I need to get away for two weeks, ASAP. I’m looking for a fitness-get-in shape type vacation for adults, males, but can’t find anything. Any suggestions?

I am really interested in transferring my credits over to humboldt state university, and was wondering how hard there nursing program is to get in to. i went to there site but haven’t actually heard any feedback from students. Any help from HSU nursing students would be really appreciated. I hear that its fairly easy.

I love the beds at the Hilton Garden Inn, and when I found out you can purchase their Sleep System mattress I was so excited! I would like to know the general prices without giving all of my information for sales people to call me….does anyone know??

Be More Frequently-quoted Than Celebrities

“Language is magic:  it makes things appear and disappear.”

  – Nicole Brossard

 Tell the Story That Tells the Story

 Dusk settled coolly over the misty emerald vineyards in Napa Valley one fall evening.

 Through the window, I gazed wistfully at a thin stream of bittersweet chocolate sauce a waiter was ladling high over a raspberry-colored cake a the table of a hand-holding couple, seated inside the big stone restaurant operated by the Culinary Institute of America.

I knew it was bittersweet chocolate because the rich smell was drifting through the French doors out onto the patio, where we were drinking a fine Cakebread cabernet next to two giggling toddlers, just as happily chewing red licorice twists from the local 7-11 store.

“To generalize is to be an idiot.”

– William Blake

Here’s the pity. As adults, we tend to lose our “picture-making” way of speaking – especially as we become older, more educated and experienced. Our expertise does us in.

Our conversations begin with sweeping generalizations.

 To further numb listeners, we are more likely today to talk “at” others, using longer sentences, full of jargon, background and qualifiers before we cue the listeners in with the context that matters to them. 

 Our words become underbrush to obscure our message. Instead make the point in everyday language, wrapped around an example that matters to your listener.

 Here’s Tip Tips to Say it Even Better …. Next Time

Whoever most vividly characterizes a situation or person usually determines how others see it in their mind’’s eye, discuss it, and act on it.

Here’s ten quick tips for becoming the most frequently-quoted expert in your profession, organization, market or cause.

 1. Be Mercifully Brief

 In the movie, “The Player” during a scene at a Hollywood studio executive meeting Mr. Levy shows Reeve, the central character, how to pitch a potential movie story.  Levy holds out a newspaper, saying, “ Here, read a headline, any headline.”

Reeve responds:  “Um . . .’Immigrants Protest Budget Cuts in Literacy Program.’”

 Levy: “Human spirit overcoming economic adversity.  Sounds like Horatio Alger in the barrio. You put in Jimmy Smits, you got a sexy  ‘Stand and Deliver.’ Next?”

 Robert Kosberg, a Hollywood producer convinced a studio to make the 1993 pets -gone-wrong movie “Man’s Best Friend.” His pitch was “Jaws on Paws”.

2. Create a Captivating Turn of Phrase

Here’s three ways.

A. Use a familiar word in a new way and become associated with a new  trend:

Example:  Futurist, Faith Popcorn, predicted five years ago that people would want to be “cocooning” in their home.

B. Be catchy, using one or more of these memorabiity-building devices:

•  Alliteration:  “Peak performance” and “high tech/high touch.”

•  Rhyme:  “Jaws on Paws” (from earlier story)

•  Repetition:  “First things first”, Steve Covey’s advice.

•  Puns:  Tongue Fu!,  title of book by Sam Horn.

 C. Employ an unexpected turns of phrase:  For example, I suggest that to forge a connection,  “go slow to go fast.”

3. Get Specific Sooner

The specific detail proves the general conclusion, not the other way around.

 “The Mini Cooper of office furniture,” is the apt tag line of the tiny firm, Turnstone. Their elaboration: “Leveraging parent Steelcase’s technology and distribution channels, we offer small businesses great style for less, with big-business speed.”

Unlike most children under the age of 12 or so, we adults offer qualifiers and background, creating verbal underbrush before we finally get to the delicious details that are most involving, credible, and evocative.

Think of the speeches, advertisements, and conversations you most remember. Didn’t the words evoke one or more of the senses, create an indelible picture?

 “Air bag for your computer” is the description of back up software for a computer’s hard drive.

For several years, many advertising campaigns featured a group photo of “diverse” people, with some variation of this headline: “We Are the People Who Care.” Banks, insurance companies, hospitals, and other large institutions thus offered a generality that perpetuated their impersonal image instead of promising some specific service, extra convenience, guarantee, or customer story that proved how they were better than the competition.

For example, a bank could offer a specific new service, followed by the general reason that matters to customers: “We’re now open Saturdays to make your life easier.”

4. Make Favorable Comparisons With Familiar, Admired Objects

Say it so they can see it in their mind’s eye.  When people in your work world are immersed in jargon, your remarks can stand out from others, when you make a comparison with a well-liked product, person or situation from outside your profession or industry.

Example:  At the high stakes J.P. Morgan Healthcare investors’ conference, venture capitalists hear 20-minutes talks by CEOs of start-ups and public companies who seek funding or favorable stock analysts’ reporters.  The tension is high and the schedule is packed.   Most presenters speak fast, using a mix of highly technical scientific and finance language.

The CEO from bio-tech company, Amgen, walked past the podium to the center of the stage, pulled up one suit and shirt sleeve to bare his raised forearm.  He opened his talk, saying, ” You will feel the effects of this medical patch faster than it takes a Porsche to go from zero to 90. “

5. Hijack a Familiar Slogan to Use in a New Way

After a company has spent millions to make a slick slogan well-known, twist it in a new direction for your intended meaning. Redwood Hospital in Northern California used this billboard variation of the popular milk slogan to ask for blood donations:  “Got blood?”

6. Anchor Your Suggestion With a Pertinent Story

To pull people into hearing and remembering your view, set it up with a brief anecdote.  For example, as a way of  gently suggesting that his team may be looking at a problem from the wrong perspective, my client first offered this story:

There is an old story in Soviet Russia about a guard at the factory gate who at the end of every day saw a worker walking out with a wheelbarrow full of straw.  Everyday he thoroughly searched the contents of the wheelbarrow, but never found anything but straw. One day he asked the worker: “What do you gain by taking home all that straw?” “The wheelbarrows.”

 7. Veil the Truth in Humor

So much of life is fast-paced, serious and tense. Consider opening a meeting with mock-serious inspiration or admonition, then grinning.  You’ll find true life, Dilbert-like examples everywhere that you can keep for your dry humored use.  Here’s some:

“What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.”

(Lykes Lines Shipping)

“This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more

important interfere with it.”

  (Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

‘We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.”

  (Switching supervisor, Verizon)

 8. Encapsulate a Situation

 Do people stop listening before you stop talking?

Offer a vignette that captures attention before they can go on a mental vacation.

 Example: Jenny Lee’s literary agent characterized Jenny’s book,  I Do.  I Did, Now What?: One Woman’s Musings on Married Life, as “a rant that (almost despite itself) ends up as a celebration of marriage.”

Example: Financial analyst, Alan Parisse shared this perhaps apocryphal newspaper advertisement with me:  “For sale.  Infant shoes.  Never used.”

9. Imprint by Evoking Universally-Felt Emotions

“The advantage of emotions is that they lead us astray.”

 – Oscar Wilde

Consider these potent ways that people are more likely to remember what you say, even when they are not trying to:

1. Imagine that the brain is like a wall with clothes hooks on it. For the brain to catch and retain a detail, that detail must hang on one of the memory-inducing hooks that is already in the brain.

 The biggest hooks in the brain are the three universally felt, core life experiences, familiar to us all:

1) Family

2) Hometown or town where you have lived or are living, and

3) Past or current kind of work. For family, relate what you’re saying to a family situation: yours, theirs, someone else’s, or even a metaphorical family of services. Or relate your topic to the listener’s work situation or work with which she is familiar.

People also remember landmark places where they live, have lived, or have visited or well-known places. For example, our business is in Sausalito, which evokes pleasant by-the-bay memories for most who’ve visited here. 

2. Motion makes memories.

Whenever people are moving or see movement, they remember more and are more emotional about what they remember.  When others are in motion with you in a positive experience they are more likely to share their experience with others. That’s why we literally move to offer samples, getting people to reach out, so they feel the experience more deeply.

 An experience is most memorable when you and the other person are both in motion, such as when you shake hands, walk together, or reach to exchange something. Pick those ripe moments to say the most vivid, specific detail you want the listener to remember and repeat to others. Times are next most memorable for the listener who is in motion even if you are not.

The next most memorable movement is when you are in motion, even if your listener is not. A final valuable way to evoke a memory is for you both to watch motion from something or someone else.

Warning: Let Go of the Vibrating Pole

 “There are two levers for moving men – interest and fear.”

– Napoleon

Movement is a two-edged sword.   It is never neutral. The listener who experiences something negative where motion is involved will also remember the experience longer, and more intensely.  Just like grabbing vibrating pole, we grab onto negative feelings sooner, longer, and more intensely than positive.

 That is because the primitive triune part of our brain– wired to help us survive — causes us to respond to appearances of danger more strongly than to those of delight.

 3. Speak first of the other person’s most current, pressing interest. Just as those in the market for new cars are most likely to hear car ads on the

radio, all people listen sooner when you first speak about what is most on their mind at that moment.

Sadly, in fewer than 5% of interactions – even when we want something from someone else  – do we first speak about what matters most to them. We are more likely to speak about our own interests first.

 4. Speak in the vivid, specific details that have a high emotional value for the listener.

The good news?

If you practice speaking first about the other person’s interests, then about what you share in common, and only then about how that commonality relates to your interests, four amazingly powerful changes occur in how that other person relates to you. The person listens sooner, listens longer, remembers more, and assumes you have a higher IQ than if you first speak about your own interests.

10. Look to Their Positive Intent, Especially When It Appears They Have None

Do not let somebody else determine your words or behavior.

 Unfortunately, we are more likely to be vivid in describing what we don’t like than what we do. Yet, as Adlai Stevenson once said, “When you throw mud, you get dirty.”

 Report in neutral language the negative news and hand any resultant problems back on the person who “caused” them without labeling that person’s behavior: “As we are starting our meeting at ten after, how shall we best use the time?” 

 Conversely, use emotion-laden language to state the positive and both you and the person you praise will shine: “Your manager was thoughtful enough to send us the plans ahead of this meeting so we are much better prepared to make decision.  Please thank him for putting in the extra time to give us a head start on this project.”

 Praise what you want to flourish.  As you bring out another’s best side (temperament and talents) that person is more likely to see and support yours.

 After all, if this is the Age of Engagement, fueled by The Power of Us, then what could be more crucial for you to learn than to create the captivating picture that inspires us to be greater together than apart?

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Find More Northern California Family Vacation Articles

My girlfriend and I are planning a week long car trip around April up the California coast.

We plan on leaving from the San Francisco area and heading north from there and are wondering what there is to do for three college students with a bit of money.

This trip is going to be an escape/vacation for us and we are looking for things unusual and exciting.

Any suggestions from NorCal locals on what to do in the towns or anything that is must see? Thanks.

Oh and on a side note, I’m from San Francisco and she is from Sacramento and have done enough and seen the sights there and are looking further north.

i need to find some cities near the redwoods in california. i dont want a city thats small. i want a city thats either moderately large or very large. also, by the ocean with a beach would be nice, but not necessary. what im mostly looking for is for it to be like, really close to the redwoods. t

thnx!
okay then, if theres no big cities, any small cities? is Redwood city close to the Redwoods, or is it just named after them?

Bus Charter Companies Offer More Than Buses

If you want to experience a vacation that will stay with you in memories for the rest of your life, then you should consider a package tour offered by a bus charter company. Yes, bus charter companies offer all sorts of tours. They don’t just supply buses for rent.

Bus Charter companies often take advantage of the location in which they have their offices. For example, if located in a metropolitan area like say New York, Boston, Philadelphia, they have created tour packages that take you to sites of interest within those cities. If in New York, they can take you to Wall Street, the Mayor’s house, the Statue of Liberty, the city museums in one tour in one day. If in Philadelphia, they no doubt have tours that will take you to Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Liberty Bell is exhibited, along with other revolutionary war related sites. If in Boston, the bus charter company can take you to revolutionary related sites of interest such as Boston Commons, the Boston Harbor, Bunker Hill, the Old North Church, and the route of Paul Revere.

Many of the bus charter companies located in big cities have also developed alliances with other bus charter companies in other cities that has the same advantages. For example, a bus charter company located in New York may have a relationship with a bus charter company in Montreal, Canada that offers package tours of sites of interest in that city. Some of these companies may have alliances with as many as three or more companies in other cities. That allows you to book your tours with one company.

Many of these bus charter companies that reside in such metropolitan areas may also be in a region that has many sites of interest. For example, in the surrounding area to which a bus charter may be located could be civil war battlefield sites. The bus charter company have tours that take you to these sites. Or the bus charter company may be in proximity to the wine country in Northern California and has tours to wineries.

Bus charter companies located in San Diego and Los Angeles cannot only offer tours of those cities but also tours into Mexico such as the Baja as well as tours to Anaheim where there are a number of sites of interest including Disneyland, the Gene Autry Museum, Knotts Berry Farm, and more. Many of the companies in Los Angeles also offer trips to Las Vegas.

If you are an avid golfer, bus charter companies in regions of the country where there are golf courses used in PGA tournaments offer trips to these sites as well as hotel accommodations so that you could enjoy a week of playing golf on different courses. Are you a fanatic fan of your hometown professional football or basketball team? Bus charter companies in cities that have pro teams offer trips to out of town games. You can book an entire season and follow your favorite team to every city in which they will play.

Then there are special events that take place in a few months of a year like a World’s Fair or Expo. Bus charter companies in cities near to the event offer packages that include the event as well as other sites on the way to the event. I took a great bus charter tour to an Expo in Vancouver, Canada. The tour also included sites in Seattle, Washington and Victoria, Canada. And hotel accommodations and restaurants were included.

All of these trips and tours are cost effective and convenient. You don’t have to create carpools and caravans consisting of you and your friends with their modes of transportation and their families and wonder where you can stop for lodging and meals. All of that is arranged within the trip when a bus charter is involved.

Moreover, the bus charter company includes a tour guide who knows the history of the sites to be visited and who provide a running commentary, explanation and historic background of the site.

Selecting a Bus Charter Tour

I assure you that there is a tour for every interest. All you need to do is find it, find the proper bus charter company that offers it, book it and then get to the bus and take your seat.

Obviously, what you need to do first is figure out what kind of trip would interest you. That is a subjective decision. But, once you have determined that, then you can find the bus charter company that offers such a tour or trip. When you get to this stage in your planning you can visit the IMG Coach website (http://www.imgcoach.com) to find a good number of charter bus companies that offer what you are looking for.

IMG consists of independently owned tour and charter bus companies that have created a network that offers all sorts of travel services. Companies involved in the network operate more than 7,000 vehicles in North America and service more than 21 million customers.

Selecting the proper bus charter company from the IMG Coach site is easier than just doing a search of the internet because members of the IMG Coach network are reputable companies to start with. They adhere to safety standards and operate under the authority of the U.S. Department of Transportation and other groups including the PUC and ICC.

So what are you waiting for! Once you book your first bus charter company tour, then you will no doubt base future vacations on other such tours.

More Northern California Family Vacation Articles

My friends have never surfed before, I have a couple of times (not that that’s important, were all beginners). We were looking to go to California in April. Whats the best place to go? And would it be better to attend a week-long surf camp, or rent a couple rooms and just go have fun?
Thanks for taking the time

Does anyone know any place (in Humboldt) to adopt a duck? I have already looked at feed stores, animal shelters and pet stores and they don’t have any. I don’t know if there are any farms near by, but my mom wont help… at all! I want two adult ducks and cant find any. Please help if you know of any places.