Host a Halloween-themed party rather than throw a standard Halloween party, which can be predictable in every way. This adult gathering mixes both sophistication and fright. It’s an original party idea that is sure to be a hit this Halloween season. Here are some tips:

Emphasize the theme by creating a haunted wine cellar in your home. Use big, oversized apothecary jars and find as many old wooden barrels as possible and place them throughout your home.

Check out prop shops or closeout stores for inexpensive decor items. Serve snacks and candy in your newly-discovered barrel and jars.

Use big, silver platters to serve food because this gives your party an antique feel. It’s even better if you line the platters with doilies or lace napkins.

Be extra creative and serve wine in glass decanters. Label the decanters with spooky labels in ghoulish fonts.

Since this is a wine party, a rule of thumb is to serve a variety of wines and offer a great selection. Here are five wine suggestions with festive and scary names:

1. Poizin Zinfandel

2. Owen Roe Sinister Hand

3. R Winery Evil Cabernet Sauvignon

4. Vampire Wines

5. Casillero del Diablo

Serve apple slices, crackers, bread, a variety of sharp cheeses and sliced salami to complement your wine.

When you have such a curious and fun-loving creature sharing your life with you, like you have with the sugar glider, there are things you have to be aware of that could cause your little pocket pet great harm. Things that would not normally bother most pets because they are so much larger, or because they do not mess with them, can be deadly to your sugar glider.

One of these types of things is caustic chemicals that you normally use to clean your home. These items are normally quite safe and we use them all the time. It’s hard to get in the frame of mind that these are not good to use when you have a sugar glider in the house. Such items are things like: bleach, and disinfectant sprays like Lysol are very bad for use in any area where your sugar glider may come in contact with. These have a curious smell to your sugar glider and they will not be able to resist a lick or two. Now of course for the average sized animal that is not going to cause any harm, but for your glider that weighs less than a pound, even a lick or two can be deadly.

For much the same reasons things like scented candles and incense are potentially hazardous. Your little darling will be drawn to them by their delicious smell and won’t be able to resist taking a swipe with their tongues. Keeping all of these types of things out of reach is nearly impossible since there are very few places your sugar glider will not be able to climb to, or jump upon. The best method of prevention is to not have them around at all.
With a little care your home can be as safe as possible for your pocket pet and you will have years of happy enjoyment with your buddy.

PurelyAlpaca supports the alpaca garment industry through
education, sales and sponsorship. We welcome original designs
from fiber and craft artists which use or promote alpaca fiber.

We also accept alpaca theme gifts.

Types of items we have accepted for sale in the past include:

Baby blankets

Children’s sweaters

Children’s hats, gloves and mittens

Children’s socks

Adult hats and scarves

Toys

Original artwork in an alpaca theme

Guidelines:

Clothing products are new. The artist will provide an
attractive image and description of the item.

A writeup about you and your work or a URL link to a web page
with same to cover questions such as (for a fiber item): How did
you get started in working with fiber? How long ago or age?

How did you learn to work with fiber/yarn?

Do you own alpacas?

What attracted you to working with alpaca?

What has been your experience with alpaca?

What types of fiber art items have you created?

What do you hope to create in the future?

Products are sold on a consignment basis

A commission is charged for listing products once they are sold

In most cases the artist will be responsible for shipping the
product directly and timely

In certain cases we will stock your items and ship directly for
you

This service is somewhat similar to Ebay, but focuses on alpaca
art and craft

Each item is individually assessed as to its appropriate content
for this site

Feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions

Tahiti honeymoon resorts are the best places you could think of
when you think of a romantic and passion filled honeymoon.
Tahiti is the picture perfect place for your honeymoon. If you
cherish your love, then you cannot afford to think beyond Tahiti.

Tahiti honeymoon vacations will make you believe that good times
are made to be enjoyed here. The fascinating overwater bungalow
is picturesque and makes you spend invaluable intimate moments
with your beloved. The Tahiti honeymoon package is comprehensive
of romantic dinners, complimentary champagne, fruit baskets et
all. Many people are even said to have renewed their wedding
vows here.

Most Tahiti honeymoon packages include round trip airfares,
gifts like a bottle of champagne or wine, safari travel through
the place, exotic meals including fish, sumptuous breakfast,
romantic bed of flowers, private mini Tahitian dance show, music
troupe , traditional wedding quilt, various gifts and tokens of
appreciation courtesy the Tahiti honeymoon resorts, specially
for you.

A lot of people like to take cross country trips when it comes
to honeymoon and enjoy the honeymoon place which is a far cry
from the hum drum and vagaries of the busy life. The Tahiti
honeymoon packages give you an escape from your reality as you
board a fantasy voyage to ecstasy full of romance and love.
Tahiti is the place you would certainly make love to!

© Copyright Randy Wilson, All Rights Reserved.

It is a large prebuilt structure and has adequate space for installing gas grill, cabinets, refrigerators and many others. This place is ideal for people having a party or big families having a barbeque. The place is so comfy and you find umbrellas with protect the area from direct sunlight. This place is well built up and the floors might even have marble tiles. Actually most of these grills are made by companies and some are even showcased on television shows. These kitchens have been a great ideal since they have a large open space and the furniture is made to look fantastic.

When erecting an outdoor kitchen island you would consider investing as they are very cost effective and may range from $7000 to above. You should consider selecting the best so that your place becomes very posh and this is one of the reasons you should spend more. The equipment that is used such as the stoves and other accessories should be of high quality. Erecting an outdoor kitchen island is not only for the rich but it’s for people who require quality and more style as this does not come cheap. You would require a variety of finishes such as stainless steel or silver and other metal that will make this place look so beautiful.

Identity Theft: Oh No. Not them.

You’ll never hear the end of it if you decide to press charges.
And besides you’re not even sure you really want to do that.
They might pay you back the money. Not. The burden is on you to
sort this mess out and the worst part is once a relative or
friend steals your identity, it’s almost impossible to trust
them again.

We hear about the high profile cases of hackers breaking into
the databases of Lexis Nexus or DSW Shoe warehouse, yet most
instances of identity theft never make the news. Usually it’s
something basic like a neighbor stealing a credit card
application from your mailbox or a relative going thru your
personal belongings

In the Better Business Bureau’s 2005 Fraud Survey report they
found relatives, close friends and neighbors make up 50 percent
of all identity thieves. They also cost you more time and money
trying to fix the problem. Javelin Research calculates that the
average cost to identity theft victims is $15,607 when the
perpetrator is known.

But even that figure is misleading. Many children are falling
victim to identity theft (a half million last year according to
the Federal Trade Commission) which means the full impact of the
damage may not be known until years later when as adults they
apply for credit.

For some parents, stealing their child’s identity is a stop gap
solution. Their own credit is destroyed, so “borrowing” their
child’s social security number becomes a necessity. All the
while, they assure themselves the money will be paid back. Yet
the same pattern that destroyed the parent’s credit, now puts a
negative on the child.

It doesn’t matter if the thief is a parent, sibling or best
friend, the process of recovering your identity is a tough one
and it gets more complicated. Should you report the crime?

“Frequently when we would break up a ring and get a list of
victims and find family members were involved in the crime,
relatives are very reluctant to co-operate” says Ken Hunter,
former Chief Postal Inspector and current president of the
Council of Better Business Bureaus.

According to a study done by Gartner, Inc., the chances of an
identity thief getting prosecuted are 1 in 700. However, when a
relative is the culprit those odds go through the roof. The
attitude understandably becomes, “Yes, they did me wrong but I
can’t send them to jail.”

Ken Hunter: “If it’s a matter of pilferage at a very low level,
nothing much is really going to happen to that person.”

On the other hand, if your identity is used to commit crimes on
a higher scale, by all means report it to the authorities. You
may feel guilty and make a lot of people angry in the process.
Families get torn apart because relatives feel the matter should
stay private.

It’s a tough decision, but remember, this is your good name the
identity thief destroyed, not your relatives and it’s you who
may be wanted for a crime, not them.

I started my coffee roasting career as a home roaster. Getting
started was easier than I thought. And as I did so, it occured
to me how a relatively simple concept, roasting coffee beans,
has been made to appear to be an arcane art, with a variety of
roast types held out as arcane knowledge. How many different
names have you run across for different types of coffee roasts?
Light, Medium, Dark? Espresso? Continental? Vienna, French,
Italian, Spanish? City? Full-City? C’mon, who’s thinking up
these things?

Well, the dark secret (pardon the pun) of the coffee industry is
that, well, there really isn’t full agreement on which roast is
which. So basically, we all pretty much get to hunt around, try
different coffees from different sources and pick the one(s) we
like. In this article, I’ll try to use the standard
nomenclature, and map it to a process of observing the color and
texture anyone can judge for himself.

The roasting adventure begins with green coffee beans. These are
stored at room temperatures, at 12-15% moisture content.
Roasting is done at temperatures of up to 450+ degrees F.
Duration and temperature determine the roast.

A coffee bean will take on heat until the internal temperature
of the bean reaches approximately 212-240 deg F. At this point,
the outer layer of the bean(s) will discolor, turning a nice
cinnamon color. Here, steam will start being released from the
bean.

As the bean heats up further (approx 250-300 degrees F, again
depending on the variety), the external membrane of the bean
will dry up and start separating from the bean itself. At
approximately 350 degrees F, the continuing heating of the bean
forces a ‘first crack.’ This cracking occurs as moisture within
is released through the existing seam in the bean. This
essentially blows this small crack open, forcing the separation
of the remaining bean ‘chaff’.

Coffee at this stage is a light brown color; entering the ‘light
City Roast’ stage. City Roast is usually achieved at a slightly
higher temperature (above 370 deg F), where the sugars within
the bean start melting or ‘carmelizing’. This gives the
distinctive ‘coffee brown’ color. City Roasts are usually
stopped around 400 deg. or so. At this point, the sugars are not
fully carmelized, and flavor of the beans at this stage are very
much determined by their origin; not by the degree of roast. The
‘Full City Roast’ stage occurs at higher temperatures, just as
the bean reaches the ’second crack’ stage. This stage happens at
different temperatures for different beans based on variety. The
second crack comes as the temperatures of the bean reach the
point where the cellular composition of the bean starts breaking
down. To obtain the Full City roast, roasting is stopped just at
the point where this second crack starts (approx 425-435 deg F.)
At this point the bean is darker brown, but ‘dry’ looking, as
the oils of the bean have not started to emerge through the
molecular breakdown of the bean.

Going into the second crack, we reach the Vienna, Continental,
French and/or Italian roast stages. These are sometimes also
referred to as “Espresso Roast”, although strictly speaking,
there’s no such thing. Italian espresso blends actually vary -
northern blends are typically roasted to the ‘Vienna’ stage,
well into the second crack, where the sugars within the bean are
almost fully carmelized and many beans within the roast will
appear dark brown with hints of fissures. Espresso blends in
southern Italy are usually roasted into the “French Roast”
stage, where almost all of the beans will be about one shade
removed from black and oils will start emerging from some beans.
Beyond this point, beans will start releasing oils and their
soluble compounds - mainly as a lot of smoke; but the beans will
be left quite dark with a very oily sheen. Assuming they have
not fully burnt yet, this can be specified as “Italian Roast”.
I’ve observed different temperatures (within the roaster) for
all of these stages depending on the bean variety - so as my
roasts reach the second crack, I tend to trust my eyes and ears
more than I trust my probe thermometer.

One interesting note of coffee roasting is that as beans reach
into the second crack, they tend to lose any distinctive
varietal flavors. Is this a bad thing? Well, for some,
perhaps… I for one will mutter a bit if my Ethiopian
Yirgacheffe goes past Full City and I lose the distinctive
flavor notes; and in my early roasting career I almost cried as
a batch of prized Puerto Rican select went unheeded into the
Italian Roast realm before I managed to get back to it. But…
some varieties do better at the distinctive French Roast stage.
De gustibus non disputandum est - it just doesn’t pay to dispute
the results in the cup!

And that is coffee roasting. I have seen a fair amount of
advertising of ’slow-roasted’ or ‘deep-roasted’ coffee, which
always gets me to wondering. I suppose if you roast a huge
amount of beans in a low-temperature environment… why, yes,
that would in fact be a slow process! Certainly for a roaster to
get beans to a certain roast point and no further, it does pay
to be precise and not rapidly incinerate his product. But I
can’t say I’d want to purposely take any longer than necessary
to do so.

As for ‘deep’ roasting? Hmm. Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of
’shallow’ roasting; but whatever it is, ‘deep roast’ must be the
opposite! Seriously, the only ‘trick of the trade’ that I can
think of runs counter to the notion of holding beans at any
given temperature… and that is, once a batch reaches the
desired point, get it out of the roaster and cool it down FAST!
As described above, the quality of a roast depends on those
sugars and soluble materials within the bean getting ‘cooked’
very specifically. Keeping the beans near additional heat (yes,
even other beans nearby, releasing their own heat energy) will
continue to cook them.

To some extent this is unavoidable, so the experienced roaster
will compensate for this by knowing his roasting environment;
and ideally provide a cooling location where beans can cool as
rapidly as possible by the flow of cool (i.e., room temperature)
air over the freshly-roasted beans. This allows them to ‘coast’
into their final characteristic color and taste.

© Andy White, Roastmaster for Coudy Coffee. For more coffee and
espresso information and resources, visit
http://www.coudycoffee.com

Print and Internet publication rights for this article are
granted free of charge, provided the credit and copyright
paragraph and this paragraph remain intact. If you use this
article in HTML form, please set resource link as a hyperlink.
Please e-mail me the URL of any place where the article is
posted, or a copy of any electronic newsletter or eZine, etc. A
copy of any printed publication using this article would be
greatly appreciated (contact me via e-mail for mailing address!)

Mosquito spraying is one of the most commonly used methods to stop the breeding of these nasty insects. Due to the fact that there are chemicals that are spread over areas where people live, mosquito spraying raises a lot of question like : are those pesticides safe for my health? Does it affects my pets ? What about the objects left outside are they affected by mosquito spraying? And so on. In this article we will try to answer to some of these questions.

Mosquito spraying is done using mounted fogging units to apply insecticides as an ultra-low-volume (ULV) spray. These units spray units dispense very fine aerosol droplets (fog) that stay aloft and kill mosquitoes on contact. The amount of insecticide used in mosquito spraying is small compared to the area treated, usually about 3 to 5 ounces per acre, which minimizes exposure and risks to people and the environment. Mosquito spraying is also done by thermal foggers that use an oil carrier that is heated to disperse the pesticide in a dense smoke-like fog.

During mosquito spraying , flying mosquitoes within the treated area are killed. Although the local mosquito population is reduced for a few days, fogging does not prevent mosquitoes from re-entering the area.
The most commonly used products in mosquito spraying are pyrethrins, synthetic pyrethroid insecticides (such as Scourge ® and Anvil ®)and malathion. Pyrethrins are insecticides derived from the extract of chrysanthemum flowers. Pyrethroids are human made forms of pyrethrins. Both of them act as contact poisons, affecting the insect’s nervous system. For mosquito spraying they are combined with a synergist (such as piperonyl butoxide) that allows the insecticide to be more effective by restricting the enzyme that insects use to detoxify the pyrethrins.

Pyrethrins and pyrethroids are use in mosquito spraying without posing unreasonable risks to human health when applied according to the label although, in high dosage, pyrethroids can affect the nervous system, coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest pain, runny or stuffy nose. Regarding the wild life and the environment these two insecticides do not pose unreasonable risks, also. When used in mosquito spraying they are low in toxicity to mammals, and are practically nontoxic to birds. However they are toxic to fish and to bees. Therefore E.P.A (Environmental Protection Agency) prohibits the mosquito spraying to open water or within 100 feet of lakes, streams, rivers or bays.

Malathion is an organophosphate insecticide that has been registered for the first time in the United States in1956. It is used to kill insects on agricultural crops, on stored products, on golf courses, in home gardens, and in outdoor sites where trees and shrubs are grown at home and also used in mosquito spraying. Malathion comes in two forms: a pure form of a colorless liquid and a technical-grade solution (brownish-yellow liquid), which contains malathion (greater than 90%) and impurities in a solvent. The technical-grade malathion smells like garlic.

For mosquito spraying, this substance is applied at a maximum rate of 0.23 pounds (or about 2.5 fluid ounces) of active ingredient per acre, so it doesn’t pose unreasonable risk to human health. However, at high doses, malathion, like other organophosphates, can overstimulate the nervous system causing nausea, dizziness, or confusion. Severe high-dose poisoning with any organophosphate can cause convulsions, respiratory paralysis, and death. Malathion degrades rapidly in the environment, especially in moist soil, and it displays low toxicity to birds and mammals, but is highly toxic to beneficial insect (ex honey bees) too. Therefore E.P.A set a few regulations for the use of this product.

So these would be the most important aspects of mosquito spraying that you should be concerned about along with the main chemical components used in this process.

Raul Gallu is the author of control-home-mosquitos.blogspot.com
- a website full of information for those who got tired of mosquitoes and wanna do something to get rid of them.