JBA Central Blog System

Like Jazz? Like Festivals? Here is a list of Jazz Festivals held each year in the US:

• Annual Satchmo Club Strut ( 2010 is the 10th) Aug. 6, 2010 New Orleans, LA
• Houston International Jazz Festival (20th), August 6-8, 2010 Houston, Texas
• Litchfield Jazz Festival, August 6-8, 2010 Kent, Connecticut
• Provincetown Jazz Festival,August 13-14, 2010 Provincetown, Massachusetts
• Long Beach Jazz Festival, August 13-15, 2010 Long Beach, California
• San Jose Jazz Festival, August 13-15, 2010 San Jose, California
• Salem Jazz and Soul Festival, August 21-22, 2010 Salem, Massachusetts
• Knoxville Jazz Festival, August 26-28, 2010 Knoxville, Tennessee
• The Warwick valley Jazz Festival August 26-29, 2010 Warwick Valley, New York
• Vancouver Wine and Jazz Festival August 27-29, 2010 Vancouver, Washington

Couples therapy Cary, NC or anywhere else in the state or country, is a means by which couples can learn how to better relate to one another, work through their problems, develop stronger communication skills and so on. Many people have a certain metaphor that works for them in describing how a good relationship functions. For some people, looking at the marriage as music that they are both contributing to is a good one. To have a rich sound, you want both parties to be playing their own music so that the two can meld together to form one sound. When playing with another person, it is essential that you are paying attention to them-their tempo, their volume level, these are the sorts of things that good musicians take note of so as to be continually working with that person to be in harmony. Likewise, there are some very apt metaphors that develop around being in tune!

During the summer time, people often take this time to remodel their homes. For those who have wood siding, they have become all too familiar with the buzzing sound of the big ol’ carpenter bees. These bees burrow into the wood, creating holes where water can seep in and cause more damage. It is also frustrating when you are removing the old wood as the bees will continually buzz around you while you are trying to work. These annoying bees aren’t really a threat, but, they are annoying enough to deter people from trying to work on their homes as they buzz here and there. Some people have gone so far as to spray bee killer into the holes that the bees have made in hopes to kill them before removing the wood. Naturally, that solution only works if the bees are inside their holes and it doesn’t prevent them from coming back and burrowing into the new wood siding that you put up. In the end, it is the bee that gets the last laugh…

Every so often it is nice to update your land with a new garden or landscape design, if not for the whole of your land, at least for some section. These days popular updates include landscape lighting, organic food gardens, and the inclusion of solar panels to produce power for your home, and for selling back to the power company. Naturally, the introduction of equipment in and of itself creates an opportunity for creative landscaping to act as a visual screen for the equipment's back side.

In southern California, solar panels installation is getting particularly popular with a correlative rise in such things as raised garden beds, trellised tomatoes and beans, and even sculptural garden walls. Whatever choice you make when updating your landscaping, including new solar features, such as solar powered landscape lights, and even panels for household power, will provide interest and beauty for years to come.

We all know there are costs to doing business. But it is vital to remember that our communities and environment may well being paying some of the hidden or ignored costs of our doing business. For all too long the unethical laws of doing business required us to hide these destructive and polluting costs from the public so as to protect our bottom line, in essence anything we could get out of doing was seen as a bonus within the circle of businessmen. But that is a false, destructive and downright evil approach, not unlike condoning your spouse's infidelity, and kleptomania, so long as they successfully hid it from you and others. The fact in both cases is that eventually the ferryman comes to be paid.

Start making a difference now. Choose who your business does business with, based on how they take responsibility for all their businesses impacts. The more truly ethical, and sustainable and green, and community building, the more they deserve your business. Set a new business standard, one that truly serves us all to our highest, sustainable, good.

If your business makes use of sensitive equipment from manufacturing machinery to computers, then you may well also have an Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS, installed to prevent power loss, surge, or transient variance to your equipment. During a storm or power surge, and sudden spikes in power demands across the grid, an ups is a buffer between the grid and your equipment maintaining a proper, steady line feed to your equipment. It is however important to know that regular maintenance is required

Especially if you live in highly volatile zones like hurricane and tornado corridors or earthquake and heavy storm areas like socal, ups maintenance should be carried out on a regular schedule. Maintenance needs range from quarterly visual inspections to bi-annual testing of UPS transfer switches and circuit breakers as well as a maintenance of the bypasses. Protect your business with a ups, protect your ups with regular maintenance.

Lawns are pretty. Unfortunately, lawns are hiding an ugly reality. Lawn maintenance is one of the worst polluters in your community, and a potential health risk for your children.

Each year millions of gallons of chemicals get poured onto lawns to do everything from make them grow greener and faster, to ridding them of weeds, bugs, and rodents. The production of these chemicals pollutes our air and waterways. Once on the lawn, the chemicals pose health risks to children from over exposure while playing in the lawn, mowing the lawn.

Whats more, lawnmowers are relatively inefficient and unregulated. Never mind the noise, some lawnmowers spit out more exhaust pollution in one hour than the family car does in 300 miles! Any lawn mowing person is familiar with the post mowing queasy stomach from breathing the fumes and exhaust. Get rid of the lawn and put in a flower and vegetable garden.

Are you a community activist? Perhaps you are the one who spearheads the neighborhood newsletter, potlucks, or ball games. If you are, or are heavily involved in your community's activities in some other way, the odds are high that your neighbors listen to and respect what you have to say. It is highly worth considering parleying your influence into powerful community upgrading movements that will benefit your neighborhood for years to come.

From northern the north Atlantic coast to southern California, solar energy installation, bicycle lanes, green spaces, and community gardens are increasingly being introduced to neighborhoods as ways of making them more sustainable, restoring the human scale, making them safer, and more inviting to neighbor interaction. Some areas are doing fund-raisers to install solar panels in green spaces to power lights for neighborhood gatherings and gardens to raise food for their potlucks. Inspire your neighbors to build a stronger, safer, greener community.

Companies all around the world are moving to go green. In doing so, they hope to cut costs and make their companies more eco-friendly. For organizations like banks and telephone companies that send out a monthly bill, they started to offer paper-less billing, which would require their costumers to utilize the internet more for email. Instead of sending out bunches of paper statements via the mail every month, companies instead use email and send out that same statement electronically. This helps in saving trees which is good for the earth to save. For those that are still not hooked to the internet, there are some companies that offer their clients the ability to call an automated voice service to acquire the same information, and as such, the clients are able to pay for their bills on the phone as well. Also, to urge clients to switch to paperless or telephone statements, companies often offer incentives so that the clients are more willing to make the switch.

It is time to do something about our declining environment. Climate change, pollution, dwindling fuel supplies, species die off and more are escalating year after year while big business denies responsibility, government drags its feet, and regular folks try to ignore their part as gluttonous consumers. Change will happen by each person making lifestyle changes that support a sustainable future. Big business will always follow the flow of dollars, and each dollar spent is more powerful than any ballot vote in the eyes of government, so power is in the hands of the people.

Eating organic is good for you and the planet, so do it. Whether you live in Fla. or southern Cal, solar panels installation makes sense and can save you money by way of selling excess back to the grid. Replacing your lawn with gardens lowers use of fuels, reduces pollution, sequesters CO2, and provides oxygen, so do it.