You can’t go through a camping trip without having a meal cooked from a campfire. Nothing beats the delicious smoky flavour of food when cooked over a fire. There are plenty of time-saving and easy to prepare recipes that you can cook if you’re worried about spending too much time in the kitchen. Foil packet dinners are a great example – all you have to do is heat them up over your campfire and it will be ready in minutes!

Here are some must-try foil packet dinners perfect for camping:

Easy Chix and Veggies

What you need:

• 1/2 kg. boneless and skinless chicken breast, cubed
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 4 small potatoes, skin removed, cubed
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 onions, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips
• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Mix together the chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, garlic, onions, red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice and olive oil to the bowl and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat chicken and vegetables with the oil and juice.

Divide the mixture into 4 large aluminum foils and fold to create packets. Cook over grill or hot campfire coals until potatoes are tender and chicken is cooked through, about 40 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Mexican-Style Smoked Tilapia

What you need:

• 4 tilapia fillets
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 1/4 large onion, chopped
• 1 can diced tomatoes (about 2 cups)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• Salt and pepper

At home, combine olive oil and garlic in a large resealable bag. Season fillets with salt and pepper then place them inside the bag. Shake to coat fish with oil. Refrigerate until ready to use.

At the campsite, place each fillet in a heavy duty square of aluminum foil. Spoon bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, onion, tomatoes and cilantro on top of each fillet then fold the foil to create packets. Cook over a pre-heated grill or on a grill rack over a campfire, flipping once, for 10 minutes or until fish is cooked through. Serve warm.

Here are some delicious must-try foil packet dinners perfect for camping!

Explosive strength training for pitchers is a MUST if you want to be competitive in today’s game of baseball. Steroids are out the door and smart strength training is in! If you are a pitcher then you have to not only work on your breaking ball and fast ball, but you have got to improve on these by improving your throwing power. I have included a single exercise here to drastically improve your strength training workouts and your pitching power. Read on if I have your attention.

Kettlebell Snatches For Pitching Power!

If you are a baseball pitcher then you have got to strengthen your body from head to toe and there is no better way to do this than by making your core stronger, shoulders more powerful, and your hips more explosive. After all, you do pitch with more than just your arm, right? Kettlebell snatches are just the strength exercise you need to get you to where you are wanting to go my friend.

By now you may have heard of the ancient strength and conditioning device known as the kettlebell. This tool of body construction has a mean and hugely respectful reputation for forging out athletic bodies. One of the most dynamic lifts that you can perform with this ancient device are snatches. This basically involves you having to pull the kettlebell from either the ground or from between your legs up to above your head in one smooth motion. This is done by you having to forcefully flex and then extend at both your hips and knees to generate the vertical momentum you need to get the bell swinging in an arc from between your legs up to a high pull position just lateral to your head.

In order to get the bell to the “high pull” position imagine swinging the bell and mimicking the motion of “pulling back on a bow.” Once the bell is at the “high pull” position you will notice that it kind of “floats” or is at a point of “zero gravity” for a split second at this point. Once the bell reaches this point of “zero gravity” then you will want to vertically punch your palm towards the sky in order to complete the lift. This is pitching strength training at it’s best my friend.

If you haven’t already started to implement the use of kettlebell snatches into your pitching strength and conditioning workouts then you are allowing your competitors to get an edge on you. You don’t want that! If you want to learn more feel free to access the rest of my articles on the subject. Remember that most anyone can train hard, but only the champions train smart!

The office phone is an underestimated tool that business owners and employees probably don’t put much thought into. Due to advances in cloud computing and increased access to communication tools, we use the office phone every day without much thought about how it became such an integral part of our business communications.

To get a better understanding of this, let’s start at the beginning.

Humans have been communicating since the dawn of time; whether through sounds or images. If you’re familiar with the history of telephones, then you know that Alexander Graham Bell was the one who invented the telephone on 1876 and successfully executed the first bi-directional transmission of clear speech, but the way office phones operated and looked has seen its highs and lows.

In the years after Bell’s invention, telephone switchboards were used to connect two parties so that they can communicate. Telephone lines were already connecting individuals in Massachusetts by 1877 and a phone call meant using a switchboard that required an operator to manually connect the two callers using a panel of jacks and wires. In the beginning, people were using phones that were made of wood and hand-cranked; then, Bell made some much needed improvements to the telephone and introduced the candlestick telephone, we can imagine this as an office phone sitting upright on the desk.

In 1878, two years after the telephone switchboard exchange was invented, the first commercial North American telephone exchange opened in Connecticut. Although the first North American telephone exchange was designed and built by George W. Coy, it was actually Thomas Edison and Tivadar Puskas who initially proposed the idea of a telephone exchange which was then built by the Bell Telephone Company in 1877 and inspired future designs.

With this new communication technology taking hold of the country, switchboards were increasing in size and eventually had to be separated so that multiple operators could handle the switchboards. As a result, there was a conversion to a Panel Machine Switching System in the 1920s, which was an early type of automatic telephone exchange that eliminated the need for multiple switchboards. Almon Strowger further pushed the development of communication and the office phone in 1892 with the invention of the rotary dial telephone, advertised as “one of the answers to the modern cry for greater efficiency in everything.” The first installation was in 1892 and shared the telephone market with the candlestick until the 1930s. The rotary dial telephone remained a popular choice as a home and office phone until the 1960s.

In 1951 the first direct dialing distance service was implemented in New Jersey, which allowed a caller to call any other user outside of the local calling area without operator assistance. At this time, there were only 11 cities that were able to dial using an area code and seven digits. Modems started being used in 1958 for direct connection by way of phone lines which were used to transmit and decode digital data. The introduction of modems eventually led to the introduction of echo cancellation, broadband, radio, and our beloved Wi-Fi.

As cell phone electronics were being developed in the 1960s, push button phones were replacing the rotary dial phones. The office phone was now easier to use and with answering machine technology gaining popularity, people’s behavior when it came to communicating was changing.

Early versions of VoIP were being explored in the 1970s for improved circuit redundancy and network availability in the event of infrastructure failures, since circuit-switched networks were more vulnerable to failure. Regardless of this idea, the circuit switched network remains at the center of infrastructures. For the next two decades, advances were made that lead up to the creation of the Asterisk Private Branch Exchange and what we know today as the modern office phone system.

Office Phone Systems of Today

There’s no doubt that office phone systems have seen monumental changes throughout the decades. Although the way we communicate has evolved to meet growing demand, our need as people to communicate with one another will never disappear.

POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), also referred to as Analog, was the standard service offered by telephone companies from the year Bell invented the phone in 1876 to 1988. Today, there are several options for office phone systems, including hosted PBX, IP PBX, and mobile solutions.

Today’s office phone systems are much more convenient and can even centralize your business communications without much tech experience. If your office phone systems aren’t allowing you to stay in touch with the people most important to your businesses success (i.e. customers, employees, and partners) then how can you expect your business to grow? If you’re looking for robust and easy-to-use office phone systems for your small business, rest assured that there are practical choices for your business communications and getting all the right components to meet your unique demands and needs.

The alarm carriage clock, aside from its timekeeping function, has its own alarm mechanism. The clock sounds a bell, gong, or chime in the allotted time of alarm. Modern made alarm carriage clocks makes use of a tune as its alarm instead of the classic bell, gong, or chime.

Some alarm carriage clocks has more complicated features other than its alarm mechanism. An example of this is the strike mechanism where in every hour or half hour is sounded with a bell, gong or chime. Another more elaborate mechanism that the clocks possesses is either the petite-sonnerie or the grande-sonnerie.

The petite-sonnerie sounds the quarters on two bells, once at quarter past, twice at half past, and three times at a quarter. The grande-sonnerie on the other hand has the same features as that of the petite-sonnerie with the addition of the last hour sounding every quarter, thus making the time telling more complete. Another much more complicated movement also exists where in the time, down to the last minute is sounded, this type of movement is the most elaborate and expensive of all. Due to the extra striking on these movements the barrels of the clock are much larger than normal.

The alarm carriage clock is perfect for the modern period where in everything is fast paced and being on time is extremely important. The clock is for the modern career men and women who values time and who appreciates elegance mixed with the old world charm of yesterday.

Pavlov’s dogs paved the way to help your baby sleep. Really!

Anyone who has ever heard of Ivan Pavlov or his experiment with his dogs can appreciate the benefits of conditioning. In a nutshell, Dr. Pavlov trained his dogs to salivate from a bell chime simply by consistently ringing the bell before feeding them. Over time, the dogs became accustomed to the schedule and eventually associated the bell with food. Easy, right? The bell was a “feeding cue” and the dogs reacted accordingly upon hearing it.

“That’s great… but I don’t have dog slobber problems. I have a baby sleep problem!”

It’s the same concept! Sure, your baby is NOT a dog but you should be conditioning him or her similarly. You should go through your baby’s evening routine and pick out “sleep cues” that you can use to help train your baby to know when it is time to go to sleep and respond by realizing he or she is tired and mentally preparing to go to sleep.

What a great concept, huh? Watch out though because it’s not as easy as it may sound. There are two major components that you have got to get right or it simply won’t work.

First, you have to have a consistent schedule planned for your baby. This is monumentally important because:

• a schedule = consistency
• consistency = predictability

If you consistently follow the same evening schedule every night, your baby will be able to predict what comes next and eventually realize that your cues mean it’s time to go to sleep!

Second, you must pick cues out of your schedule or create them if they don’t exist. One of the cues my wife and I used (and still use) with our three children is bathtime. Every one of our sons knows that when it’s dark out and we start talking about bathtime that it’s time to begin our evening routine. After bath we get into our pajamas and cycle through a few other sleep cues, all of which reinforce our schedule and let our sons know it’s time for sleep!

And that’s how Dr. Pavlov and his dogs can help you condition your baby to sleep through the night.

A bowl of fresh green salad is an ideal everyday snack. However, using the usual greens and dressing can make it look and taste bland easily. Take your salads a notch higher and go for these delicious recipes that are full of color!

Rainbow Salad With Rosewater Dressing

What you need:

• 4 large tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cucumber, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons water
• 1 teaspoon rose water
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste

In a large bowl, whisk together mint, red wine vinegar, water, rose water salt and ground black pepper until mixture is smooth. In a separate large bowl, combine tomatoes, cucumber, onion, bell pepper and tomatoes. Pour rose water dressing over fruits and vegetables and stir to coat evenly. Serve immediately.

Tri-Color Pasta Green Salad

What you need:

• 1 large head broccoli, cut into florets
• 2 cups Italian-style salad dressing
• 1 1/4 cups diced American cheese
• 1 kilogram tri-color spiral pasta (uncooked)

Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling and lightly salted water for 8 to 10 minutes until al dente. Drain and allow to cool for a few minutes. Place pasta in a large serving bowl and toss with broccoli florets, Italian-style dressing and rehydrated American cheese. Serve immediately.

Colorful Mexican-Style Bean Salad

What you need:

• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 3/4 cups black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 3/4 cups cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 3/4 cups kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 1/4 cups frozen corn kernels
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• A dash of hot pepper sauce

Mix together 3 kinds of beans, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, corn kernels and onion in a large bowl. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, cilantro, lime juice, white sugar, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, cumin, chili powder and hot pepper sauce. Pour mixture over vegetables and toss to coat well. Serve immediately.

Now you can forget boring-looking and sad-tasting salads! Try these healthy, colorful and flavorful recipes that will surely satisfy your appetite!

Pill-popping has become a common practice today. The stressful conditions under which we live, the competition at work or business, the struggle to keep up with the Joneses, has taken a toll on human health. About 50% of the general population suffers from headaches several times during the month. Dyspepsia, heartburn and peptic ulcers are other common complaints. As depression, insomnia, allergies and various other problems increase, pharmaceutical companies flood the market with new drugs. There are pills available even to combat laziness or shyness. Ingenious advertising and aggressive marketing have turned us into a generation of pill-poppers.

Self-medication is the use of drugs without a doctor’s advice. Medicines may be recommended by a family member or a friend or a pharmacist.

Reasons for Self-medication:

• Lack of time to see a doctor. Inability to get a quick appointment. The battery of unnecessary tests ordered for a simple illness is both expensive and time-consuming.

• Illness may be too mild to warrant a visit to the doctor.

• A similar complaint may have been treated successfully through a previous prescription. So the medication is repeated.

• Too much information culled from the internet or magazines makes people confident about treating their own illness.

• Non-availability of a doctor in the vicinity. The hospital or clinic may be a long distance away.

• Poverty. A doctor’s fees may be unaffordable.

• Easy availability of over-the-counter drugs.

• Home remedies that have been used in the family with success.

• Elderly people are suspicious of allopathic medicines. So alternative therapies are commonly used in developing countries.

The Dangers of Self-medication are many

1. Habituation. Many become addicted to prescription drugs such as cough syrups, anti-allergic drugs, antacids, pain relievers or tonics. Newspapers often report about Hollywood actors checking into rehabilitation facilities for addiction to prescription drugs.

2. Allergic reactions that may be severe or even fatal. Antibiotics like Penicillin or Sulpha drugs can cause very severe reactions.

3. Irrational drug combinations are available in the market. Some of them may be dangerous especially if taken with alcohol or other substances. Even food supplements and tonics can sometimes be harmful.

4. Under-dosage may not cure the symptom. Over-dosage can produce collateral damage to heart, kidneys or other organs. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics through wrong dosage or insufficient duration may lead to resistance or a sudden allergic reactions. As a result, when there is need for an antibiotic, it may be ineffective.

5. Even an overdose of vitamins may have an adverse effect, especially fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K.

6. Cheap and substandard drugs are of no use.

7. Addiction to psychotropic drugs such as LSD, Ketamine, cocaine, marijuana is on the increase.

8. A symptom like headache or nausea may be common to many medical diseases. By masking the symptom temporarily, it will be difficult for a doctor to arrive at a correct diagnosis.

Drugs most commonly used are painkillers. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like brufen or ibuprofen increase the risk of stroke by four times in a person suffering from high blood pressure. They also cause gastric problems. COX2 inhibitors affect the heart. Paracetamol, aspirin, anti-allergic pills, anabolic steroids – any of these can produce side- effects detrimental to health.

How to discourage self-medication:

Sir William Osler said “One of the first duties of a physician is to educate the masses when not to take medicines.”

So the most important thing is to educate the general public on the dangers of self-medication. Health talks can be given in schools or colleges or even at the grass root level through talks, slide shows or videos. Every drug must be regarded as potentially dangerous if taken indiscriminately. Medication should be taken on the advice of a doctor or a trained health professional.

Proper drug control is very important. Drugs should not be dispensed without prescriptions. There should be proper maintenance of records of dangerous drugs, by shops selling medicines. Drug inspectors should be more vigilant in checking these pharmacies. Many patients rely on the pharmacist to recommend drugs for their ailments. Sometimes antibiotics are given only for a day or two. There should be some restrictions on over-the-counter drugs.

Slack implementation of drug control is the reason why pharmacists feel free to prescribe at will. People vary greatly in their sensitivity to drugs. One person’s dosage may be a little too much for the next person, resulting in toxic reactions.

Doctors too should be conversant with the properties of the drugs they prescribe. There are patients who demand antibiotics for the slightest indisposition such as a common cold. They should be discouraged. When an antibiotic is prescribed they should insist on the patient taking the entire course. They should also create awareness about the dangers of mixing drugs.

Self-medication is dangerous. Only the ignorant and the ill-advised will subject themselves to medication for every minor complaint. Pregnant women should be doubly cautioned as it can have adverse effects on the unborn child.

The next time you are tempted to pop a pill just stop and think!

The key to getting cut abs is to burn fat as well as build muscle. However, typical ab workouts don’t really build muscle as fast as people would like. That is why we are going to add some weight to the situation by using a kettle bell. Kettle bells (KB) have a number of advantages over every other piece of equipment in the gym. However, for the purposes of this article it is enough to say that using a kettle bell you can burn up to 20 calories a minute.

The first exercise is called the get up sit up. To do this exercise you are going to lie on your back on the floor with one KB in each hand. Have someone or something stabilizing your feet as you do this exercise. Press the KB into the air and then do a sit up. Do this as many times as possible.

My favorite ab exercise is called figure 8 with a lift. You will take a single bell and pass it between your legs and then raise it to your chest briefly before passing it through your legs again.

The last exercise is the Russian twist which will work your obliques. Do this exercise by sitting on the ground holding a kettle bell in front of you. Simply twist from one side to the other no more than 45 degrees from your center.

Do these exercises one after the other taking only a short rest in between. They are guaranteed to exhaust you in no time!

Planning to hit the road this Christmas with your family? Surely, you would want to add some holiday cheer to your rolling home. From using ribbons and bows on the walls to hanging light chains around the windows, and from sprucing up the living space with a decorative Christmas tree to putting up a pair of stuffed reindeer on the roof, there are plenty of ways to transform your diesel RV into a Christmas wonderland.

1. Use DIY Decors

There are two benefits of using homemade decor in your RV. First, they help you add a personal touch to your rig. Plus, they can help you change the look and feel of your coach on a limited budget. When the celebration is over, you can present these DIY décor items to your RV-er friends.

2. Light Up With Candles

Your Christmas decoration will never be complete without candles. You can buy a set of Christmas calendar candles. Start burning them from the first day of December and every day they will remind you about the upcoming festival.

Buying LED lights is an excellent idea to decorate your RV. Colorful LEDs cost $10-$20. They run on extremely low energy. A lighted spiral tree can take your décor to a new height. If you are considering a boondocking adventure during the Christmas, battery-saving LED lights be an ideal décor choice for you.

3. Use Synthetic Garlands, Wreaths And Bells

Garlands add festive charms to the interior of your motor home. Opt for synthetic items if you cannot come by fresh garlands while traveling. You can get these bright décor pieces at a reasonable price. Coming with flexible linings, they can fit any door or cabinet irrespective of their sizes.

Another easy way to give your RV doors a lift is using wreaths. Use different sizes of ornamental bands for different corners of your coach. You can use towel hangers to suspend these decorative rings from door or window frames. You can use wreaths to decorate the front side of your rolling home, too. But, you will need a 3M hook for attaching a wreath there. Don’t forget the door handles; give them a makeover with Christmas bells.

4. Spruce up the Décor With Mini- Trees and Tree-Trimmings

Of course, your RV cannot accommodate large Christmas trees, but it does have some space for tree-trimming. You will get plenty of these leftover branches at any hardware stores at little or no cost. Place them in a vase to create a cheerful ambiance. Mini-trees are another fun items that can help you jazz up the interior of your motor home. Some varieties such as mini-rosemary or mini-pine would not cost you more than $15. To add more charm, hang few ornaments from the mini-trees. The metal, wooden or handcrafted ornaments look great in RVs. Opt for durable and easy-to-store pieces so that you can use them for a longer time.

5. Add Decals to the Windows

Putting decals on the windows is an easy way to spice up the look and feel of your RV instantly. Add images of Santa Claus or Christmas elves to set the festive mood in your rig. Decals are a one-time investment. When you store them properly, you can use them over and over for several years.

Spending Christmas on the road does not mean that you will have to miss the festive fun. Get into the holiday spirit by decorating your diesel RV for Christmas. We have just told you how.