Posted: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 12:45 am | Updated: 4:35 pm, Tue Feb 28, 2012.

It was Danene Dustins competitive spirit that led her to ask two neighbors, Do you want to do a fitness challenge?

In early January, the North Logan resident heard these neighbors comment that they had gained weight during the holiday season. Dustin, who says she gained several pounds over the holidays, threw out the idea of a challenge to motivate them to shed those extra pounds. By the end of that week, she had organized the 2012 Health and Fitness Challenge.

The eight-week program has 39 paying members, each giving $20 to equal a sum of $780 that will be divided among group members who complete a part the challenge. A treadmill, donated by Icon Health and Fitness, is also up for grabs. For Dustin, who had no idea what the challenge would entail when she suggested it, it has become more than I ever expected this to turn into.

Sunday, March 4, marks the formal end of the challenge.

Each participant came up with personal goals to accomplish in the eight weeks. Goals range from finding balance in life to exercising more frequently. In addition to working toward those goals, Dustin gives the group weekly challenges. These have included sleeping a minimum of seven hours every night, drinking 64 ounces of water every day and flossing daily and brushing your teeth for a minimum of two minutes morning and night.

I would do as much research as I could leading up to the new challenge and try and find things to back what I said, so it wasnt just me saying, I think you should get seven hours of sleep, Dustin said.

As the eight weeks come to a close, Dustin is shifting focus for the final weekly challenge. Rather than something healthful, everyone is challenged to complete an act of service. She said people are already serving their family and community, so she expects service performed as part of this to be over and beyond that. Dustin said being healthy and feeling energized is key to doing service.

You cant serve and do all these wonderful things in life to help other people unless you take care of you, so I dont want it to be ultimately yes, I look great, I feel great, oh, its all about me. Ultimately, it should be about everybody else, she said.

Dustin has completed every challenge. Her personal goal is to lose 14 pounds. She says she is more than halfway there, but considering there is less than a week left, Dustin doesnt think shell make it, and thats OK.

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North Logan neighbors join in 'fitness challenge'

Video gaming popularity is on the the rise, breaking from its former niche entertainment position, but one of the concerns surrounding the pastime is its contribution to the health of gamers. While there have been isolated incidents of the extreme, like the LoL gamer death in a Taiwanese cafe reported last month by Sky News, how will gaming trend affect us as a whole in the long run? A few recent studies examine the positive and negative effects of gaming in regards to physical fitness and mental health.

While games such as Dance Dance Revolution and the Wii Fit titles have been touted as leading the way for a healthier generation of gamers, but researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, decided to conduct a small test of these active video games.

The researchers passed out Wii consoles to 78 children who didnt yet own the console. Half of the group were given their choice of fitness games, and the other half were given their choice of any other inactive Wii game. The 78 children, ages nine to 12 years of age, were tracked for 13 weeks with a motion-measuring accelerometer (the children got to keep the Wii at the end of the study).

The study found that there was no substantial difference in activity between the two groups; the accelerometers found that the active gaming group averaged 25-28 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity, versus the 26-29 minute average of the inactive gamers. Light activity and sedentary behavior seemed to stay the same for both groups as well.

Though the results represent a single experiment and arent definite, Lead research Tom Baranowski told Reuters Health. our study indicates that theres no public health benefit from having those active video games.

While the physical fitness gamification game and app market is still evolving, inactive games have their own benefits. Research increasingly shows that electronic gaming changes the brain. A report compiled by the Wall Street Journal points to gaming not only improving hand-eye coordination, but decision making and creativity.

According to University of Rochester researchers, gamers have the ability to split their attention between six targets at the same time without confusion, versus the typical four things at once for a normal non-gamer. Other research shows that gamers are four times faster than most people when it comes to decision making; action-based gamers are able to make decisions 25 percent faster than others, while maintaining a high level of accuracy.

In a three-year federally funded study by psychologist Linda Jackson, 491 students in 20 Michigan middle schools were ranked using the Torrance Test of Creativity. The study found that the children who played computer games were more creative, regardless of the games played. The study also found that Internet, mobile or computer use had no effect on creativity.

Finally, a study on the infamously addictive World of Warcraft game from Blizzard by researchers at the North Carolina State University found that the MMO had positive effects on the cognitive ability of the elderly. Participants in the study were aged 60 to 77 and played WoW on their home computers for 14 hours over the course of two weeks; those in the experimental group had a great increase in cognitive function over the control group. Spatial ability and focus showed the most improvement while the ability to memorize saw no change in the participants.

Video games may be changing our brains, but there is still much study needed in the area. There has been a lot of attention wasted in figuring out whether these things turn us into killing machines, said UC San Diego computational analyst Joshua Lewis. Not enough attention has been paid to the unique and interesting features that videogames have outside of the violence.

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Body versus mind: Gaming and your health

In the midst of an economic recession, Boeing stands out as an anomaly. The aerospace giant has added more than 10,000 jobs in recent years, set several new records for airline sales to both domestic and international carriers, and this year could reclaim the title of largest commercial airplane manufacturer in the world.

Without a generation of skilled appropriators from Washington State looking out for Boeing and helping win military and government contracts, it might not have been that way: The state and the Puget Sound region might have entered the current economic downturn much earlier, in the way Michigan experienced its own single-state recession.

Now, the last member that generation of Boeing-backers, Washington Rep. Norm Dicks, is leaving the stage. After 18 terms in Congress and years before that as a top Congressional aide, Dicks said Friday he would not seek another term later this year.

"He's kind of the last of a great generation to leave," said Denny Heck, a long-time Evergreen State expert who founded TVW, the state's version of C-SPAN after serving as a top aide to Gov. Booth Gardner in the early 1990s. "We jokingly referred to him as our third U.S. Senator for decades. But it's not a joke, it was real."

Dicks began his career on Capitol Hill learning from the masters of a past appropriations era. He served as administrative assistant -- Senate-speak for chief of staff -- to Sen. Warren Magnuson in the early 1970s, at a time when Magnuson chaired the powerful Commerce Committee. Dicks left Magnuson's office to run for Congress on his own, winning a seat in 1977.

Dicks's career as a member began at the height of Washington State's power; that year, Magnuson took over the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson chaired the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and then-Rep. Tom Foley, later the first House Speaker from a state west of the Rockies, chaired the House Agriculture Committee. Together, they steered billions in earmarks to Washington State, while helping Boeing secure billions more in government contracts.

After Magnuson lost in the 1980 Republican wave, Jackson died in 1983 and Foley lost his seat in the 1994 GOP landslide, Dicks was the last great Washington State appropriator. He rose to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, a post from which he could further aid Boeing. After Rep. David Obey retired and two more senior Democrats left, Dicks became the top-ranking Democrat on the panel. As the second-ranking Democrat on the defense subcommittee when Rep. John Murtha was still alive, Dicks helped Boeing win a U.S. Air Force tanker contract that had originally been awarded to a European aerospace conglomerate.

(Had Dicks run for re-election and Democrats retaken the House, he might have been in a position to recreate Washington State's influence inside the Beltway; Rep. Adam Smith, who, like Dicks, lives in Tacoma, is the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.)

"There were countless regional issues that united the Washington State congressional delegation over the years, and in those instances his clout was immensely helpful to the residents of Washington State," said Rob Nichols, a former communications director to the late Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., and ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and now CEO of the Financial Services Forum.

Dicks has other legacies, most notably the money he secured to help rebuild and revitalize downtown Tacoma and to clean up Puget Sound and the Hood Canal, projects nearly as big in scope as the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. On Capitol Hill, he may best be remembered for acting like the staffer he used to be -- Dicks had a reputation for calling staffers in other offices directly and either urging them to push their bosses in his direction or yelling into the phone when he didn't get his way.

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Dicks Retirement Ends Boeing Generation

UpdatedMar 5, 2012 4:11 PM ET

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun hasn't made any plans to retire just yet.

The 69-year-old Hall-of-Famer, a self-described gym rat, is back from a monthlong medical leave that had many questioning whether he would ever coach again.

''We started this thing, I started it, 26 years ago and I haven't made any plans to do anything else except come back,'' Calhoun said Friday. ''A few other things along the way have gotten in my way.''

And so he was at Gampel Pavilion on Saturday, less than a week after having a disk fragment removed from his spine, leading the Huskies to a 74-65 win over Pittsburgh. And on Monday, he was leading practice and getting ready to head out to Madison Square Garden for Tuesday's start to the Big East tournament, hoping to lead the Huskies on a run similar to the 11-game streak that brought them a third national title a year ago.

''Somebody said to me, `Jeez it will be great to have you there,''' Calhoun said Monday. ''I said, actually, you'd be better off having (former UConn guard) Kemba (Walker) here. ''

What happens after this season is anyone's guess, and pundits, friends, even former players and assistant coaches are doing just that.

''It's like, `OK, Jim you're 70 years old, what more do you want to prove?'' said Digger Phelps, a former coach at Notre Dame, and now an analyst at ESPN. ''He's a survivor and he's a survivor as a coach. He's at the point now where he's won three national titles. He knows what's at stake. He's gotta make that decision.''

Calhoun is a three-time cancer survivor, overcoming prostate cancer in 2003 and skin cancer twice, most recently in 2008. He has missed 29 games over his 40-year career because of various medical conditions and had to leave another 11 games for medical reasons.

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Calhoun retirement talk rekindled

CLEARWATER - Alexander Kasheta says he can't imagine living in a better place than Bayview Gardens in Clearwater.

"Living here was perfect. It was the ideal situation for living independent," Kasheta said.

Soon he and all his neighbors will have to try to find another "perfect" place to live. For most Americans, April 15 will be tax day. For the seniors living at Bayview Gardens, it will be moving day.

"I think it's a disaster," Kasheta said.

March 1, the company that runs the senior living facility announced they would be closing for good.

"We've not been able to rise to the levels of occupancy required to keep the community operating," said Bayview Gardens President Troy Hart.

They blame the closure on a bad housing market and a struggling economy.

Bayview is a community made up of clusters of independent living apartments and a tower for those who need assistance.

Come April 15, every single resident will have to go.

"Forty-five days is a very short timeline, especially when you're dealing with frail seniors, and we gave a lot of thought to that," said Hart.

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Retirement community to shut down

TULSA, Okla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

BOK Financial has announced it ranked among top retirement plan providers in the country, according to the highly-regarded PLANSPONSOR Defined Contribution (DC) Survey. The annual survey asks employers about their retirement plan and then compares retirement plan providers on a number of categories. BOK Financial ranked in the Top 10 in a number of categories and received numerous Best in Class awards.

Choosing a retirement plan provider for your business is a very important decision every employer has to make, said JoAnn Schaub, senior vice president for Institutional Wealth Management. PLANSPONSOR is an impartial and reliable resource employers utilize to get information about providers, so to receive such high marks in the survey is quite an achievement.

Schaub said the survey results validate the commitment BOK Financial has made to providing the highest level of service and results to employers and their employees. In fact, the survey results show 100 percent of BOK Financial clients are likely to recommend BOK Financial to others, with more than 88 percent saying they are extremely likely.

Retirement plans do more than provide financial security to retiring employees. They help an organization set themselves apart from their competition in recruiting talent, said Ken Etheredge, senior vice president, manager of retirement plan services. Providing the best plans with the best service helps our customers attract the best talent and do the best work.

BOK Financial ranked in the top 10 for average client participation rate, a measure of how many eligible employees are participating in their companys retirement plan.

Our strong participation numbers demonstrate were achieving our goals of communicating with and educating employees so they will make the decision to participate in the retirement plan, and feel confident in their choices, said Etheredge. We offer tailored solutions to our clients, including on-site meetings, one-on-one meetings, webinars and targeted communications. We want to prepare employees now to live comfortably in retirement.

Etheredge says BOK Financials excellent customer service means employers can focus on what they do best running their business instead of administrative or educational concerns related to their retirement plan.

BOK Financial received Best in Class awards in numerous categories. For participant services, the company was recognized for its participant call center, website functionality, online tools/services, participant statements, enrollment assistance, onsite meetings, range of investments and participant fee disclosure. For plan sponsor services, BOK Financial was recognized for its Form 5500 processing, compliance support/testing, legislative/regulatory updates, account team knowledge, staff consistency, plan design flexibility, fee cost-to-value and service responsiveness.

Schaub credits the many employees at BOK Financial who are involved in servicing and supporting retirement plans for the companys high rankings.

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BOK Financial Ranks Among Top Retirement Plan Providers

By Bobby Fisher - March 5, 2012 | Tickers: COLM, FL, HIBB, NKE, FINL, UA | 0 Comments

Bobby is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Sportswear makers, specificallyNike (NYSE: NKE)and Under Armour (NYSE: UA), have been outperforming the wider apparel and footwear sectors. Puma, Adidas,and Columbia Sportswear (NASDAQ: COLM)are also profiting from the positive momentum. Going forward, these companies will be benefitting from price declines in polyester and cotton, although they have to contend with higher labor costs in China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brazil, as do other companies in the clothing and shoe sectors.

I expect advantageous valuations, improving performance, and positive cash positions of potential targets, as well as the intense competition in sports retailing in the U.S., to spur takeover and buyout activity in the sportswear sector.

One deal is already in the making. Private equity investor TPG Capital recently made an $820 million bid for Quiksilverrival Australian swimwear and surfing goods maker Billabong International. Billabong rejected the proposal and countered by announcing the sale of part of youth brand Nixon to cut debt and boost its performance. Nevertheless, it has left the door open for TPG to improve on its $3 per share offer or for another buyer to come forward.

I see the following five U.S. sportswear manufacturers or retailers as likely targets for private equity or for industry rivals.

As of December 31, 2010,Columbia Sportswear operated 41 outlet retail stores and eight branded retail stores in the U.S., 40 branded retail stores and 13 outlet retail stores in Japan and Korea; seven outlet retail stores and three branded retail stores in various locations in Western Europe; and two outlet retail stores in Canada. I believe that Columbias attractiveness lies in its excellent brand recognition and its increasing appeal to younger consumers thanks to its line of fishing-style sport shirts. Nike, with its $3.37 billion of cash, might be a potential buyer.

Columbia is a less likely target for VFC, which offers similar products under The North Face brand. Colombia currently has a market cap of $1.7 billion. Its forward P/E ratio is relatively high at 14.18 and so is its price to sales ratio of 0.98, which largely exceeds the 0.39 average for the textile/apparel clothing industry. However, its operating margin of 8.05% is better than the 6.88% industry average, and it has no debt.

Next, we have Hibbett Sports (NASDAQ: HIBB), whichoperates sporting goods stores in small to mid-sized markets primarily in the southeast, southwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest regions of the U.S. Its stores offer an assortment of athletic equipment, footwear, and apparel. The company also provides its merchandise directly to educational institutions and youth associations. Hibbett recently agreed for Dreams (DRJ) to become their exclusive online provider for team merchandise in the licensed sports category. As of April 30, 2011, HIBB operated a total of 799 retail stores comprised of 778 Hibbett Sports stores, 18 Sports Additions athletic shoe stores, and three Sports & Co. superstores in 26 states. HIBB could be a target for Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), the largest listed U.S. sporting goods retailer with 437 stores.

Buying more stores would help Dick's to compete against privately held The Sports Authority, which has more than 450 stores across the U.S. Dick's has made no major acquisitions since 2007, when it paid $40 million for Chick's Sporting Goods and $225 million for Golf Galaxy. Hibbetts market valuation is $1.28 billion. Its operating margin of 12.27% is well above the average of 4.05% for sporting goods stores. However, it is also more expensive, with a P/S of 1.83 compared to 0.82 for the industry, and a forward P/E ratio of 19.76. Hibbett has total cash of $53 million versus total debt of only $2.31 million.

Read more:
Could these Sportswear Players Become Targets in 2012?

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

BlueSprig, the fresh alternative to software, today announced the launch of AirCover, a new personal security app and location tool for iOS and Android devices. AirCover protects users from loss, theft, viruses, malware and other threats to mobile devices, while ensuring the safety of family and other loved ones via GPS tracking, user check-ins and emergency alerts. The app is available for free download from the iTunes App Store and Android Market.

Smartphones have become integral tools to everyday life, allowing people to go new places and do new things while staying closely connected with family and friends, said Jason Johnson, CEO of BlueSprig. AirCover is a powerful personal security app that helps you protect all the important information you have on your phone while giving you the peace of mind that loved ones are safe as well.

AirCover features include:

AirCover can also track users across iOS and Android mobile platforms for the ultimate personal safety and convenience. The app is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad with versions iOS 4.0 or later, and Android versions 2.1 and above.

To celebrate the launch of AirCover, attendees of SXSW Interactive are invited to attend the Do512 & AirCover Epic Interactive Party at The Belmont on Friday, March 9th, 7pm to 1am. To RSVP, click here.

About BlueSprig

BlueSprig puts the 'personal' back in personal computing. With powerful, lightweight, easy-to-use utility apps, BlueSprig is the fresh alternative to software, at home or on the go your one-stop shop for security, privacy, performance and efficiency. Led by successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and China, BlueSprig has offices in San Francisco and Chengdu, China. For more information, visit:www.bluesprig.com.

Supporting resources

AirCover media kit AirCover on Facebook AirCover on Twitter

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AirCover Personal Security App Launches for iOS and Android Devices

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJJa2ks6HNU

03-03-2012 09:33 Fandom: Sherlock BBC Characters: John, Sherlock, miss Adler, Mycroft Holmes Summary: Curious case, which had appeared in the newspapers, became Sherlock Holmes' personal success. Nothing to be taken seriously though. Music: info at the end of the video

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Study in blanket (Sherlock) - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJvKlNzttn4

05-03-2012 15:26 Being an entrepreneur is often energy-draining! Creating a personal power routine is essential to having the level of success and personal fulfillment you desire. Learn my 4-step personal power routine (and the #1 factor most people over-look) as the key to your growth this year. Be sure to share your comments below! To see all the New Era Success TV shows tune in to http://www.newerasuccess.tv.

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New Era Success TV: My 4 Step Personal Power Routine - Video