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Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
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Three days into his quest to break the Pacific Crest Trail’s speed record, Josh Garrett collapsed of heat stroke in the dry, desolate landscape of Southern California’s San Felipe Hills.
Dehydrated and exhausted, the 30-year-old Santa Monica, Calif. resident had real doubts about his ability to complete the 2,655-mile trail from Mexico to Canada in less than 60 days.
“I started shivering in the 100 degree heat,” said Garrett, a physiology professor and cross-country coach at Santa Monica College. “I took 24 hours off and really didn’t think I could continue. Needless to say, I’m glad that I didn’t stop.”
Garrett powered through that moment and continued across one of the world’s most spectacular trails at warp speed, eating up 45 miles per day as he crossed from California to Oregon to Washington.
At 8:15 p.m. on Thursday, he reached British Columbia and the trail’s end after a total of 59 days, 8 hours and 59 minutes. It was the fastest time in the trail’s history, breaking the record set just two days earlier by Heather “Anish” Anderson of Bellingham, Wash., who completed the hike in 61 days and about 17 hours.
The previous record was set in 2011 by Scott Williamson of 64 days, 11 hours and 19 minutes.
While the record is informal — no official group tracks the marks — Jack Haskel of the Sacramento-based Pacific Crest Trail Association said he had no reason to doubt Garrett, Anderson or Williamson’s times.
Garrett did the entire trek on a vegan diet as a way to raise awareness about cruelty to animals.
“No matter how painful it was, I always kept in mind that it’s nothing compared to what animals go through at factory farms. This trip was all about them,” Garrett said. “I wanted to stress that a vegan diet gives you everything you need for this kind of endeavor.”
Garrett said his pack averaged about 15 pounds and that a support vehicle resupplied him with food at places where the trail reached the road. His pack bulked to about 30 pounds during the longest and most difficult stretch in the High Sierra Mountains of Northern California, where he went about 200 miles and five days without being able to replenish his supplies.
He started on the trail around 6 a.m. each day and, without stopping for lunch or snacks — eating food as he walked — continued until around 1 a.m.
“I’d usually turn the headlamp on at 9:30 p.m. go into dark for about four hours,” Garrett said. “That was the graveyard shift. I’d usually get three to four hours of sleep. The thing that really surprised me was how well the body adapts to the load you place on it.”
On the best days, Garrett hiked over 50 miles and said he got stronger as time progressed. There wasn’t much time to stop and smell the roses, but he said he did enjoy the scenery as he hiked.
The final six weeks took a toll on his feet – “I haven’t had a pain-free step in over six weeks,” he said – but kept moving with the knowledge that Anderson was just a few days ahead of him and was likely to break the old record.
When the finish line came into view, on the Canadian border on the edge of Manning Park in British Columbia, he sprinted to the finish line and into the arms of his girlfriend.
“It was a great moment,” he said, “and I just cried. I’d been thinking about that moment for such a long time.”
“More than anything, I just feel relieved to know that I don’t have to race off tomorrow morning to hike 50 miles until 2 a.m. in the morning. It really feels good.”
Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
Information provided by: http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/08/12/pacific-crest-trail-hiking-record/2642917/
Zach Urness, Salem Statesman Journal 3:03 p.m. EDT August 12, 2013
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Employers around the country, from fast-food franchises to colleges, have told NBC News that they will be cutting workers’ hours below 30 a week because they can’t afford to offer the health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“To tell somebody that you’ve got to decrease their hours because of a law passed in Washington is very frustrating to me,” said Loren Goodridge, who owns 21 Subway franchises, including a restaurant in Kennebunk. “I know the impact I’m having on some of my employees.”
Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. The provision takes effect in 16 months.
Luke Perfect, who has worked at Goodridge’s Kennebunk Subway for more than a decade, said it was “horrible” to learn he was among the employees whose hours would be limited, and that it would be a financial hardship. “I’m barely scraping by with overtime,” he said.
The White House dismisses such examples as “anecdotal.” Jason Furman, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, said, “We are seeing no systematic evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having an adverse impact on job growth or the number of hours employees are working. … [S]ince the ACA became law, nearly 90 percent of the gain in employment has been in full-time positions.”
But the president of an influential union that supports Obamacare said the White House is wrong.
“It IS happening,” insisted Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has 1.2 million members. “Wait a year. You’ll see tremendous impact as workers have their hours reduced and their incomes reduced. The facts are already starting to show up. Their statistics, I think, are a little behind the time.”
In a letter to Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, Hansen joined other labor chieftains in warning that the ACA as presently written could “destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the middle class.”
NBC News spoke with almost 20 small businesses and other entities from Maine to California, and almost all said that because of the new law they’d be cutting back hours for some employees – an unintended consequence of the new law.
At St. Petersburg College, a public university in Florida where most of the faculty is part-time, 250 have had their hours reduced for the fall term because the college said it can’t afford to offer them health insurance.
St Petersburg’s president, Dr. Bill Law, said providing health care for the 250 adjunct professors would cost more than $777,000 dollars a year. “The cost associated with making a part-timer benefits-eligible really is not available to us as a public college,” said Law.
“I don’t think anyone [passed the law] so they could make our life worse,” said Law. “They did it because people need access to health care.”
Part-time math professor Tracey Sullivan said she will lose half her income because of the cuts.
“I never thought it would impact me directly,” said Sullivan. “I was stunned when I got the email…I love teaching at St. Pete College but that is a significant cut.”
Many businesses are reluctant to talk about cutting hours for fear the public will view them as stingy or uncaring about their workers. But Goodridge said that many small businesses have very small profit margins and that while he already provides health insurance to senior employees, offering health insurance to many more workers would require him to pass a significant price increase on to his customers.
“The consumer only has so much money in their pocket,” he said. “I just don’t feel, knowing my customers and knowing my business, now is the time to be raising prices.”
In July, the administration announced that it had delayed implementation of the “employer mandate,” which was supposed to take effect on Jan. 1. Now businesses with more than 50 workers will not be penalized for failing to offer insurance to full-time employees until Jan. 1, 2015.
Goodridge has given his Subway employees a reprieve until he hears more from the administration, but still plans to make cutbacks before the mandate kicks in. And other businesses that had already planned cuts have not necessarily delayed them. St. Petersburg college officials said they don’t want to undo the cuts they’ve already made only to revisit them next year.
While the small businesses and the union agree there’s a problem, they disagree about the appropriate solution.
Some businesses want to raise the threshold to 40 hours. But Hansen said 40 hours would be a “gift to employers” that would simply allow them to continue to skirt the law by cutting workers off at 39 hours. Instead, Hansen and other union leaders have proposed lowering the threshold to 20 hours. They have also objected publicly to a tax provision of the ACA that impacts the health plans they already offer to some union members.
“We still support the act,” said Hansen. “It does an awful lot of good things. We just want the administration and Congress, if they can, to fix it.”
Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
Information provided by: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/13/.UgsB7W6O8RU.email
By Lisa Myers and Carroll Ann Mears
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Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
Read more
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”-Mother Theresa
Studies suggest that smiling, forced or not, can have a positive effect on your mood, decrease stress levels, and even make everyone around you feel better. Here are 9 surprising benefits of smiling that will really give you something to smile about.
1. Smiling is Contagious
Because of complex brain activity that occurs when you see someone smiling, smiles are contagious. Studies report that just seeing one person smiling activates the area of your brain that controls your facial movement, which leads to a grin.
Because of complex brain activity that occurs when you see someone smiling, smiles are contagious. Studies report that just seeing one person smiling activates the area of your brain that controls your facial movement, which leads to a grin.
2. You’ll Decrease Stress and Anxiety
It’s not easy to keep smiling in stressful situations, but studies report that doing exactly that has health benefits. When recovering from a stressful situation, study participants who were smiling had lower heart rates than those with a neutral facial expression.
3. Smiling Releases Endorphins
Smiling decreases stress and anxiety by releasing endorphins, chemicals that makes you happier. Endorphins are the same chemicals you get from working out or running, resulting in what is known as a runner’s high.
4. You’ll Be More Attractive
A smile suggests that you’re personable, easy going, and empathetic. In fact, a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that smiling actually makes you more attractive to those you smile at.
5. Smiling Strengthens Your Immune System
Smiling even makes your immune system stronger by making your body produce white blood cells to help fight illnesses. One study found that hospitalized children who were visited by story-tellers and puppeteers who made them smile and laugh had higher white blood cell counts than those children who weren’t visited.
6. You’ll Be Friendlier
Studies have found that people are more willing to engage socially with others who are smiling. A smile is an inviting facial expression that tells people you are willing to talk and interact with them.
7. Smiling Will Make You More Comfortable
Our natural tendency is to stick to things that are familiar, but smiling decreases this need. A study found that smiling can make you more comfortable in situations you would otherwise feel awkward in.
8. You’ll Be More Trustworthy
Trusting doesn’t come easily to many, but smiling at someone may help. Participants in a University of Pittsburgh study rated people who smiled as more trustworthy than people with non-smiling facial expressions.
9. You’ll Be a Better Leader
If you’re in a position of power, or want to be, smiling may be the key to your success. A group of researchers from The University of Montpellier discovered that smiling is a more effective leadership technique than having great management responsibilities.
Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
Information Provided by: http://inspiyr.com/9-benefits-of-smiling/
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When people hear the term life insurance or permanent life insurance most people think primarily of death benefits. What about life insurance as a life planning strategy?
It’s been done. People, ordinary people with a dream, made it happen. And not only was their strategy to benefit themselves but it also benefits us today. And just to name a few:
- Walt Disney. In the 1950’s, after his television show became a huge success, he funded (with his life insurance cash value) his dream of a place where parents and kids alike could come and have good, clean fun. That place is called Disneyland.
- In 1939, a young couple had a dream of owning a farm with chickens and turkeys. That couple had borrowed $1,000 off their life insurance policy for a down payment on a farm. With that investment out came Foster Farms. Foster Farms has over 10,000 employees and locations throughout the U.S. That young couple was Max and Verda Foster.
- As a milkman, Ray Kroc was more interested in hamburgers. He contacted the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, about a successful hamburger stand he saw in San Bernardino, Ca. The McDonald brothers were interested in franchising nationwide. In 1955, Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s in Illinois and by 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers. Today, McDonald’s is internationally known and there are more than 30,000 locations.
These everyday people took a chance and it changed their lives (and ours too!).
Withdrawing from your life insurance policy early is not without its drawbacks. Depending on your policy outlines, you could face penalties and taxes.
Talk with a Scurich staff member today to see what we can do for you!
Scurich Insurance Services has proudly served the Monterey Bay area since 1924. Scurich will take care of all of your insurance needs. Are you a business owner, did you get a new car or maybe you are looking to protect your family in the event of a tragedy? Give us a call, we can help!
We are located at:
Scurich Insurance Services
320 East Lake Avenue, PO Box 1170
Watsonville, CA 95077-1170
Office: 1-831-722-3541
Toll Free: 1-800-320-3666
statistics by: http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2012/04/06/6-famous-brands-started-or-saved-by-life-insurance?page=2
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