Ed Icionsub

This morning I noticed a dashboard message advising me of another WordPress upgrade available. This upgrade is evidently another security patch to help protect blogs and servers from hackers who are exploiting a few particular weaknesses in the program.

A good friend of mine, Adam, has several web sites that he maintains for friends and family, and he has had ongoing problems with hackers this summer because of flaws in the WordPress programming. So I take the threat of security issues very seriously and upgrade as as soon as I see that a new version has been tested and released.

Remodeling work can be a lot of fun or a lot of headaches. It depends on whether you are doing it out of necessity or by choice, and if you have a good contractor who you can trust to do good work and not cheat you.

We think we finally found a good man to do some work on the house for us. We are going to test him out on a simple exterior job, and then if we are happy with that we will ask him to help us remodel the main bathroom and possible the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, too.

We have been looking at bathroom vanities and fixtures for both of the bathrooms and making a list of the items that we like and the costs associated with each, so we can set our priorities and keep within a budget.

We have seen so many different styles and types of bathroom fixtures that we are having a hard time making up our minds. Every time I think I found exactly what I want, within a day or two I come across something else that looks even better!

We’ve let our imagination run wild and have even tried to find a way to fit in a new steam bath in the master bathroom. The www.homeandstone.com web site has some awesome steam units in their collection and with our bitter cold winters, the idea of a luxurious steam bath after a long day at work is very tempting.

There has been a huge uptick in the number of people diagnosed with food allergies. There are allergies to very common products, such as peanuts, that are making a lot of people very sick and limited to a very narrow selection of foods for their meals and snacks.

My mother was recently diagnosed with an allergy to shellfish. This is very strange, as we grew up on the water and we feasted on seafood throughout the summers for years and years. But now all of a sudden she cannot tolerate any seafood.

A friend of ours who is a teacher just found out that she is highly allergic to gluten. Again, it is very strange that she could eat normal, regular food for over 50 years and now all of a sudden cannot eat anything with white flour in it.

I wonder what is triggering all these food allergies in older people?

Saw this while surfing the internet. Very cool idea and well done. I wish I had the imagination to come up with designs like this.

Most guys just don’t want to talk about it, but the more we see commercials for erectile dysfunction, the easier it gets to say the word Viagra out loud. I even know a few guys who buy Viagra Online. But for the most part, guys are embarrassed to admit they have a problem and it can be really hard for guys to seek out help for any medical condition – especially anything that has to do with sexual activities.

Interestingly enough, I just read about a new scientific discovery – from Italy. It might well take all this Viagra embarrassment away eventually. From what I was reading, there is a chance that Hydrogen Sulfide will be used to help men with erectile dysfunction. This is a naturally occurring compound, and there have been experiments on rats with very promising results.

Hydrogen sulfide relaxes the walls of major blood vessels, which is an important part of maintaining an erection. On the other hand, Viagra works by blocking the enzyme that destroys naturally occurring Nitric oxide. The Nitric oxide also helps relax the walls of arteries. So by combining the two principles and testing the results on rats, we may have a new discovery for replacing the need for prescription Viagra with Hydrogen sulfide.

One more thing to appreciate about Italy!

Found a great tour site that has a classic tour of Italy as one of their tour packages. It’s a great 10 days tour that takes to you the most important cities and sights in Italy:

Day 1: Rome

Day 2: Rome – Assisi – Siena – Florence

Day 3: Florence

Day 4: Florence – Bologna – Padova – Venice

Day 5: Venice

Day 6: Venice – Montepulciano – Rome

Day 7: Rome

Day 8: Rome – Naples – Pompei – Sorrento

Day 9: Sorrento – Capri – Rome

Day 10: Rome

Even with the bad economy, there are plenty of reasons for people to travel. Most of my friends have already traveled extensively throughout the U. S., so they are beginning to expand their horizons beyond America’s shores and travel to Europe.

When I have the chance to travel abroad, the first place I want to go is Italy. I want to see all of Italy, from the Alps to Sicily. It would be great to have a variety of sleeping options, from villas to B&B to a 4 star hotel. With that much exploring, I would want to arrange for an Italy Car Hire through the bestcarhire.co.uk web site. This site is to simple to use, there is no excuse for not finding a great deal on a rental car from any of the top rental car companies in Italy.

The Kroger has a holiday flavor of Sierra Mist on sale this week. It is Sierra Mist with a splash of cranberry. It sounded a little offputting to me at first, but after I tasted it I realized that the cranberry adds a little tartness to the flavor of Sierra Mist and it is really quite good.

One of my buddies at the racquet club is a local dentist. He’s a nice guy, a family man with two beautiful daughters, and quite the competitor on the racquetball and tennis courts. I don’t know why that surprises me – people of all professions have their competitive elements. I just never really pictured dentists as the competitive types.

I’m sure his business, like almost everyone else’s businesses, is feeling the effects of the bad economy. So I had a quick chat with him at the juice bar while we were waiting for our court time reservation. We talked about his ideas for Dental Marketing and building his brand. He thought I was kidding when I used the term “building your brand,” but I like to use that term to make my clients aware that whatever their profession, they do have a brand.

He needs to make an effort to keep the patients that he already has and he also needs to attract new patients to both build his practice and to replace some of the patients that leave – for whatever reason.

To keep your current patients, clients, or customers you have to not only give them a great product or service, but you have to give them value for their time and money. You also need to give them top notch customer service and you need to stay in touch with them in a positive way in between appointments or visits. A friendly, short and professional newsletter is a great way to accomplish that.

To attract new business, you need to have a complete marketing plan and reach out to them several times with a reason to call you. The patientnews.com web site has some good ideas for doing that, including pieces for an effective direct mail campaign.