Furball Friday: Livestreaming Puppies!

If you have not yet seen it, you MUST take a break and see these adorable yellow lab puppies on webcam.

Watch live streaming video from eukanubapuppychannel at livestream.com

Eukanuba is hosting and promoting the livestream of puppies being raised and eventually trained to become service dogs for Canine Companions for Independence. Just too adorable.

And for every "like" on Facebook, Eukanuba will donate $1 to CCI! 

Furball Friday: Veterans with PTSD get relief from dogs, rather than drugs

Something a little more serious this Furball Friday. 

Veterans with PTSD have been enlisted to help raise and train service dogs. They provide a valuable service and don't have to treat PTSD from war with medications. The nonprofit is called Paws for Purple Hearts.

Not everyone is a good writer

I spend a lot of time writing for a living. My education is in communications (both bachelor's and master's degrees). I was also fortunate to have an aunt who was a school teacher, and she spent many hours reading and teaching me about language when I was young.

Further, I'm a stickler for rules and policies. I understand there's a time to bend - or even break - them, but generally, rules are important.

So, I get incredibly irritated when people proclaiming themselves writers or editors clearly have no grasp of a comma splice or the misspelling of your and you're.

For example, I've started bidding on freelance jobs through a website called Elance. It's a great tool, and I've found a couple of jobs in my first few weeks that brought in a little extra cash.

However, I am seeing more and more that I'm being seriously underbid on writing and editing work by people who have blatant grammatical errors in their contractor profiles online. The sad part is that the clients obviously don't know anything about grammar, or they'd be doing their writing and editing themselves!

Just because you are creative or have a neat idea for a book does not mean you're a grammatically solid writer. Maybe my new freelance job should be editing the other writers' contractor profiles!

Hmph. That is all for today. Curmudgeon, out.

How to tell if you need that comma

One of my biggest pet peeves lately is the incorrect use of commas. And today, when I saw a terrible comma splice in an article written by the Associated Press on its website, I felt compelled to share my knowledge.

I don't profess to know every grammar rule in the English language, and of course, I do make mistakes in my writing from time to time.

But, I do know how to determine if you need a comma in your sentences. The AP sentence written incorrectly is here:

"Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla pledged to impose order in the violence-plagued province, and dispatched a contingent of police and soldiers to the area."

In my basic reporting class at UF, Professor Mike Foley (my favorite) gave us a really quick & easy way to determine if a sentence needed a comma.

If the two phrases in your sentence can each be written as its own sentence (each phrase has a noun and a verb), then you need a comma. If not, the comma is not necessary. For example:

Mike and I went to the store and bought a gallon of milk. 
No commas required because "bought a gallon of milk" cannot stand alone as its own sentence.

Mike and I went to the store, and then Mike went home.
This sentence requires a comma, because both phrases could stand alone as independent sentences: (Mike and I went to the store. Then Mike went home.)

Next time you start to put a comma before the "and," apply this little test to avoid irritating me with your comma splices. Oh, and also to appear intelligent.

Furball Friday: Runt puppy & abandoned kitten are best buds

Perfect pick-me-up. CBS Atlanta covered this story today about a Jack Russell terrier puppy - the runt of his litter - that became best friends with a kitten who was abandoned at birth.

The pair are at a shelter in London, England. The puppy's mother rejected him since he was the runt. The kitten was brought in at only one week old.

What a sweet, happy ending!

     

Learning to save & budget better

I have never been good at saving money. As my dad always said, "that money's burning a hole in your pocket."

In an effort to curb some bad habits and get myself into a more secure financial seat, I signed up for a free personal finance seminar here at Emory University through their Work Life Program.

I did, in fact, learn something new! Alok Deshpande, of SmartPath Financial, gave us all some very easy-to-follow and valuable information for financial planning.

The overall premise (easier said than done!) is to make more than you spend. But what really helped me a lot is the "7 Smart Goals."

1. Ensure you're getting your retirement match. For me, this was a no-brainer. Emory has one of the absolute best retirement matches I've ever seen (in my short, nearly decade-long career, of course.) Right upfront, Emory contributes 6 percent of my salary. If I contribute 3 percent of my salary (which I do), they'll chip in another 2 percent. So I'm already putting 11 percent of my salary into retirement each month.
2. Build up one month's savings for an emergency. 
3. Pay off bad debt. This is debt like credit cards, medical bills, money you owe family or friends, private loans, etc.
4. Expand your savings to cover three to six months in an emergency.
5. Contribute 20 percent of your gross income to retirement. (For me, this would mean bumping my own contribution from 3 percent to 11 percent, because Alok counts your company match.)
6. Begin saving for your child's college education.
7. Save for your "bucket list" items, like traveling, a boat, a pygmy hippopotamus, etc.

You start with Goal 1, and don't move forward until it's completed. So if you have credit card debt, like me, you pay only the minimum until you have your month's emergency fund saved.

However, my issue, like my dad says, is that savings always seems to burn a hole in my pocket. So today, I opened a CD with Ally Bank online. It's got a much higher rate than Wells Fargo could offer me, with no minimum deposit to open. I will have a percentage of my monthly salary directly deposited each month.

I'm really optimistic that this plan will work for me and that having my emergency savings in an online banking CD like Ally's will discourage me from tapping into it for unnecessary items.

I'll let you know how it goes. What do you do to protect your savings?

   

Using social media to combat bad customer service

My twitter feed is really getting out of hand lately. For awhile, I thought it was cool that I could tweet a brand and get an issue resolved. I also enjoy being able to better connect with products and services I love. (I'm looking at you, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters!)

But, lately, I'm getting more and more frustrated by the sheer laziness I see on Twitter. For example, at my previous job at a higher education institution, I helped manage the university's Facebook presence.

I cannot count the number of students who took to the page to complain that their Wi-Fi wasn't working or that they didn't know how to pay their tuition bill or ask when their financial aid check was going to arrive. Not one of them had first thought to call the IT Help Desk, contact the cashier's office or call Financial Aid.

I can understand complaining publicly if they had first sought help at the appropriate place, and the customer service was bad. But to publicly complain without lifting a finger to try to resolve the issue themselves is just lazy.

Take the two minutes or less required, go to the company's website and find a phone number or email address. Then, if you don't get appropriate customer service, feel free to tweet or share your complaint on Facebook.

Oh! And don't forget to praise a brand for good customer service, too! Positive public compliments are few and far between.

Furball Friday: World's 20 cutest animals from CNN

I needed a pick-me-up this afternoon, and researchers informed me earlier this week that looking at pictures of cute animals actually increases productivity.

So, here is CNN's list of the world's 20 cutest animals, which I found in my Internet browsing.

My favorite from the list is the sea otter. (I'm known to frequently share photos and videos of baby otters, like these below.)

What is your favorite? Is your favorite not on the list?

Judge people not by their appearance

Tidbits of this news story have been reaching me via social media since Monday, but I saw the full story on The Today Show this morning.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have to say this particularly bothers me, because I frequently am disturbed by the number of female journalists and broadcasters who feel they must use their appearance in order to "make it" in the industry.

I think it began with Erin Andrews. Her popularity was due, in large part anyway, to her appearance. I think she's a decent sports reporter, but why did her success really skyrocket? The majority demographic for college football is men, and - at least I'm told - she's a very attractive woman.

It's a shame that women like Erin Andrews, Jenn Brown and other sports or news TV reporters can't be promoted and respected for their abilities and hard work and must instead flaunt their appearance to gain notoriety. What does that say about our society?

I'm glad, then, that Jennifer Livingston spoke out against this email from a male. Jennifer's resume speaks for itself. She worked her way up to an anchor position and has earned an Emmy Award for her work.

The person who emailed her about her weight stated clearly he doesn't even watch the news program. I think he's less worried about her ability to be a role model and more worried about seeing thin, attractive (at least in his perspective) female anchors.

When are we going to start valuing people based on their character, abilities and hard work rather than appearances?

     

If I won the lottery...

If I won the lottery, I'm NOT going to Disney World. I grew up there! (Well, maybe I'd go once, just to check out the redesigned Fantasy Land.)

People always talk about what they'd do if they won a lot of money, so here's my rendition. It's changed over the years, I think.

1. I'd pay off my debts and the debts of my close family members, especially my parents. They have helped me out more than any parents should ever have to help their children, so of course I want to return the favor exponentially if I can. 
2. I'd set aside money for my nephew, James, and my great-niece/nephew, Callie and Case, so they could go to college. I'm grateful I got an education, but I got it at a steep price - namely, my never-ending student loans. I know my nephew will have money from the post-9/11 GI Bill, but still...
3. I'd buy a modest house on a great piece of land in the country. I have always wanted to have a horse, and so, if I could afford someone to help me care for one, I'd finally have it. I think I'd stay there most of the time as my primary residence. I'm thinking somewhere in Tennessee or North or South Carolina.
4. I'd buy a nice condo or house on a beautiful beach, likely somewhere in Florida. I used to think I could never live in a landlocked area, but if I had the means to visit the beach often, I have found I also really love the mountains and a rural area, too.
5. I would set up a couple of hefty endowments for causes or charities near and dear to my heart. Obviously, one of those would be to my alma mater, the University of Florida, and the other would be to an animal welfare organization. I can say conclusively that any charity in the running for my contribution would be subject to some strict requirements, such as the majority of funding going to the cause rather than administrative overhead or marketing. (I'm speaking to you, Humane Society of the United States. You will NOT be getting a dime.)

Those are top five for me. I am sure there would be plenty of other items on my list, such as a tithe. But I have to find a church I truly love first! I'd do plenty of traveling, as well as learn to play guitar, speak another language and do more scuba diving.

Here's to dreams! :)