Interesting At Home Shoulder Treatment

I've had shoulder pain in my right shoulder for the past 6 years. It's gone through different phases and levels of severity as I am more or less aggressive with it. It has never been 100% though in the past 6 years. I've been visiting my chiropractor very regularly for the past 2 months looking to actually find a solution to the problem and I have noticed gradual improvement. 

The improvement seemed slow and my shoulder still felt very weak. I started searching for additional things I could do to speed up recovery and I came across a book on Amazon  that discusses the causes for most shoulder pain and how to get rid of it without surgery or complex physical therapy. The book is written by John Kirsch, an orthopedic surgeon that has been researching his unique shoulder treatment for over 25 years. 

The basis of the shoulder exercises is built around the simple practice of hanging from an overhead bar, like a pull-up bar, with your palms facing forward. Supposedly this places your shoulder in a very safe and relaxed position that also puts pressure on the subacromial arch. This arch is what seems to creep down over time and creates a cramped space for your shoulder to perform its usual activity. By regular hanging and a few other simply light weight exercises he claims that you can strengthen your shoulder and avoid most other shoulder treatments. The reviews are what inspired me to try this. I haven't found one single negative review for this treatment and there are a ton of people who are raving about their success with this simple treatment. I've been trying this out for a little less than a week and I have already seen improvement in strength and range of motion. I don't feel like I'm back to normal by any means, but I do feel like I've found something that will help my overall shoulder health long term and allow me to throw a football and baseball without pain. 

Trying to Heal My Teeth With Xylitol

I grew up with fantastic dental care and I never had a cavity all through my growing up years. At 26 I went to the dentist and found out that I had 3 cavities, which was a shock to me because I thought 1 cavity would be the end of the world. After getting them filled a week later I thought," Man I'm glad that's over and those are taken care of." I naively thought that I could just move on and not have another cavity or problem. 6 months later I returned for a cleaning and I found out that I had 5 more cavities that needed to be filled. Where did these come from if I was just at the dentist 6 months earlier?

One month later I went back to the dentist because of a stinging pain in one of my molars. I had a crack that needed to be drilled and filled. I'm now writing this post with another molar that's in pain. I believe I have another crack in my tooth right next to the tooth that had the first crack. What is going on with my teeth? I don't want to accept that cavities and other more extensive procedures are just going to be a part of my recurring 6 month dental visits. Even if I had all the money in the world, it is terribly uncomfortable to sit in a chair for 2 hours while your mouth is being stabbed and drilled and filled.

I turned to the internet and searched for hours trying to find an answer about why my mouth seems to be falling apart. If I could figure out why I was getting cavities, I would have a better chance at getting rid of them. When you search basic terms like "how to stop/avoid cavities" you'll see nothing but ads and websites for big dollar companies that want you to buy their toothpaste and mouthwash.

I then started searching to find out if teeth could actually heal themselves like every other part of your body. (I always found it interesting that dentists just say that once enamel is gone it is gone and that gums recede) The search results got very encouraging, because they were saying that teeth, under the right conditions, are meant to remineralize and heal themselves. The problem was that certain diets yield an acidic mouth that your saliva can't overcome to heal your teeth. I found many claims that xylitol, a natural sugar, can control the acidity in your mouth enough to allow your body to remineralize your teeth.

I'm personally trying some of the things I've learned and I've altered much of what I do to care for my teeth. I don't usually believe these types of things until I experience it for myself. So far I've been using the proper dosage of xylitol and the recommded toothpaste and mouthwash from Dr. Ellie Phillips and I can safely say my teeth feel smoother and less sensitive. I'm not expecting the crack in my tooth to heal itself, but if this turns out to be a way for me to stop having cavities I will be thrilled. So far I haven't found any negative reviews or studies saying that this method doesn't work. I'm usually able to find an equal amount of outrageous claims, both negative and possitive, and in this scenario I'm overwhelmed with possitive results. I have some additional links below that I found interesting along with a pretty comprehensive video that goes over just about everything I've been researching. Because of the dental myths page I stopped using my Sensodyne toothpaste and my teeth actually feel better. The toothpaste could have been contributing to weak and more crack prone teeth. My real hope is to stop getting cavities and problems with my teeth. A small hope is that my hygenist will commend me on my brushing and flossing and I'll be able to tell her what I've really been doing. I wish I could say it was because I followed my dentist's advice. So far he's been agreeable and hasn't really told me what products are best, but he's a huge advocate for simply brushing and flossing. So far his advice hasn't made my mouth feel any better so I've had to start figuring things out on my own. I think I've learned a lot and I would love to hear any feedback from anyone else with similar problems and what you've done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol
http://www.xylitol.org/
http://askdrellie.blogspot.com/
http://www.drellie.com/
http://www.cda.org/member_benefits_&_resources/patient_education_tools/factsheets/xylitol
http://www.drellie.com/Xylitol.php
http://www.drellie.com/Dental-Myths.php

Why Polish Your New Car

When you get a car from the factory you might assume that it is in the best condition it will ever be in. Why wouldn't it be, it's new right? It is true that everything is in great condition and the paint looks pretty great. It was just sprayed on and buffed at the factory. Why on earth would you want to polish your new car? In all honesty, most people shouldn't. If you desire perfection in your ride, however, you'll love the look of a freshly polished finish.

When a car is painted at the factory it is done so in very controlled conditions and then covered with a very durable clear coat. The car is then buffed at a fairly low speed which gives the car a good general shine. If you were to zoom in and look at that paint with a magnifying glass you would essentially see a bunch of jagged peaks and pits in the clear coat. When you wax the car you basically sand the top of those peaks to create a flat surface which reflects light and makes the car shinier. 

When you polish the car with an actual high speed polisher you have more power to remove the majority of the bumps and peaks all together. When you get closer to a perfectly flat surface you achieve a mirror like finish. That is the difference between a shiny new car and a car that you can use as a mirror. As I said above, most people would never buy a new car and think to go get it polished. It already looks good and has a great finish. Polishing a new car would only be if you want to have a car that turns heads. You'll notice people staring at your car for multiple reasons. It is so dang shiny and they also like seeing the reflection of their wheels in your door going down the highway at 70 miles/hour. 

Basics Of Painting A Room

If you're going to paint a room you will need a few basic painting tools. You will need paint, of course, brushes, rollers, roller handles, tape and a paint tray. Depending on the height of the walls and the amount of surface area you need to cover, you may need a ladder and an extension pole.

1. Start off by taping all edges of your room that you don't want painted. This will usually include the base boards, crown molding, windows and any additional fixtures or outlets on the wall. It's easier to simply remove the face plates on your wall outlets. 
2. Cover the ground of the room you're painting with plastic sheeting so you don't get paint on your flooring. Modern paints have very concentrated and potent dyes that can be a nightmare to extract from carpet or other porous surfaces. 
3. Make sure your paint is mixed well and then pour it into your paint tray that you plan on using with your roller. Only pour enough paint into the tray so that there is still enough space on the ramp to roll off the excess paint before moving over to the wall. 
4. Make sure the room you're in is well ventilated. Paint fumes can make you sick so leaving a window open and having a high volume fan move air around is highly recommended.  
5. If this is the first time you've painted a wall you will initially want to be very careful to apply paint in a very even and uniform fashion. If you are painting a solid color, especially white, you will quickly realize that paint is VERY forgiving when it dries. The depth of color that is added by the moisture in the paint fades away into a very even finish once the paint dries. My recommendation is to do your best to apply an even coat of paint and just keep moving on to the next parts of your room.
6. Get as close to the edges with your roller as you can. It takes much longer to paint with a brush than it does with your roller so you'll want to save time and just be careful with your roller. 
7. After you've covered the majority of square footage with your roller you'll have to touch up your edges with a brush. Again, paint is very forgiving so you can be pretty aggressive. You're not painting canvas, so just go for good, even coverage. 
8. Let your paint dry partially before removing your tape. You can check the side of your paint can for normal dry times. There should be a dry time for re-painting and a complete dry time. 
9. If you are covering a darker color with a fresh coat of lighter colored paint you will usually have to go over your first coat with a second. Sometimes you can get away with one coat if you prime the wall first or use a quality paint with primer mixed in. 

After you've pulled your tape and re-attached your face plates you'll be amazed at how much better your room looks with a simple coat of paint. 

University Of YouTube

The traditional educational process is a thing of the past. The process was simple. You go to kindergarten through high school and then attend college. In college you choose some specific field of expertise and you go through a road-map of classes that should impart the necessary information for you to become useful to an employer in your desired industry. The most exciting thing to come along was the brief stint of laser disks, weren't those awesome. 

Now that the world is almost completely flat and communication across the world happens on a whim, a student has nothing holding him back from learning from a famous professor across the country. When I was in college I eventually learned that I could learn the material in my classes better by simply searching for instructional videos on YouTube. Math is a great example of where YouTube proved useful. I was struggling in my civil engineering classes because my professor was extremely dry and assumed we understood all of his jargon. (The average grades in his classes were very low and he lowered his passing grade standard to 55% because he would have had such a horrible pass/fail rate.) Anyway, I found that I could search the chapter title for each of our lessons on YouTube and find a great video from some student or professor that would explain the content better. Better yet, there's a rating system on YouTube that allows users to show whether the content is useful or not. This allowed me to quickly find videos that would teach me in a far superior manner to what I was paying for in school. 

This brings up the main problem. I was paying the college for my education but I was learning the actual content online and not from the college that was getting my money. In some cases the only thing college offered was accreditation that made a diploma worth anything. If YouTube would offer a standardized system that facilitated knowledge testing for various disciplines, they could be the best university in the country. Teachers would be determined by their skill in teaching and knowledge transfer. Professors would have to remain creative. There would be no such thing as that old musty professor that uses the same overhead slides for 30 years. Teacher reviews are inefficient. The better review system is to let each viewer say whether the video was useful or not. I continue to learn from YouTube. I believe there is great opportunity in online universities and I think YouTube has the best possibilities with its access to vast amounts of content. I'm excited to see what's happening when my kids are ready for college.

Why Can't I find My Ads On Google?

If you're a business owner that is running Ads on the Google's Adwords platform you have probably wondered at one time or another why your ads don't show up every time you search for your desired keywords. It seems simple; if you're paying Google to advertise your business when someone searches for a keyword, you should show up.

There are many reasons why your ads may not be showing up on Google whenever you search. I'll list some of the main reasons here:

• Your Adwords daily budget is too small. Since Adwords requires you to pay to play, you have to consider whether or not you're paying enough for the advertising exposure you desire. I've heard people complain about not seeing themselves for every search on keywords like "shoes" when they have a $20/day budget. If your ad is clicked on 5 times during that day your budget will be spent and you'll be back to play the next day. 
• Your bids are too low. You may wish to pay 20 cents for every click to your site, but if you're competing in the insurance category, you're about $10 too low just to start. You are entering an auction every time someone performs a search on one of your keywords and you just aren't being as aggressive as your competitors.
• You're targeting the wrong, or right, area. I've seen people get all hot and bothered because they couldn't find their ads when searching from an area that they don't even serve. Perhaps you're a business owner that's out of town and you're searching for your ads. If you're outside your business' service area, your ads will "hopefully" not be showing. 
• Your ads might be disapproved. Google takes it upon themselves to know a lot about advertising and online business they've put specific guidelines in place that are, in most cases, beneficial to the user experience of people that Google things on Google. If your ads are FILLED WITH TONS OF CAPITALS or you just can't seem to scratch a coherent thought into an 85 character advertisement, I hope Google keeps you out of the game. The last thing Google wants is to see their SERP filled with crummy ads.
• Lastly, Google says that even when you're doing everything perfectly you will still not be guaranteed a placement on their SERP every time. Even an unlimited budget and all the PPC genius in the world will not guarantee placement every time. As long as you have more than 10 competitors there will always be a chance that they will show up instead of you. 

If you still have questions around this popular topic, I keep very up-to-date on the latest PPC trends. I'd love to answer any questions or add to my list of future posts.

Carl's Jr. Throws An Event

One of the greatest things you can do as a company to generate buzz is throw an event. Carl's Jr. is offering a free breakfast sandwich on Wednesday July 4th to anyone who dresses up like Spiderman. Most people will only think about how ridiculous this is or how they can get a free sandwich. From a marketing perspective I see an amazing buzz generator. Think of how many people are going to post pictures on Facebook and share this with their friends. Carl's Jr. could even run a contest for the best Spiderman costume.

This is going to be an amazing win for Carl's Jr. and I'm even considering participating in the event. I love free food. I'm just not a huge fan of sporting a Halloween costume in July.

Good Heavens! Change Your Oil.

Modern vehicles are more complex now than ever before. They run more efficiently and are often able to get over 150,000 miles before needing any major maintenance. This is due to increased standards in engineering and more consistent tolerances. The oil in your engine keeps everything lubricated and clean. The oil is used to clean out the worn off metal that is created by normal engine wear.  The chemicals in your oil brake down over time and the constant heating up and cooling down will turn the oil into a thick sludge that can no longer flow through the small cooling and lubricating channels throughout your engine. An engine that was meant to last for 150,000 miles will break down without an oil change in as little as 15,000 miles. If you don't change your oil, your engine will eventually overheat and seize.

When you empty your oil and change the filter you're removing debris and bad deposits from the inside of the engine. A standard rule of thumb was that you change your conventional motor oil every 3,000 miles and synthetic every 5,000. Newer cars say you can go longer between oil changes. I say you should consider those standards as the maximum amount you should go before changing your oil. I recommend synthetic oil because it provides better lubrication and dissipates heat more effectively, which also slows engine wear. If the auto manufacturer says you can go longer between oil changes if you use synthetic, they must assume synthetic will slow engine wear.

Finally, check your oil levels regularly. A common problem is to change your oil and not think about it again for 6 months. During that time, a slow leak could mean you spend that last 3 months driving your car 1-2 quarts low. This causes excess heat and exponentially increased engine wear. It doesn't take more than 2 minutes once a month to verify your oil level and avoid a very costly problem. Please take this information to heart and apply it. Don't belong to the group of drivers that are killing their cars prematurely.

Why Does My Pump Sprayer Sputter

A pump sprayer is a very simple device. It is useful for spraying fertilizers and pesticides as well as cleaners for decks and fencing. It's frustrating when your pump sprayer doesn't work well. one very common problem is when the sprayer sputters. If your sprayer has an inconsistent stream and it doesn't shoot a uniformly shaped pattern, you need to take apart the spray nozzle and clean out anything that has lodged itself into the nozzle assembly. This information has already been posted, but there's another reason why your sprayer could be sputtering.

If your sprayer has intermittent output there's a good chance your feed tube in the bottom of the tank isn't able to take in your solution quick enough. When the tube is at the very bottom of the tank it will create a current when drawing solution that doesn't allow a constant intake of the fluid. All you have to do is increase the size of the intake at the bottom of the tube. Remove the straw and cut a high diagonal slit that allows solution to enter the tube from the side. This will allow the straw to take in fluid even when the spraying creates a current in the very bottom of your tank. This solved the spraying problems in the bottom of my pump sprayers.

Pin Hole Cameras...We're Watching You

Many shoppers are unaware of how much they are being watched when they walk into a store. There are the standard cameras and black globes but did you ever think about hidden cameras. There are usually cameras spread out throughout the entire store. They are called pinhole cameras and they can be placed easily through ceiling tiles. 

Sometimes I like to roam around stores and check out new electronics. Because electronics are some of the most stolen items from a store, the security team usually watches this department like a hawk. It's happened more than once where I'll be hanging out in a department and a member of the loss prevention team will come out and pretend to be another shopper in my area. You can always tell these people because they happen to be looking very intently at nothing. It's especially funny when they are taking extreme interest in surge protectors or coaxial cable. 

I'm not suggesting that you learn about these so you can steal. I just find it interesting to be aware of what's going on around you. I'm always interested in some of the cool things that security teams experience. If you have any cool stories or information, please comment below.