When it comes to finding out …
… what caused the southern California-northern Mexico blackout, San Diego Gas & Electric is still keeping us in the dark.
– Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Making a Will Won’t Kill You
By Cecil Scaglione
Mature Life Features
If you want to get even with your kids, don’t make a will.
Let them squabble over your savings and stuff while they’re being scolded by your surviving spouse. But despite any spite you may feel toward your family — you can make a will bequeathing your estate to your favorite pet, if you wish — you should prepare documents to prevent the government from snatching a chunk of your estate.
Taking some estate-planning steps ensures that your assets go to whom you wish after your demise rather than leaving the decision up to the courts. This also slashes much of the legal costs that linger after you’re gone if you’ve made no plans for your estate.
The basic document is a will. This avoids leaving the disposition of your financial assets and
memorabilia to chance. You should choose an executor to process and administer the terms of your final testament. You also can name a guardian to handle the financial legacy for any under-age grandchildren named in your will.
Preparing a will can be done as easily as writing one out by hand on notebook paper with your signature and without a witness or notary. Stationery stores have handy-dandy write-your-own-will forms that allow for signatures of two witnesses after completion.
There’s plenty of assistance available in your local library and on the Internet if you don’t want to
take on the expense of an attorney or proceed to more detailed estate-planning processes. While
estate planning is highly recommended whether you’re 25 or 75, you should at least write a will.
Mature Life Features, Copyright 2003
There are only two types of people in this world …
… as I’ve tried to explain for about half a century: those who jump and jive, and those who don’t.
– Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
“Inside Outside” Helps Sun-Proof Skin
By James Gaffney
Mature Life Features
Recent studies suggest that taking carotenoid and vitamin E supplements, which has grown popular in Europe as a sun-protection strategy, may be an effective adjunct to sun screens in reducing sunburn.
The findings may offer some surprising advice for those who spend time in the sun and
want to protect themselves against damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays. The two supplements, natural
mixed carotenoids and vitamin E that are more-often associated with nutrition than sun
protection, were found to help protect the skin from the dangerous rays.
Researchers revealed in the March 2002 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that
natural mixed carotenoids and vitamin E reduce the skin-reddening effects of sunburn. This
bolsters results of earlier benchmark studies conducted in Germany.
“Beta-carotene has been widely used as an oral sun-protectant with few studies into its
effectiveness,” according to the AJCN.
However, clinical evidence suggests that beta-carotene modifies sunburn damage, and vitamin E
may assist. Sunburn intensity was significantly reduced in subjects who took vitamin
supplements over a 12-week period while being exposed to UV radiation.
“It appears from the research that what carotenoids do for plants, they can do for the skin,” said
Ronald Watson, professor of public health research at the University of Arizona Health Sciences
Center in Tucson. “We found that the natural carotenoid supplements reduced skin reddening
after the subjects were exposed to UV rays. While this may suggest a new idea in sun care for the
many sun worshipers out there, it’s important to note that these supplements must be taken along
with the use of sun screens.
“When we say ‘inside-outside’ protection,” said Watson, “we mean taking natural mixed
carotenoid supplements and also apply your sun screen on the outside all over your skin for
optimum protection.”
Supplementation must be administered for at least three months before benefits can be seen, said
Watson. “It takes time for your body and skin to accumulate enough of these natural carotenoids
to provide some UV protection.”
Mature Life Features Copyright 2003
Bloggin’ Blackout
While the eastern portion of the country is sinking under never-ending rain and Texas is a big burning bush, it seems petty and poutish to even talk about the electrical-power disruption that blacked out about 5 million people in San Diego County and portions of Mexico, Orange County, and Arizona around Yuma (where the cascade began). Everything stopped shortly after 3:30 p.m. Thursday. Rumors and speculation began immediately from people passing by. Power lines were cut, the work of terrorists, Southern California and parts of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Mexico all down. Reports were difficult to get because we discovered not many folks in the neighborhood have battery-operated radios. A lesson. Another lesson: our cell phones were not working. Our land line was our only link with the outside. We called the company that monitors our security alarm system and asked them if they had any information. We were told the two major power lines into this region had been cut and power would be resumed tomorrow morning at the earliest. Called Mike and exchanged information. Heather and Bev played phone tag a bit because of heavy traffic. Heather finally got through, Bev called her back and everyone got connected. So we hauled out candles and flashlights and Bev made tuna salad for dinner and I opened a bottle of wine and we sat out front in the balmy full-moon night and chatted with neighbors Dave and Keri for a couple of hours before toddlin’ off to bed. It was rather pleasant. Real quiet. Few cars on the street. People out walking because there was little else to do. No planes in the sky because the airports were shut down. The power resumed sometime during the night. Bev said it was about 2 a.m. When I got up at 6:30, both the Wall Street Journal and SD U-T were out in the front yard.
Some people are so dumb!!!
They keep trying to make sense out of things.
– Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Why do they call it Labor Day …
… when they give you the day off?
— Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
When you try to work with people …
… and still get something done, very few have anything to contribute and the vast majority give advice.
– Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Time-Travel Czech List
Vltava River hugs Bohemian village of Cesky Krumlov
By James Gaffney
Mature Life Features
CESKY KRUMLOV, Czech Republic – The Australian flag waving from the window of the Moldau Hilton youth hostel seemed a little out of place in this medieval Bohemian village. The owner, a chain-smoking 50-something woman with a raucous, Phyllis Diller-like laugh, put everyone on the inside track.
“It’s the 52 pubs here,” said Jana Perina. “That’s why this place is so popular with Aussies.”
One of her Australian guests was a young artist who gave the accommodation its unofficial moniker when he painted the mural above the entrance. The mural depicts a trio of cherubs holding aloft a banner emblazoned with the words, “Moldau Hilton.” The name pays tribute to the hostel’s location on the banks of the meandering Vltava, known as Moldau in German, the river immortalized by the 19th-century Czech composer Bedrick Smetana.
Nowadays, when people in this country advise foreign travelers to get away from overcrowded Prague to experience the real Czech Republic, they’re probably referring to Cesky Krumlov. New life was breathed into this town of 15,000 nestled 100 miles south of Prague and 30 miles from the Austrian border when it was designated a World Heritage Site. Before the fall of communism in 1989, the community had deteriorated into a drab slum, according to locals.
The town now insinuates a hundred fairy tales with its renovated Renaissance and baroque gables, tapered roofs, old stone stairways, balconies and oriel windows. This is especially true during late afternoons when shadows half-darken mysterious lanes filled with centuries-old facades adorned with sgrafitto, artistic designs etched into the outer layer of plaster revealing the different-colored underlying layer.
Dating to 1253, Cesky Krumlov is a medieval time-capsule of winding streets squeezed into a tight S-bend of the Vltava. The historical center, a jumble of colorful stone houses, is an island- like pedestrian area linked to land and the main castle — the second largest in the Republic – by three bridges, creating a sequence of mini-waterfronts dotted with wooden walking paths, outdoor cares, touristy boutiques, and small, affordable pensions. It’s easy to explore the entire town on foot in a day.
By dusk, the day trippers and tour buses have disappeared and chatter from inside the town’s dimly lighted riverside taverns echoes in the cobblestone alleys. Couples fill cozy sidewalk café tables bathed in the soft glow of candlelight.
There is no question this is a place that takes visitors back in time. A hilltop path that leads around the tree-shaded perimeter of its medieval castle presents a bird’s-eye perspective of the town’s red-riled roofs rolling down to the calm Vltava. Nothing in this panorama reveals its Internet cafes, ethnic restaurants, or souvenir shops with traditional Czech marionettes hanging in the doorway.
Mature Life Features, Copyright 2003
Mature Life Features 