Mother earth hosts our travels

As conscious traveling Paupers we must always be concerned about our dear Mother Earth. If you think about it, you travel across her face, and She is the host to your journey; without Her we could not find the unfolding adventures that attract and feed our souls.

I have found some valuable resources for us to use and publisize, all of which are dedicated to responsible travel and care of our environment.

International Ecotourism Society

202-347-9203 ecotourism. org

A well-established nonprofit group which conducts research, publishes articles, provides consumer information, and has a directory of members around the world. With Rainforest Alliance, it recently started an ecotourism certification standards program.

Sustainable Travel International

720-273-2975 sustainabletravelinternational. org

Formed three years ago to bridge the gapbetween research and ocnsumer information and to promote sustainable development and eco-friendly travel. Offers a carbon offset program and last month started an eco-certification program that will follow standards laid out by the International Ecotourism Society.

Responsible Travel Handbook

travelearning. com

Created this year for the Educational Travel Conference meeting, this lengthy guide has a wealth of contributors and information. (Click on responsible tourism to download).

Lonely Planet Code Green: Trips of a Lifetime That Won't Cost The Earth

by Kelly Lorimer - Lonely pLanet Publications

The first "green travel" book to be published by Lonely Planet includes dozens of "responsible travel experiences" and provides traveler information on responsible and eco-travel. Lonely Planet also runs a discussion board on responsible travel at thorntree. lonelyplanet. com

Better World Club

866-238-1137 betterworldclub. com

The environmentally conscious alternative to the American Automobile Association, offering auto and bicycle road assistance, has resources on hybrid car rentals, green lodging, and carbon offsets.

Let us join and use these groups when planning our trips. By raising our level of consciousness and employing 'green' tactics and travel itineraries we will, each in our own small way, be contributing to a healthier world where we act as stewards to the environment while discovering the rich and breathtaking rewards of travel.

Lead by example

Have you ever read any good books on leadership? Maybe something by John Maxwell? What stands out in my mind when it comes to the information contained in these books is the technique for effective leadership. One of the biggest is leading by example.

Throughout history some of the greatest leaders were people of vision, people who saw something that others could not see and shared their vision with the masses to improve the quality of life. Never once did a leader become a great leader by being pessimistic and negative. Never has anything been accomplished of value by looking at a problem and complaining without offering a solution to the problem. In fact, a leader who only offers a negative picture remains a leader for a short time, a time when they are noticed but become irrelevant.

I have spoken of the negative influence of the media in our lives and how we must strive to overcome it. I believe that immersing ourselves in the positive we can accomplish that. A leader of people must understand that to be effective, he has to give the people who follow him hope of better things. In doing so, he rises to higher levels and accomplishes great things. When he loses sight of the lofty challenge of being a positive visionary in any organization, a leader is destined to fail, for no one will follow a leader who is going over a cliff.

As you strive to develop your business or career, you should keep in mind that you can be whomever you wish to be. You can look at challenges and problems and offer real solutions and visions for the future that people can grasp onto, or you can see the problem and rub everyone's nose in it as you complain about it until no one is listening anymore.

When you have a customer and they lodge a complaint, you perk up and listen to them. If you work for a company that you complain about all the time, no one listens when you complain. Complainers develop a cloak of invisibility that is only penetrated when they are seen long enough to be removed from the company. At that point, the complainer has become nothing more than an eyesore.

As we look at the so-called leaders of the day, we should keep in mind that we are not the only ones who see them. The world is watching our country and our business. As our leaders complain without offering solutions, the world sees an ugly picture of discontent and failure with no solutions at hand. Only when people realize that the role of the leader is to be the visionary, the one with the answer, will things in our world change for the better. Until then, we get what we ask for and what we vote for.

Expect great things, offer great solutions, and when you are ready for the challenge, throw your hat in the ring and step up to lead.

Online poker betting structure

The game’s limit is a definition that is dependent on the financial aspect of the game you are involved in. There are two types of online poker games if we look at poker from the money point of view: there are the low-limit games and the high-limit games. The high-limit games are the games where lots of money are being played and bet. Low-limit games are at the other side, they are games with little money involved.

Betting structures are based on limits imposed to each bet that is done in the game. Looking at this aspect we can distinguish four types of games:

1. The fixed-limit games

These games are sometimes named the structured limit games. Wherever there is such a game it means the players will only bet the amount that was set previously. Of course a bet is equal to the small blind and the big blind is double. For more information, when naming such a game, people use terms like $2/$4, $15/$30 games. This way the player that wants to enter the poker room knows from the start what he or she will be betting. Let’s say you are playing in a $2/$4 game. This means you will bet $2 at a time, this being the amount that will be placed as a bet on the flop and pre-flop, with the exception of the big blind of course. On the turn and on the river however the bets will double and every bet’s value will be $4. There is also a limit of bets per round. Every player is only allowed 4 bets per round. That means something like betting once, calling a re-rising, and be raised again.

Sometimes there are structured games that have three amounts in their name, like $2/$4/$8. The bets will be placed the same as described before, with the exception that when getting on the river, the bet gets doubled again, so from the initial $2 on the pre-flop and flop, it doubles on the turn to $4, and then it doubles again on the river to $8. But the players are not obliged to place that re-doubled bet on the river. They have an option here, they can either bet $4 or $8, whatever suites them the most.

2. The spread limit games

These are games that include the betting amount within an interval of values given by the name of the game. These games’ names will contain the numbers that limit the bets. For example in a $4-$8 game, players can place any bet as long as it is at least $4 and at the most $8. You can bet anything between $4 and $8 during any round.

We can find games that have four amounts in the name, like : $4-$8-$10-$12, this means that on the first two betting round, pre-flop and flop the player can bet between $4 and $8, on the third betting round, the turn, the player can bet anything between $4 and $10, and finally on the river the upper limit of the bets is increased to $12, so the bets can be anywhere from $4 to $12.

Although less encountered, there are games that have three amount in their name, like: $4-$8-$10. This only mean that until the river the bets are between $4 and $8, but once reaching the river the upper limit will increase and the bets can be placed using amounts from $4 to $10.

3. The pot limit games

In these types of games the bets are flexible, the only things that are settled are the amounts for the small and big blind. The bet can be anywhere from the big blind up to the size of the pot in that particular moment. Sometimes two money amount are used to express such a game, like $5-$10. This only means that the small blind is $5 and the big blind is $10, and the fact that the minimum bet is equal to the big blind, meaning $10 in our case. There can occur rules like the one that allows the pre-flop bets to be 3 or 4 times the size of the big blind, but this depends from game to game.

4. The no limit games

Basically in these games you can bet almost anything. Anything between the size of the big blind and the money you still have on the table, of course. This games can be referred sometimes as , for example, $5-$10 games, and this means as in the latter situation that the values of the blinds are given and the bets will have to be bigger than the last value, the value of the big blind.