enjoy living day

The Great Outdoors
Feed the ducks at the park.
Cut some fresh wildflowers for your table.
Go fishing.
Hike somewhere with pretty scenery.
Go jogging with a friend.
Take your dog for a walk.
Get a group of friends together for a water balloon fight.
Try to find out about little-known waterfalls in your area and explore to find them.
Volunteer for a non-profit association.
Go camping at a place you’ve never been before.
Learn how to sail a catamaran.
Visit a farm with a friend.
Go off-road mountain biking.
Take horseback riding lessons.
Find a quiet place with beautiful scenery to read a favorite book.
Find a wildflower information book and explore to see how many flowers you can identify around your town.
Go kayaking.
Start a garden.
Run through a water sprinkler.
Organize a barbeque with the neighbors.

Recreation
Run a 5K race or fun walk just for fun.
Join the local community orchestra or choir.
Take ballroom dancing lessons.
Take up a new instrument.
Write a humorous poem.
Go see the nearest symphony orchestra.
Read to grade school children.
Join a recreational basketball or volleyball team from the local community center.
Go to a nearby coffee shop and listen to any intellectual conversations going on.
Become a mentor to a student that wishes to enter your profession.
Organize a scavenger hunt for friends and family.
Listen to a new genre of music.
Explore small shops downtown in your city.
Send a postcard to a child.
Ask a veteran to tell you some if his or her favorite stories from years in the service.
Send flowers or a card to a friend just for fun.
Go to a music store and try out all the grand pianos.
Go shopping to find a gift for someone who has been kind to you.
Go visit your alma mater to see what has changed since you graduated.
Go watch a high school play.

Around the house
Bake some cookies for your neighbors.
Buy a pretty house plant.
Try out a new kind of tea or coffee.
Make gift baskets for a local charity.
Start a canned food drive for needy families.
Mow an elderly neighbor’s lawn and talk with them afterward.
Find an ugly corner in the yard and turn it into a small garden.
Try out a new recipe for supper.
Take a bicycle ride.
Organize a neighborhood-wide game of sardines.
Take some time to look through old family photos.
Invite friends and family over for supper.
Start a scrapbook.
Get the family together and watch old home videos.
Let a child help you give your dog a bath (this doesn’t work so well with cats)
Make your own root beer. As an added benefit, this is also a nice money saver.
Make up your own variety of smoothie with your favorite fruit.
Start a practical joke war with a sibling or long suffering friend.
Record yourself singing a friend’s favorite songs and give the CD to them.
Save a snowball in the freezer and get to throw it at someone on a hot summer day.
Make your own fountain with Diet Coke and Mentos.
Camp out in the living room with your kids.
Build a fort out of cardboard boxes.
Make homemade ice cream.
Listen to your old cassette tapes or records.
Call your parents just to say “hi.”
Help your kids make homemade cards for relatives.
Check out a book of jokes and read it.
Build a house out of cards.
Make a gingerbread house during the summer.
Print some digital pictures and hang them in your house.
Repaint a room with a cheerful color.
Rearrange your furniture.
Put your TV in the closet for a month.
Reupholster an old piece of furniture.
Make a slip ‘n slide for your family. (keep safety in mind)
Make a pie, draw or paint a picture, or grow and arrange flowers to enter in the county fair.
Help your kids make cards for nursing home residents.
Explore iTunes for new music to listen to.
Try out Pandora Radio.

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WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012 — Today, LivingSocial announced the opening of 918 F Street, a first-of-its-kind live events venue where LivingSocial and its merchant partners will offer pop-up restaurants, classes and hands-on activities. An ambitious test for the company, 918 F Street will give local merchants additional space and state-of-the-art facilities to reach new customers and share the best of Washington, DC.

"Since its inception, LivingSocial has been successful in creating unique experiences that help our members discover the best of their town," said Doug Miller, SVP New Initiatives for LivingSocial. "918 F Street will serve as a venue for special experiences where local residents can try the hottest pop-up restaurants, take a yoga or painting class, learn to make sushi or participate in scores of other social activities. In our state-of-the-art facility, local merchants get the resources, space and audience they need to scale their businesses and reach new customers. We believe this is the next step in the evolution of local commerce and complements our existing offerings."

The venue, which has six floors plus a basement, was created to be flexible enough to host a wide range of activities. Among its capabilities, 918 F Street features a state-of-the-art culinary kitchen for visiting chefs to host distinctive pop-up restaurants; a 36-person demonstration kitchen for cooking and baking classes with live automated video feeds of the chef; three flexible spaces that can be adapted for dining, dancing, classes, workshops and more; a basement bar where consumers can learn mixoogy or taste local brews.

918 F Street gives local merchants more space, flexibility and opportunity to create unique experiences for consumers without interrupting operations at their normal place of business.

918 F Street's inaugural event will be a sneak peek of Bandolero, the highly-anticipated restaurant from Mike Isabella, Chef/Owner of Graffiato and Top Chef All-Stars Runner-Up. Bandolero is scheduled to open Spring 2012 in Georgetown and will feature modern Mexican small plates with a large, tequila-infused cocktail menu.

"LivingSocial is opening a first-of-its-kind venue — from kitchen to tabletop — that allows me both a training opportunity for my team and a chance to test recipes for our menu," said Isabella. "I'm excited to be the first in the 918 F Street kitchen testing my concepts for the new restaurant, and I look forward to seeing guests react to some Bandolero dishes and cocktails before it opens."

LivingSocial has partnered with Vucurevich Simons Advisory Group (VSAG), an international hospitality and restaurant consulting firm to manage food and beverage programs at 918 F Street.

918 F Street Events & Activities

LivingSocial 918 F Street will offer a wide range of unique original programming. From restaurants to yoga to painting, members can rest assured that all merchants have received the LivingSocial stamp of approval and will provide a memorable experience.

Consumers will be able to purchase a voucher through LivingSocial.com to attend activities led by acclaimed local merchants including:
A pop-up restaurant from Kyle Bailey and Tiffany MacIsaac (Birch & Barley);
Sushi rolling classes taught by instructors from Sticky Rice;
Photography classes led by Douglas Sonders;
Cooking classes taught by Executive Chef Frederick de Pue of 42 Degrees Catering;
Chocolate Making & Tasting Class from instructors, including Executive Chef Santosh Tiptur, from Co Co. Sala Lounge & Boutique;
Artisan cheese and craft beer tastings taught by Cowgirl Creamery;
Cocktail and Mixology courses taught by Founding Farmers' award-winning chief mixologist, Jon Arroyo;
Kids' cooking classes from KitchKat;
Yoga classes by Yoga District; and
Painting and wine tasting classes.

About the building

The 28,000-square-foot building is one of DC's few examples of Georgian Romanesque architecture and was originally built in 1890 for the National Union Insurance Company. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and occupies a place in history by adjoining the alley John Wilkes Booth used to escape after assassinating President Lincoln.

LivingSocial has worked with preservationists to painstakingly restore the building to as much of its original glory as possible through steps like preserving the lobby's original plaster friezes to restoring the building's façade and commissioning authentic replica light fixtures.

Construction on the building began around August 2011. In order to open up the building's interior for modern use, crews removed load-bearing masonry walls and replaced them with a massive steel grid designed to carry the weight of the structure.

LivingSocial worked with architect and interior design firm Streetsense to design and complete renovation of 918 F Street.

For a full list of LivingSocial products and the cities where products are available, go to livingsocial.com. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/livingsocial. Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/livingsocial. LivingSocial products and services are subject to the Terms and Conditions found at livingsocial.com/terms.

About LivingSocial

LivingSocial helps people around the world find, share and enjoy great local deals and new experiences. We'll help you get more out of your city. Through its daily deal e-mails and alerts, LivingSocial introduces members to handpicked local businesses, products or services each day at significant savings. With a range of products for different interests, like Families and Adventures, LivingSocial helps delight members with the perfect deal for them. Other services include LivingSocial Escapes, which fetures easy "vacations in a box" to leading destinations, and LivingSocial Instant, which helps members discover real-time discounts at nearby restaurants, stores and businesses. LivingSocial works with each merchant partner to create customized marketing solutions that attract and retain loyal, long-term customers. Based in Washington, D.C., LivingSocial now has more than 46 million members in 25 countries.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday defended the arrest of a Jadavpur University professor over his cartoons on the internet putting her in poor light and she blamed CPI-M for raising trivial issues to "malign" her.

"They don't do any work but think of ways to frame me," Banerjee said targeting the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) hours after the police action against Ambikesh Mohapatra that led to a strong condemnation from the academic community and the Left.

"...They commit crimes and once people are arrested they run it on their channels for the whole day," she said at a public event. The Trinamool Congress supremo warned this will not be allowed to go on.

Labour minister Purnendu Bose also justified the arrest, arguing the contents circulated by the professor were not a cartoon, but real pictures, which were nothing but an insult.

"Law will take its own course," he said.

Mohapatra meanwhile claimed some people suspected to be belonging to ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday forced him to sign a letter to say he is a member of CPI-M and that he had intentionally sent the e-mails circulating the cartoons.

A new approach to coaxing the body to fight HIV without antiretroviral drugs has shown some success in almost half the patients enrolled in a small study, US researchers said Wednesday.

Twenty HIV-positive volunteers in Pennsylvania were asked to stop taking their drug therapy and submit instead to weekly doses of interferon-alpha, an antiviral chemical produced by the human immune system.

The treatment kept HIV under control in nine of the 20 patients at the 12-week mark, and appeared to decrease the amount of HIV present in cells that harbor the infection, known as reservoirs.

The trial was meant to last 24 weeks or until a person's HIV levels either rose or T-cells dropped to a certain level, at which point the subjects were to resume their antiretroviral treatment.

Just eight people stayed in the study for its full 24-week duration.

However, researcher Luis Montaner, a professor at the Wistar Institute and director of its HIV-1 Immunopathogenesis Laboratory, was optimistic that the findings had broken new ground.

"Our data shows that our human immune response can be made to control HIV in persons who have otherwise lost that ability and, if sustained by natural interferon production, it establishes proof-of-concept that a functional cure is theoretically possible," Montaner said in a statement.

"And while we still have much to pursue with this early clinical finding, I firmly believe this gives us hope that one day we can control -- and eventually eradicate -- HIV in absence of antiretroviral therapy."

The research, which has not been published or independently peer-reviewed, was presented at the 2012 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle, Washington.

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For the moment, Bill Gates is no longer the world's wealthiest man.

But he didn't lose the title to Mexico's telecom titan Carlos Slim; he gave it away. And as a result, the businessman-turned-philanthropist can point to a different kind of scoreboard.

"Well, it's easiest to measure in the health work," Gates told me, "where over 5 million lives have been saved."

In a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo! and ABC News, the former head of Microsoft talked about how Steve Jobs' death affected him, his fix for American schools and his annual letter, which sets the priorities for one of the most generous charitable efforts in history.

With a pledge to give away 95 percent of Gates' personal wealth, the Gates Foundation claims to have granted more than $26 billion since 1994. While some of that money is devoted to improving U.S. education, roughly 75 percent goes to the poorest countries in the world, and Gates scoffs at the idea that the money would be better spent at home.

"Well, the question is, are human lives of equal value?" Gates said. "For the mother whose child dies in Africa, is that somehow less important, less painful? If we can save that life -- for very little [money], is that appropriate to do? And, in fact, we know that if we do save those lives, it can reduce the population growth. It can let them be on a path to graduate from receiving aid."

After the Gates Foundation's vaccination efforts in India, that nation reported only one case of polio last year. And while the foundation promises to fight on against preventable diseases, the top focus of this year's letter is agriculture and Gates' belief that without technology, farmers could never feed the world's exploding population.

He calls for further research into the creation of flood-and-drought-resistant crops through genetic engineering.

"It is hard to overstate how valuable it is to have all the incredible tools that are used for human disease to study plants," he writes. But the idea of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, is loaded with controversy. Environmental groups worry that the practice could upset the food chain, leading to the spread of disease, "superweeds" and mutant insects. Switzerland, Peru and Ecuador are among the handful of countries that have banned the cultivation of GMOs.

To the dismay of GMO opponents, public records reveal that the Gates Foundation recently spent $27 million to buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto, the agribusiness giant with labs devoted to improving on nature to boost crop yields. And while Gates avoids the words "genetically modified" in his letter, he defends the idea when pressed.

"Over time, yes, countries will need to look at specific GMO products like they look at drugs today, where they don't approve them all. They look hard at the safety and the testing. And they make sure that the benefits far outweigh any of the downsides."

Aside from the environmental concerns, England's Prince Charles was among those who blamed a rash of farmer suicides in India on the higher cost of GMO seeds. But Gates insisted that his foundation's partners are not out to exploit developing nations.

"There's absolutely no payments, no royalties of any kind. It's just like in medicines. ... We go to the big companies who don't expect to make profits from the poorest billion and say: 'Will you help us?' And so they donate it."

Back in America, Gates is renewing his push toward "peer-reviewed" teaching as the key to reforming education. Since the best -- and worst -- teachers often operate in a bubble, he suggests training an elite group to roam from class to class to share what works and what doesn't.

"You take at least 2 percent of the teachers, train them very well and have them do structured visitations," he said. "And they tell the teacher, 'OK, you were good at this, but you didn't engage these kids very well. You didn't create discussion here. You didn't explain why a kid would wanna know this thing,' and help those teachers improve."

And Gates also reflected on the passing of Steve Jobs. Weeks before the Apple founder died, Gates paid an unannounced visit to the home of his sometime friend and longtime rival.

"He and I always enjoyed talking. He would throw some things out, you know, some stimulating things. We'd talk about the other companies that have come along. We talked about our families and how lucky we'd both been in terms of the women we married. It was great relaxed conversation.

How did Jobs' death affect him? "Well, it's very strange to have somebody who's so vibrant and made such a huge difference and been ... kind of a constant presence, to have him die," Gates said. "It makes you feel like, 'Wow, we're getting old.' I hope I still have quite a bit of time for the focus I have now, which is the philanthropic work. And there's drugs we're investing in now that won't be out for 15 years -- malaria eradication, I need a couple of decades here to fulfill that opportunity. But, you know, it reminds you that you gotta pick important stuff, because you only have a limited time."

For more from Bill Weir's exclusive interview with Bill Gates watch "Nightline " Tuesday night at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported, in part, last year's ABC NEWS initiative BE THE CHANGE: SAVE A LIFE , which focused on health care in some of the poorest areas of the world.

A postal worker discovered the children, ages 11 and 5, at the bus in Splendora about 10 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. Their parents are believed to be in prison for embezzling money from Hurricane Ike victims in 2008. The children are not enrolled at local schools.

The bus appeared to have electricity, an air conditioning unit installed in one window and bunk beds inside for the children. But several neighbors told the Houston Chronicle that the children typically looked unkempt and could often be spotted running around at night.

"They always had dirty clothes on (and) no shoes, even in the winter," said nearby resident Gayla Payne, who said the 11-year-old girl told her daughter that she bathes twice a week.

Investigators told KTRK-TV that the children have been living in the bus since the beginning of the year.

The children told Texas Child Protective Services workers that they were home-schooled. A woman on the property — believed to be the children's great-aunt — told CPS she worked 12-hour shifts Monday through Friday but that she stayed with the children at night.

"The aunt said that she does provide meals for them during the day," Montgomery County Constable Rowdy Hayden told KTRK-TV. "Looking around the (the bus), we didn't see a lot of food readily available. One of the neighbors had told us earlier that from time to time she will bring food over for the children."

The children are in foster care pending an investigation by Child Protective Services, spokeswoman Gwen Carter said. CPS workers will appear in court Thursday to ask a judge for emergency custody of the children, she said.

Splendora is 35 miles northeast of Houston.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

London - Red balloons will be released, vigil candles lit and heads of state will recall those who have fallen victim to HIV and Aids on the 24th World Aids Day, to be held this week.

Thirty years after the first reported diagnoses of Aids - then tantamount to a death sentence - one remarkable fact highlights the advances medicine has made: the number of people living with HIV has reached a record 34 million.

Thanks to antiretroviral drugs, which almost 50 percent of people with the virus can now access, the number of Aids-related deaths around the world stands at 1.8 million a year - its lowest level since a peak in 2005, according to a recent UNAIDS report. While those who lived through the late 1980s and early 1990s in Britain will remember a rapid rise in Aids deaths, which largely affected gay men, injecting drug users and people who had received blood infusions, the fastest growing group of people with the disease in this country are now the over-50s.

But while HIV rates have fallen elsewhere, in the UK the number of diagnosed cases increased by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2009. There are now more than 90,000 people in Britain with HIV. In 2009 there were three times as many heterosexual people infected in the UK with HIV than in 2001, according to the Terrence Higgins Trust.

The Independent on Sunday met two HIV-positive people living contrasting lives in different parts of world.

Chris Williams, 47

Hammersmith, west London

Chris Williams tested positive for HIV three years ago during a routine check-up. He gave up his job as a personal trainer after his diagnosis and decided to study counselling, so that he can one day work in the public health sector. His infection was spotted early and he has yet to fall ill. He takes five pills a day; they are delivered free of charge to his door every six months.

“My experience of treatment has been very straightforward. I have a blood test twice a year. I see a doctor and he authorises the prescription of my drugs on the basis of the results. I've been very lucky and felt no side effects to my medication, except a little fatigue sometimes.

“At the beginning, I only told a few people, but gradually I have become more open about my status. Some people say I'm over-optimistic about the prognosis of my HIV, but I think in this country, there is no need for it to still be a killer disease.

“You can still go out and have a social life. Some people find it difficult to deal with psychologically, and there is still a lot of room for improvement, but it's not all doom and gloom. When I do go, I hope it won't be from HIV, but from old age.”

Hellen Njeri Ngugi, 40

Nairobi, Kenya

Hellen Njeri Ngugi and her husband, also HIV-positive, live with their three children in a one-bedroom house in the Mathare Valley slums, sharing one latrine with 12 neighbours. When Mrs Ngugi was diagnosed with the disease 11 years ago, her husband refused to accept her condition at first. It took Mrs Ngugi two years to get the treatment that she needs, as the clinic was three hours away. Christian Aid has since given her counselling and support.

“When I found out I was HIV-positive, I thought it was the end of my life. People around showed me so much discrimination, including my parents. I could not share anything with them, including eating utensils and sleeping stuff.

“I used to work in a hotel, balancing the finances, but now my husband and I don't have permanent jobs. Whenever he fell sick, he was sacked. I now make soap, but I can't walk far, so I have to use my phone to look for customers. It is very difficult to raise money for the family.

“But, through counselling, I was encouraged. I have become a role model for others and was moved to another clinic, a 45-minute walk from my house. I now get my pills every three months.” -

The Independent on Sunday

Should you approve of low-cost stretch life insurance? It's an often-asked question to which here is a low-cost and unadorned answer. If you be inflicted with a mortgage or you be inflicted with a partner, family tree or dependants with the intention of may possibly suffer fiscal hardship as a upshot of your death at that time low-cost stretch life insurance is a should! Cheap label life insurance, otherwise renowned simply as life insurance or stretch life is a low-cost life insurance plan with the intention of pays made known a lump sum in the lead your death.

The premiums are very low-cost and stretch life insurance policies are very straightforward to take. There are two basic types of stretch life insurance unfilled from insurers - low-cost decreasing stretch life insurance and low-cost level stretch life insurance. Cheap decreasing stretch life insurance Cheap decreasing stretch life insurance is very low-cost. For single a hardly any pounds all month a low-cost decreasing stretch life insurance plan will shell out the balance of your mortgage must you go to meet your maker previous to it reaches satiated stretch. This type of stretch plan is called decreasing stretch life insurance since the sum insured decreases in line with your outstanding mortgage balance. The low-cost premium remains the same pro the life of the plan, making it an exceptionally low-cost way to secure life insurance.

A low-cost decreasing stretch life insurance plan ONLY pays made known a lump sum to apparent your mortgage. This type of low-cost stretch life insurance does not get on to one other provision pro the loved ones you leave behind. Cheap level stretch life insurance Level stretch life insurance policies are not as low-cost as decreasing stretch life insurance, although these types of stretch policies overall are still low-cost, having single vaguely privileged premiums attached to them. The goal pro the premium not being as low-cost is with the intention of level stretch policies shell out rancid your mortgage AND leave a lump sum to your partner, family tree and/or dependants.

The sum insured through a low-cost level stretch life insurance plan remains the same through the life of the plan, as does the low-cost premium. A low-cost level stretch life insurance is recommended to run in tandem with your mortgage. However, a low-cost level stretch life insurance plan can run differently from the stretch of your mortgage. For occasion, you may possibly take made known a 10-year level stretch life insurance procedure with the intention of is separate from one other low-cost premium life plan casing your mortgage. The premiums on the 10-year insurance plan will not be as low-cost since the stretch is fleeting, but it will provide you with further life insurance cover in the awkward event of your death.

Medical cure – both vigor and dental – is tremendously expensive and the superlative doable option in the prearranged scenario is to purchase both vigor and dental insurance. Compare the two and you will attain so as to dental insurance is more reasonable and cheaper than vigor insurance. This is as dental insurance is designed to provide preventive thoughtfulness and this, by and big, eliminates odds of major problems. Unlike vigor insurance, whereby procedure need to cover expensive tests, multiple treatments, and risky diseases, dental insurance covers diseases so as to are preventive by nature and even if cure becomes essential, the diagnostic tests require little more than x-rays, and a thorough examination by the dentist.

Family dental insurance plus makes trade and industry good judgment. People will attain so as to in one type, nearby will be members who allow necessary dental cure by the side of a little instant or the other. It can be children who require their cavities to be to the top or the elder generation requiring root channel cure. If nothing as well, regular visits to the dentist are an answer to keeping teeth in fine condition, be it personal belongings of bleeding gums or teeth requiring topical fluoride cure.

Routine check-ups can establish to be reasonable, if covered by dental procedure. Otherwise, a visit to a dentist, apart from being a heavy-going experience, can plus finish off up digging a deep outlet in the reduced-size. People can afford dental insurance by the side of cut-rate tariff if they wish to purchase PPO procedure, or preferred giver organization procedure. The simply mechanism they allow to sacrifice at this point is the autonomy of preference. This capital so as to as in support of as the autonomy of choosing a dentist is concerned, they will allow to wish a dentist who is listed in the plan’s set-up. People be supposed to weigh the settlement open carefully and, prearranged the reasonable nature of the plot, they mig

Know Your Coverage Types What is your car insurance in fact insuring? Although you're export a single insurance policy casing a point vehicle, a digit of components get on to up the final cost:

Bodily injury liability: Covers injury and death claims hostile to you, and officially authorized expenditure, if your car injures or kills someone.

Property destruction liability: Covers claims pro property with the intention of your car costs in an accident. Because liability coverage protects the other have fun, it is vital in all but three states.

Medical payments: Pays pro injuries to physically and to occupants of your car. This is discretionary in approximately states. Inside "no-fault" states, private injury protection replaces health check payments as part of the basic coverage.


Uninsured motorist protection: Covers injuries caused to you or the occupants of your car by uninsured or hit-and-run drivers. "Under-insured" coverage furthermore is unfilled, to cover claims you could get on to hostile to a driver who has inadequate insurance. Inside approximately states, as many as 30 percent of drivers are uninsured.


Collision coverage: Covers destruction to your car up to its tome regard. Collision coverage carries a deductible, which is the amount for every aver you be inflicted with to shell out previous to the insurance takes effect. The decrease the deductible, the privileged the premium. While it is with permission discretionary, a lending society or leasing company ordinarily requires collision coverage.

Comprehensive (physical damage): Covers destruction to your car from theft, vandalism, fire, wind, flood, and other non-accident causes. Comprehensive furthermore carries a deductible.