Pete & Jay's Tip O Da "Day"

Some occupations involve traveling to meetings and we are not always talking across town. I was recently scheduled to attend a meeting at a job site two hours away. For some reason I decided to confirm the schedule only to find out that the meeting had been rescheduled for the following week and the information was not passed along to all parties involved. WOW , now I felt pretty lucky here and smart. A two hour drive for no reason would have totally ruined my day. So the tip discovered from this accidental blessing is that it's never a bad idea to confirm meetings that require substantial travel time. Better to be safe then find yourself the lone attendee of a meeting halfway across the state.

First of all, you have to admit it's pretty amazing to have a prayer tip by someone who recently posted a tip about putting a face on a walnut for entertainment. But this works, and I give Peter, (well, actually God, but Peter for passing the idea to me) all the credit. If you aren't exactly proud of your prayer life, and find yourself falling asleep too quickly after "Dear Lord," this may help get you on the right track. Keep a very simple prayer chart, organized by day of the week. For example, on Monday, just list the names of about 5 people you want to pray for that day. Change it up a little on Tuesday, and so on. By keeping it just a name (or simple topic) you will be forced to actually pray something thoughtful and specific for that person, rather than, "Lord help so-and-so's situation; be with them." It prevents generic prayer, and makes you think about the people you care the most about. And, it makes you pray every day. After all, you don'...

So many people like dogs, everything like little "that thing looks like a stuffed doll" to big ol eat your face of dogs. However, most dogs don't know common driving safety tips, or would rather have your attention now and not really car if you get in an accident cause they just really want to lick your face. If you have a dog like that and you just like to take them everywhere you can Honda is prototyping a solution . So now your dog can ride safely with you in the glove apartment (sounds very downtown) or strapped to the floor.

When getting a puppy from a litter , always check the gender of the dog before completing the transaction . Believe it or not, you can't always take people's word for it . If possible, take pictures of the dog you have chosen when you first meet him/her. This will be useful in pointing out the differences in markings if there is any question down the road. Or if your seller is just stupid .

If it rains a lot in a place like Los Angeles, where the water has nowhere to go except the ocean, resist the urge to swim . According to garish signage , the bacteria levels of the water will be excessive, and could cause health risks. Seeing washed up seals in such water is also not a good sign that water is "healthy" to swim in. Still, if you can't resist the call of the water, at least take a shower before too long.

Need some exercise? Want to have fun? Then you want to Swing Dance! A couple weekends ago myself and some friends attended a monthly swing dance activity at Arthur Murry Dance studio sponsered by the U.K. Swing Dance Club . Talk about fun. For the low price of $5.00 you get a one hour lesson and then three hours of fun fun dancing. Don't have a partner? Don't worry! Other people come without partners as well and there are plenty of people to dance with. So, next night is October 29th. Mark it on the calendar!

If you are looking for a good party game for your next party or corporate picnic try the Cinnamon challenge. The cinnamon challenge basically entails taking a heaping spoonful of cinnamon and trying to eat the whole thing in something like a minute. It is surprisingly hard, don't believe me, try it. You get extra points for shooting cinnamon dust out your nose.

You must always communicate with your roommate prior to making a date for a party that will be hosted by your roommate and yourself. If your roommate can't be there that date, then it causes a problem since you are supposed to be hosting it together. -Elissa

Why make pretty wallpaper for your computer if no one can see it? I hate clutter on my desktop. On a Mac, your Finder preferences will let you hide all your servers as well as your hard drive. This is convenient if you have to log onto five or six every day and don't want to look at ugly icons except in column view. You can store them in the dock, load them as necessary, and reclaim valuable desktop space.

When you are updating your blog and getting ready to publish a new post, it is best to make sure that you are publishing your latest post in the correct blog....otherwise it may seem out of place or odd...hmm....see the "un" tip o the day under Thursday, Oct. 20th...

If you have pets that are rather curious and are not afraid to check out every corner of their living space, a tip for the day is to make sure your kitchen chairs are pushed in, or you may find the little critter up on the kitchen table. Worse yet, you might find evidence (table cloth all out-of-sorts) that someone (more than likely a curious little furball) has been up messing around on the table . In that case, I think any edible item left on the table is suspect....eat at your own risk!

Yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in what feels like forever...I never thought 40 min. on the elliptical could feel so long! Anyway, I forgot how much I missed going there and people watching. There are some interesting people you will see at the gym. 1. Sterroids Man Is he on sterroids or is it all natural? hmmm....he walks around the gym like he's carrying two heavy pieces of luggage and his thighs rub together so much you wonder how he could ever walk. Normally you see him there for 2-3 hour periods and only lifting weights for about 30 minutes of that time. The rest of the time it looks like he's practicing walking around with the imaginary luggage....hmmm, maybe he's planning a big vacation.... 2. Miracle Man Having a gym membership for only a week really can do miracles! Suddenly, you and your oh so untoned body is walking around the gym in your cut off t-shirt, leaning on equipment, and buddying around with all the people that are actua...

There seems to be a lot of dating advice swarming our little tip site of late! Intriguing. Your auntie Vander is here to help. Here are some classy pick-up lines to get conversation going on that awkward first date: "If you were a booger, I'd pick you first." "Do you have a BOYfriend? . . . How about a MANfriend?" "Did it hurt?" "What?" "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" (Be careful with this one. Theologically it sort of implies that the girl is Satan; that's not flattering. Well, maybe in some circles. Anyway, be cautious.)

If you have a recurrent phlegm problem, don't climb on the elliptical machine at your local gym before solving it. Remember that when your fellow exercisers' iPods are at home or out of commission and there's nothing to grace their ears but the heavy breathing of everyone else in the gym, the additional burden of lurking phlegm--perpetual halfway throat clearing efforts, borderline grunts or groaning sounds--is not desirable. Figure out how to solve the phlegm problem at hand before you cause the people on neighboring treadmills to gag with you.

When selecting a photo for a design project, be careful cropping. Otherwise, someone who sees your design later, in print, might be horrified. For example, let's say you go the Fazoli's in Zandale. You look up from your breadsticks to see a banner ad of what appears to be a woman in her forties hugging her grandmother (because everyone who eats three pounds of pasta in one sitting is going to outlive those who eat french fries, or so their fat-free marketing campaign leads us to believe). Only grandma's shirt is flesh-colored and the crop is very close, so what we have here is the simulation of nudy grandma. Very disconcerting. Careful, fellow designers. Avoid the nudy grandma.

If you are bored, and have already checked out today's tip. You should check out our "Links" section on the bottom right of the page. There you'll finds lots of good, clean fun! Comment Topic: Which one of those links is your favorite, and is there any web gem we missed?

If you are a video editor, and want some great free plug-in's check out stib's free plugins for final cut pro . My personal favorite is Blur Dissolve. Other companies are selling similar plug in backs for big money, but Stib is giving them away for free. Go Stib!

In iTunes, you can often get confused and add the same song to the same playlist multiple times. To avoid doing this you can right click on a song and you will see a menu item called "Playlists", select that and it will show you every playlist that song is on!

When you're leaving town for a few days and don't have time to do the dishes, put them back in the fridge. This way, they won't mold or funk up the kitchen. Maybe scoot them away from the actual food, just in case.

If you are the kind of person who never cooks, be wary of trips to the Farmer's Market. All that open-air ambiance will trick you into purchasing things you have no idea how to prepare. You will leave bags of vegetables on your countertop for three days before throwing them away and going to a restaurant . On the first day, you will flip through recipe books and daydream about food preparation . On the second day , you will forget you bought vegetables in the first place - until it's just dark enough out that you can't bear the thought of venturing to your local megastore to find hominy or lemongrass or some other froo-froo nonsense the recipe called for. On the third day , out of sheer mold panic , you will chop up all the vegetables, whatever they are, and attempt an on-the-fly stir fry adventure because at least that way you don't have to buy any new ingredients. This will not be successful. You will lament the fact that you did not go to the megastore for hominy ...

If you do get her to agree to a first date , don't ask her "how do you like to be kissed?" Wew, altra (different from ultra) creepy alert just went off. Don't be worrying about kissing her this early on. Worry about getting to know her, making a good first impression, and finding out if she is a quality girl. The only thing that could possible make this worse is if she hasn't even met you in person yet. Ugh, gross .

Guys, do some stupid stuff, but here is a tip that will hopefully help you avoid doing at least one thing. First, I hope that no one needs this tip, but there has been at least one reported case, so here it goes: If you want to asked a girl out, don't pre-ask her out, but says that you "have a personal question" that you want to ask her later. Hum, personal question…I bet it is not "do you have any T-shirts with numbers on them?" If your going to ask her out then just do it, or if you are going to wait till later, just wait. None of this pre-asking stuff.

Canoeing, while normally a recreational activity, call also be a competitive sport. Like any other physical endurance race sport it is best to pace yourself. Nice long steady strides will be your best bet. Don't do what I am tempted to do and go as fast as you can for a short time and then just wear you self out when you still have over half the course to go.

If you're making Amish Friendship bread and the bread starts making bubbles in the bag, DON'T FREAK OUT. It's supposed to. It will still remain, always and forever, an "ENDLESS SUPPLY of BREAD!"

Discovering a yet-undiscovered (at least to us) brunch location is cause for celebration. Vander molen and I visited Cheapside Bar & Grill this morning--brunch there goes from 11am-4pm. It has more than just your average brunch items (we tried a creative take called Cowboy eggs, which was potato slices, chorizo sausage, peppers, onions, and ...eggs, of course). Pretty darn tasty, if you ask me. And if you walk around the Farmers' Market and all the way around the city, you can burn off breakfast before you even get there.

To keep your Apples from browning you can sprinkle lemon juice on them. Now we are talking about the fruit apples here. Not the computer or iPod type Apple s. If you are having a problem with your computer type Apples browning then you have serious issues. I seriously doubt that lemon juice will help. Actually it will probably not help, but its citric acid could help get sticky stuff off the case.

So often when we feel ourselves getting sick, we pump ourselves full of vitamin C, Advil , and everything else that will make us feel just a little better. We go to bed somewhat early, hope we'll get a good night sleep, and ultimately go to work just a little sicker the next day. My tip? Take the day off from work. You'll be on the road to recovery much faster. It's better to take one day off and being more productive at work, than to go to work two or three days sick, and have half or less of the productivity than you would normally have.

This one hails from my mom. Apparently, Papa John's Pizza is now charging a dollar for delivery. Because of this, it is assumed that the driver is now getting paid more to compensate for his/her gas costs, and people are not tipping as much. In reality, where as the drivers were getting paid 85 cents per delivery before, they are now getting paid one dollar. Where are those other 85 cents of your extra money going? Papa's Pocket . So do the poor drivers a favor and don't cut back on tips just because your pie costs more to come to your door. Or, do everyone a favor and either pick it up, or order from somewhere else that is more fair to their drivers.

Reciently, a few of us took a little trip to Pittsburgh . On the way there, I admit to driving very slow, a cool 65 mph the whole way. However, my gas mileage was great! I got over 42 mpg! On the way back, I guess we were in a little more of a hurry. We probably averaged 70 to 72 miles per hour, and the trip only took us around a half hour less (of course, we did get lost in the city for a little while), but the gas mileage we got just didn't compare. We only got 37 mpg. If you think about it, in 10 gallons, we could have gone 50 more miles at the slower speed! So, take it easy, take your time. You won't get tickets, your insurance cost will be lower , and you won't have to pay as much for gas!

So its monday and you feel guilty about not doing anything and jumping on the trampoline all last week. There are so many things that can easily distract us. So maybe it would be best to make a Not-Do-List. Here is a great sample one to get you started. So if you need to, put off cleaning the tub one more day and get some work done. Now I'm not saying that those things on the list are bad things to do. (Guys, yes you do need to clean your toilet, at least that's what people say after visiting Pete & Jay Enterprises' World Headquarters), but you might not need to do them today if you've got a huge project breathing down your neck. I, for one, will take all of those things I don't do today and to them Wednesday.

Feeling down while at work? Nothing will brighten up your office and your life like a walnut buddy . Simply place a walnut on your desk and draw a face on him with a fine-tipped Sharpie.

With the holiday season sneaking up on us things are going to start getting more crazy and hectic from here on out. To help avoid some of this craziness it is always a good idea to book a flight during the holiday season at least 6 months in advance if you know you're going somewhere for the following reasons: You'll avoid the rush and be able to get the exact flight you want right down to the time, aisle, and window seat. The earlier you book a flight the cheaper it costs so you're getting more for your American dollar. And since I like to plan things ahead I thought it would be cool to see how far back in advance you can actually book flight to go somewhere. After making some phone calls here are the results. Using Delta Airlines you can book a flight up to 331 days in advance! A one way trip to Los Angeles booked 331 days in advance or for August 26, 2006 would cost $407.90. The same flight booked for October 1st 2005 would cost $487.90 That's a whopping $80 ...