Teen low self esteem can lead to teen depression.  Author Gary Nelson has written a most compelling story of his journey with his son and family dealing with teen depression in his new book.

Read his recent post - that can help many parents take a moment to pause and consider their own teens and how they are feeling.

Source: Dr. Gary Nelson – Author of “A Relentless Hope, Surviving Teen Depression’

Depression hides under a lot of rocks, including “low self-esteem.” It is truly amazing how many different ways depression can hide and fail to be recognized for what it is – a potentially very dangerous illness that can wreck and even take the lives of teens and adults. Many times I’ve listened as a pastoral counselor and pastor as teens have told me that they believed for a long time that they had suffered from “low self-esteem.” In most cases that meant they had been suffering from depression but never knew it. They and others around them simply thought they had “low self-esteem.” That also means the teen went all that time suffering instead of getting the necessary help. Learn to look under the rocks. When you hear a teen say they just suffer from “low self-esteem,” take a closer look. You might just lead them toward the help they need.

For more information on teen depression check my website: www.survivingteendepression.com

My new book, “A Relentless Hope: Surviving the Storm of Teen Depression” is available at Amazon and other outlets.

Well, 2008 is finally behind us! Many would say it was not the best year economically, with stress of finances, the frustrations of getting our kids/teens to comprehend the serious of it all. Personally I am very excited about 2009 – especially this fall, my second book will be released and it is going to be HOT! It is hush hush for now, but it will be explosive for sure!

Let’s take a look at 2008 and some of the great parenting sites and books we have:

ADDitude Magazine - All about ADD/ADHD!
PE4Life - Teaching our Kids the Importance of Physical Education
Connect with Kids – Great Articles and DVD’s for Parenting of all ages
Inhalant Abuse – Learn more about this growing problem among teens.
Love Our Children USA - Great information on keeping our kids safe today.
iKeepSafe – Promoting Parenting Education on Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace
Feingold Program - Fantastic information on alternative ways to treating ADD/ADHD
Education.com – It’s all about kids of all ages!
Safe Teen Driving Club – Learn how to keep your teens safe on the road.
Next Generation Parenting – What’s next?
OnTeensToday – Vanessa Van Petten has great insights on teens today.
Thinking Forward – A parent’s guide to middle school years.
Break Free Beauty - Teen Body Image by Sarah Maria

Beautiful Boy by David Scheff
It All Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
A Relentless Hope – Surviving the Storm of Teen Depression by Gary Nelson
You’re Grounded by Vanessa Van Petten
Parent Survival Training – Dr. David Lustig
SOS – Students Guide for Saying NO to Cheating – by Lisa Medoff
SOS – Students Guide for Peer Pressure - by Lisa Medoff
Preventing Addiction by Dr. John Fleming

Oh, don’t forget my own book release in July 2008 – Wit’s End! Advice and Resources for Saving Your Out-Of-Control Teen published by Health Communications, Inc. Watch for fall 2009 as they release my second book!

We hear about many people that are suffering this year with saddness and depression.  Whether it is an economy that leaves us frustrated we can’t give our kids what we would like to, or simply the feeling of hopefulessness.

Teens can suffer too.  Teen Depression can lead to negative behavior and sometimes worse.

Learn more about Teen Depression.

Teenage depression is more than just bad moods or broken hearts; it is a very serious clinical illness that will affect approximately 20% of teens before they reach adulthood. Left untreated, depression can lead to difficult home situations, problems at school, drug abuse, and worse, violence toward themselves and others.

Certain young teens suffer from depression as result of situations surrounding their social or family life, but many are succeptable to the disease regardless of race, gender, income level or education. It is very important for parents to keep a watch on their teens – and to maintain a strong level of communication. Understanding the causes and warning signs of the illness can help parents prevent their teens from falling in to depression.

Learn more about surviving Teen Depression in Gary E. Nelson’s  book, A Relentless Hope: Suviving the Storm of Teen Depression.

Disney obviously saw the opportunity to make an imaginative and spectacular FX-heavy science fiction epic to cash in on the Star Wars craze. They had got hold of a quite interesting story with some nifty ideas for outrageous action set-pieces, cliff-hanging excitement, emotional heart-string tugging and awesome FX vistas. They employed a top production designer, some inventive special effects people and a master composer and threw money at the project. They messed up the casting a little with only Anthony Perkins being able to make a serious claim at actoringship but then Star Wars featured the less than charismatic line-up of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, a walking carpet and a couple of annoying robots. The Disney scriptwriter’s even threw in a R2-D2-alike (called V.I.N.C.E.N.T.) and even went so far as to make him the best character in the movie.

Where things really fell apart was in hiring Gary Nelson (previous Disney assignment, Freaky Friday) as director. He manages to waste every good aspect of this movie. He translates outrageous action set-pieces into laughable rubbish, cliff-hanging excitement into sofa-sitting dullness, emotional heart-string tugging into cringedom and awesome FX vistas into… well, he doesn’t completely mess them up, but he tries hard! He completely misuses the talents of John Barry. He only occasionally lets the production design wow the audience. SPOILER He does not bother asking the actors to act, in fact, the best (human) cast member, Anthony Perkins, gets violently killed two-thirds of the way through. END SPOILER For about two thirds of the movie, Nelson is just about in control but then something drastic happens. The movie becomes completely embarrassing, missing every target and scuppering every possibility of talent showing through.

This is a missed opportunity. Star Trek: the Motion Picture did epic science-fiction the same year and did it right.

The widowed father of a young boy works as sheriff in the southern town of Mayberry.
The Andy Griffith Show hit its stride during its third season (1962-63), admirably restored in this five-disc, 32-episode boxed set. Andy Griffith perfects his levelheaded Sheriff Andy Taylor; Don Knotts is unsurpassed as the comically neurotic Barney Fife; and Ron Howard continues his legendary run as earnest Opie. The season opens with the endearing episode “Mr. McBeevee,” Opie’s friend in the trees who Andy believes to be a figment of his son’s imagination. From there, every disc contains renowned classics, such as “Floyd, the Gay Deceiver” starring the dashing Howard McNear; “Andy and Opie, Bachelors” offering some of the season’s greatest quips; and “The Darlings Are Coming,” that crazy clan of mountain musicians including the overtly flirtatious Charlene. The season is acclaimed for introducing several new, recurring characters into the cast including Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors), “Miss Peggy” (Joanna Moore), and Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut). Except for two episodes missing closing epilogue scenes (which Paramount discloses), the set contains 13 hours of full-length, uncut, black-and-white magic. Also included is the originally aired “Fishin’ Hole” theme music throughout the collection, as well as more than two dozen “Sponsor Spots,” vintage commercial advertisements featuring the show’s cast. Don’t miss the season highlight, “Man In A Hurry,” a touching story where Malcolm Tucker delivers the now-famous summation of Mayberry, “Outrageous� a whole town is standing still because two old women’s feet fall asleep,” precisely the reason why this beloved sitcom remains a timeless treasure. (All ages) –Lynn Gibson

The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete Third Season is available at Amazon for $20.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete Second Season
• The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete Fourth Season
• The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete First Season
• The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete Fifth Season
• The Andy Griffith Show – The Complete Sixth Season

[Gary Nelson, Mesa Republic] — Tens of thousands of jobs.  Millions of dollars in taxes.  Billions of dollars in salaries. The numbers flew like snowflakes in a blizzard Thursday as DMB Associates spelled out what it sees as the likely impact of its Mesa Proving Grounds project.   All well and good, the City Council said.  But they had one request: Put it in writing.  Councilman Scott Somers, who has worried aloud in several recent meetings about whether the project could deliver on its high-flying promises, said several sections of the Proving Grounds’ zoning ordinance should be rewritten to include those economic goals and how they’ll be met.  DMB attorney Grady Gammage Jr. agreed to do that.  The ordinance, still in draft stages, is expected to come before the council next month.

While talk about the possible impact of DMB’s project is nothing new, some of the numbers that came out on Thursday were.  DMB hired Valley economists Elliott Pollack and Alan Maguire to analyze the dollars-and-cents impact of its property in coming decades.  Here’s a sample of what they came up with, using a computer program developed by University of Minnesota economists:

• At buildout, the 5 square miles is expected to have 20 million square feet of commercial space, 14.5 million square feet of which will be offices. There will be 4,000 hotel rooms, 1.2 million square feet of retail, 15,000 dwelling units with perhaps 37,500 residents and as many as 91,800 permanent jobs.
• Construction on the entire site will create 116,497 “job years.”  A “job year” is enough work to keep one tradesman busy for a year.  Construction will generate $6.1 billion in total wages.
• The city would collect $40 million a year in sales taxes and other revenue as the project reaches maturity.
• Permanent jobs at buildout could generate $4.5 billion in annual wages.
• The hospitality segment, headlined by the recently announced Gaylord resort, will generate 4,000 to 4,500 jobs with annual wages of $144 million to $162 million.
• Total construction costs reaching $9.3 billion.

“This is a big deal,” Maguire told the council — echoing precisely the same words Mayor Scott Smith had used in council chambers only three days previously, when the council approved a new general plan for DMB’s land.  Maguire told The Mesa Republic that the numbers could be on the low side.  ”All the analysis that was done was done relatively conservatively,” he said.  ”These numbers are not sort of pie-in-the-sky numbers.”  

Gammage said the Mesa site is likely to build out with more office space than currently exists in downtown Phoenix and far more than the Scottsdale Airpark, which is hailed as one of the Valley’s economic successes.  [Note: To read the full article, click here.]

TruTech Tools is pioneering a new and flexible way to rent the most advanced test and measurement instrumentation in the world.

We currently rent thermal imagers, blower doors and duct-tightness testers.

The agreements are available here:

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Face it, sometimes you simply cannot justify the cost of test instruments for that “one off”, oddball job or project that you are only going to see once or twice a year. PLUS you really don’t want to turn it down – that might tarnish your reputation and it certainly doesn’t help pay the monthly bills! Or you may just be starting up or expanding the offering of your HVAC or building performance contracting business and you really don’t have the available cash flow.

For some, with a steady stream of jobs coming in, leasing (offered here) works just fine.

But what about you?

A little Q and A….

Q: Who caters to the contractor that cannot afford to buy or lease needed test and measurement products?

A: We searched, and with the exception of a little this here and some of that there, we came up dry for a place that offers it all.

Q: Where are you going to rent the specialized test and measurement equipment you need?

A: Not that place up the road where you rented the stump grinder or tile cutter last year.

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NO MORE worrying if that delay in the job is going to cost you late fees – shorter rentals return more of a partial refund; longer rentals return less of a partial refund, all of which is spelled out in advance.

And if you rent by credit card, chances are you can get your buyback refund within one credit card cycle avoiding any interest on the total amount of the charge.

Our rental “stable” consists of gently-used products that are kept in top-tip condition by our knowledgeable technicians.

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1  GO to the TruTech Rentals portion of our website and select the product you wish to rent.

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3. ORDER using Google Checkout and, if in stock, we will get your order out to you within the next 18 hours!

PLEASE NOTE: RENTALS ARE ONLY FOR THE US!
(with Canada coming soon!)

Just like Die Hard with Under Siege, Speed and countless other action movies, Indiana Jones inspired its own slew of adventure flicks from Michael Douglas’ Jack Colton movies to today’s Mummy and National Treasure franchises.

1985 saw the release of King Solomon’s Mines, an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s classic novel, directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns Of Navarone) and released by the now defunct Cannon Group. It stars Richard Chamberlain (Richard Lester’s Musketeers trilogy) as Allan Quatermain, horrible acting from Sharon Stone as the love interest, as well as Herbert Lom (the original Pink Panther films) and Indy’s own Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) as the villains. Review after the jump.

Let me say it straight, you do not want to see this movie. It’s bad, and not in a good way. Special effects that would have felt at home in the mid 50s, terribly unexciting filming and the aforementioned horrible acting by Sharon Stone (how did she manage a high profile career after this?). Loosely adapting Haggard’s book, J. Lee Thompson doesn’t care too much about plot and instead seems intent on lining up insipid action piece after insipid action piece and making sure Chamberlain has plenty of jokes to crack. Yes, jokes, and painfully unfunny ones at that. Some people claim the movie is an Indiana Jones spoof, but I don’t buy that. To me, it seems like Thompson and his writers were trying to emulate Indy’s balance of humor and excitement, but miserably failed. At any rate, even if it was meant as a spoof, it doesn’t work either.

You may be wondering how a movie with a treasure hunt, lava pits, German bad guys, death traps, lions, giant spiders, cackling African voodoo dudes and a weird papier maché giant monster thing can be so lame, but trust me, you don’t want to know. Steven Spielberg could have done wonders with this, alas Thompson, though he does get a few scenes right, apparently isn’t competent enough. King Solomon’s Mines was followed by a supposedly even more awful sequel a year later, Allan Quatermain And The Lost City Of Gold, directed by Gary Nelson (the original Freaky Friday). Yeah, go rewatch any of the Indiana Jones movies instead. If you have to see an adaptation of King Solomon’s Mines, I’d recommend the 2004 Hallmark produced version starring Patrick Swayze . Even Robert Stevenson’s 1937 version, though extremely dated is more entertaining than this. Hell, The Asylum’s undoubtedly crappy 2008 version is probably better (and funnily enough, it was also made to capitalize on Indy).

Verdict: Watch this at your own risk. King Solomon’s Mines currently holds a 4.5/10 on IMDB and a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rated: PG
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
Release Date: January 30, 1987
Starring: Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, James Earl Jones, Henry Silva
Director: Gary Nelson

Summary: In this sequel to 1985’s King Solomon’s Mines, Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) returns to the jungles of Africa with his fiancée to look for his missing brother. But when they get there, they discover far more than they’d ever imagined: a lost world populated by a race called the Phoenicians. This film was shot in part in Zimbabwe.

My Rating: ★ ★ (Didn’t Liked It)

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