WagooMusic

When a woman begins the journey through menopause, she will be faced with several decisions.

There are several ways to treat menopause. Sorry there is no “cure” for menopause. It something every person will have to work their way through, women and men ,too. Of course, the male version is known as “Andropause”.

One of the methods used to treat menopause is referred to as Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT for short. Any therapy is only for treating and relieving the symptoms that are associated with menopause. You will need to consult with your physician to see if it is right for you. If you have a history of cancer, heart disease, blood clots, or liver disease, then you may want to skip HRT. If you are in good health and suffer from no serious health problems, you should have no serious problems taking hormone therapy.

I, personally, chose not to use HRT, because some cancers feed of hormones and I lost my mother to cancer and a brother. My doctor told me the chances of HRT increasing my risk of cancer was nominal, I didn’t want to take the risk. Was my menopause symptoms worst for me to deal with? Yes, but I high a high tolerance for discomfort. There were times when I regret not taking the hormone treatments, but for me it was the right decision. You will have to learn and decide for yourself.

Some of the benefits of hormone therapy is less mood swings, fewer hot flashes, less dryness, the less degree of bone density loss, and loss of sex drive will be less.

Some of the cons’ of HRT is headaches, bloating, indigestion, depression, and breast tenderness. But you have them symptoms without therapy also.

HRT is only recommended for short-term use, usually 2-4 years. When you end HRT, some of the issues that HRT helps prevent will come back quickly. Like the bone density. That is when you need to consider vitamin supplements for bone loss.

HRT is used by several different methods. You can take a pill regimen, use a patch applied to the skin, a gel cream applied directly to the skin to combat dryness or an implant imbedded under the skin using a local anaesthetic.

So while there are many benefits to using Hormone Replacement Therapy, it may or may not be the right choice for everyone. And while doctors report that it is safe for most people with many good benefits, They cannot guarantee that it does not cause other health issues. And you men out there, do not despair, there is a hormone treatment out there for you too.

Humanity+Technology+Social=Warm Cookies

I think global warming is coming to cookies. And it’s gonna be great. Let’s take a look at the ingredients that are making social music so ooey gooey good.

Made from Scratch Ingredients

My favorite radio station, WXRT in Chicago, used to have little interview snippets with artists followed by a track recorded live in the studio. No overdubs. No take-twos. Just the real Lipton. It was human. Sometimes it exposed superhumans in terms of talent. Other times it revealed feet of clay. Both made great content.

Take cold studio perfection and mix in some real sweaty humanity. That’s getting warm. I see a lot of that kind of think coming to Audio. Radio stations have a lot to offer in this regard if they can unlearn some of the traps of the past when the balance got out of whack.

Personally, I’ve also taken to adding some Robert Schimmel, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, and especially Mitch Hedberg to all my Pandora stations. It is like the best kind of record-scratch moment. Cash, Clash, Cult, “I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music," as if there is any other way you can take it in. You’re not special, that’s how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work.” It’s insanely awesome, like the little odd Terry Gilliam animated bits inside of Monty Python movies. The fact they’re so incongruous is precisely why they work.

Much warmer.

A Dash of Technology

Spotify has packed so much Social into its new app, it’s much less a means to music than a full-blown website where I share playlists with friends like the 80s never ended, see what people around me are listening to much to my horror, and pick up some great f*ck-me-facts I can share at the pub—“Bob Dylan was planning to ask Mavis Staple to marry? F#ck me!” This is not an app to be minimized, but maximized to the max. It’s lean-in. Way in.

That goes right past warm to screaming hot. I see more and more metadata finding its way into Audio apps. Tour dates, SWAG, you name it.

A Hashtag of Social

And the new Twitter Music app. A carnival for the eyes and ears. Where early social integrations meant that people on Facebook could see what you were listening to on music apps, this is a social music app that actually houses Spotify and Rdio. It looks at Audio through the other end of the telescope, scraping social and suggesting things for you to listen to. It’s also very visual, zigging where most other music apps (understandably) zag, leading with the ears. In essence, Twitter Music is the app that threads together your social and musical connections, showing what music the artists you listen to listen to themselves. The app is brand new and I suspect this incarnation is only the tip of the twitberg.

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I love being self-employed. I don’t have to punch a time clock, and my commute is now so short that I often walk in warm weather. It’s rewarding, but it isn’t easy. The hours are long. I forgot what vacation is. I can’t call in sick, and if cash flow is a little slow, I’m the last to get paid.

It’s also tough to know how much I’ll owe Uncle Sam come April 15th. I make estimated tax payments every quarter based on what I what I have been making, what I think I will make, and eventually I pay on what I actually did make.

Usually, it’s pretty close and I only owe the tax man a little bit, or he owes me a couple bucks, but this year I had extra expenses. I added new signage, added several part-time employees, and moved the business to a better location. With these additional costs, I ended up paying in too much. I have money coming back.

From My Shelf Books & Gifts officially opened its doors for business in July of 2006 with only 3,000 books on the shelves, mostly used, but with dreams of filling the 800 square feet, top to bottom, with books. Running a bookstore is an act of love, and any money I happen to make, I use to express that love by increasing the number of books I have available.

Yes, as a bibliophile I usually use my money to buy more books. So, what am I going to do with this year’s tax return? I’m going to use it to take my wife to the Philadelphia Comic Con. My wife works with me, and sometimes we practically live at the bookstore. We both love books. We both love to read, but we also love stories.

That’s why we love watching Castle on ABC. The protagonist is a best-selling crime novelist. He tags along with a homicide detective squad for both inspiration and accuracy. The show contains insight into a writer’s mind and there are often cameos by real life best-selling authors-such as James Patterson and Michael Connelly.

There are also fun and geeky references to movies, books, popular culture, as well as not so subtle reference to Nathan Fillon’s previous television show, Firefly. Before he was Richard Castle, he was Captain Malcolm Reynolds and this June he’s going to be at the Philadelphia Comic Con…