel on the third floor. Inside there's room for 30, and a library stocking everything from Gideon Bibles to Jewish mystical texts. A large floor mat provides a cushiony spot to kneel for prayer; officials don't set it aside for any specific faith.

"There are representations of almost every faith," said Cook, who recently oversaw a $200,000 renovation that more than doubled the chapel to its current size. "There are Buddhists in their orange robes, there are some Hindus ... I helped a Wiccan one time."

About 1,500 people per week visit the chapel, a fraction of the 250,000 people who pass through the world's busiest airport each day.

The chapel remains unadorned to maintain its interfaith feel.

"We try to help others be respectful in honoring the way someone else may practice their faith," said Cook, adding that Christmas decorations are kept to a minimum.

On a recent Wednesday, baggage checker William Lowe stood, raised his hands, and dropped his head for one of the multiple daily prayers he observes as a Muslim.

Moments later, Army chaplain Al Spitler ducked into the chapel to thumb through a Bible and pray for guidance as he prepared to return to Iraq and his duties counseling fearful soldiers.

"I could've done the same thing in a chair," he said. "(But) it's kind of a holy place, a private place."

Removing the crosses and other typical markers of church to make others welcome might seem extreme in a more traditional chapel.

But the nation's roughly 34 airports with chapels cater to a mixed community with a changing range of faith needs, according to the Rev. John A. Jamnicky, former chaplain of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and a 20-year veteran of travel ministry.

He said airport chapels date back to the 1940s when the explosion of commercial aviation, combined with a surplus of military chaplains home from World War II, gave church leaders the idea to mix faith with flying. The first known airport chapel was opened in 1951 at Boston's Logan International Airport, according to the International Association of Civil Aviation Chaplains.

It started a trend. Over time, airport chapels became largely Catholic in northern cities like Chicago and New York, and Protestant in southern cities like Atlanta and Dallas, Jamnicky said.

As travelers become more numerous and more diverse, Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports now advertise prayer rugs and special Muslim facilities. Chapels created at airports in Norfolk, Va., and Tulsa, Okla., in the last decade have been interfaith. And in Cleveland, airport officials have discussed toning down the Catholic orientation of the airport's ornate chapel.

"It's responding to the needs that are present in our society and among travelers, " Jamnicky said.

Airports also are looking to conserve space, said the Rev. Michael Zaniolo, chaplain at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, and president of the National Conference of Catholic Airport Chaplains. In the past, some airports have had multiple chapels to accommodate various faiths.

"Instead of having four or five very small chapels, we've got one nice-sized chapel," he said, referring to chapels across the country. "And it's available for everyone."

The airport chapel in Atlanta offers a one-size-fits-all religious experience. A silhouette of a person kneeling is the only prominent icon in the chapel. Spare rosaries, yarmulkes, prayer shawls and a Catholic Mass kit are tucked away for use as needed.

A large compass on the chapel floor, meanwhile, was created with multiple faiths in mind.

"We also looked at the direction of the chapel so that the north, south, east and west could all be clearly understood without using any religious symbols," Cook said, explaining that Jews, Muslims and members of other faiths face east for prayer.

Maher Subeh, wife Ilham and children Bashar, 14, Zayd, 12, and Noor, 9, recently slipped off their sneakers and readied for prayer. Each folded their legs beneath them and solemnly bowed on the large chapel mat for a few moments, before grabbing their luggage for a flight back to Los Angeles.

The Muslim family rarely sees chapels in American airports and was glad to have an alternative to praying in a corner of the crowded terminal among onlookers.

"Sometimes they don't know what you're doing," said Maher Subeh, adding that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the ritual gained uncomfortable attention.

Cook smiled at the family as they trundled out, and a ticket agent who frequents the chapel to meditate slipped in.

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