How to Order Wine in a Restaurant

Ordering wine in a restaurant is not much different than buying it in a wine store. The main difference is that you have an audience. Yet ordering wine in a restaurant can be intimidating especially if the wine list is extensive.

Experiment or Homework
Keep in mind that even the experts will not be familiar with every selection on a wine list. If you are a novice and your are going on an important date, you should do a little homework to get some idea of what you might want to order. Unless you are feeling extremely adventurous, a restaurant is usually not the place to try something new since the mark up can range from 100 to 200%.

The Wine List
Today, most restaurants have a wine list, but expect a myriad of shapes and sizes. Some establishments might simply offer just a house red or white, while others have a daily blackboard to outline their rotating selection. Most wine lists are presented as a printed menu, with the wines arranged by color; red, white, and rose and the region of country. Additionally, many establishments will number their wines on the list, which helps big-time if you do not know how to pronounce the wine. You can simply say, "I will have the number 8".

Before you order, you are going to want to factor in what you are going to be eating. Unfortunately, not a lot of menus give advice on food pairing. If you need some help talk to the wine steward, or sommelier. They are there to help you make the best decision for your occasion, and a good one will not try to take you out of your price range.

Getting the Best Wine for Your Money
? Skip the house wine. Unless you are familiar with the house wine, don't bother because they generally carry the highest mark up.
? Scan the wine list too quickly to get an idea on the average price of a bottle. Try to stay within this median price range where the mark ups tend to be average.
? Choose a wine from the same region as the restaurant's food specialty. A good French restaurant, for instance, should have a solid selection of French wines.
? Ask the server for a recommendation. Just ask if they have any special values currently.
? If two or more at your table are going to have a few glasses of wine, it is cheaper to order by the bottle than the glass.

Corkage
Many restaurants will open and serve a bottle of wine brought by the patron. A quick call to the restaurant will confirm if this is possible, and if so, they will charge a corkage fee. They usually charge between $5 and $15 per bottle, although some restaurants will charge a lower fee if the wine brought is not on their wine list.

Contributor: Stuart Glasure [A wine enthusiast and publishing member of the wine source: http://www.WineDefinitions.com.]

Gambling Income and Expenses - Tax Requirements

Hit a big one? With more and more gambling establishments, keep in mind the IRS requires people to report all gambling winnings as income on their tax return.

Gambling income includes, but is not limited to, winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse and dog races and casinos. Unfortunately, gambling income also includes the fair market value of prizes such as cars, houses, trips or other non-cash prizes.

Generally, if you receive $600 ($1,200 from bingo and slot machines and $1,500 from keno) or more in gambling winnings and your winnings are at least 300 times the amount of the wager, the payer is required to issue you a Form W-2G. If you have won more than $5,000, the payer may be required to withhold 25 percent of the proceeds for Federal income tax. However, if you did not provide your Social Security number to the payer, the amount withheld will be 28 percent.

The full amount of your gambling winnings for the year must be reported on line 21, Form 1040. If you itemize deductions, you can deduct your gambling losses for the year on line 27, Schedule A (Form 1040). You cannot deduct gambling losses that are more than your winnings.

It is important to keep an accurate diary or similar record of your gambling winnings and losses. To deduct your losses, you must be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements or other records that show the amount of both your winnings and losses.

Face it, the IRS gets you coming and going. Well, I'm off to play poker.

Richard Chapo is CEO of http://www.businesstaxrecovery.com - Obtaining tax refunds for small businesses by finding overlooked tax deductions and credits through a free tax return review.

Winning in Business - Lessons from Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong this week won an unprecedented 7th Tour de France victory, confirming him as one of the greatest cyclists of all time. The fact that he won more Tour victories than anyone else in history is remarkable. But more incredible is that had to overcome life threatening cancer to dominate the Tour de France like no other athlete has ever done. From the Lance Armstrong story, there are many lessons we aspiring business champions can learn.

What are you capable of?

In beating cancer, Armstrong discovered within himself a depth of capability that he realised he had not been using. After recovery he was more aware of that capability and set himself a much greater challenge - to win the most prestigious cycling race in the world. We owe it to ourselves to make the most of our opportunities and capabilities. What are you capable of and have you set yourself a big enough challenge? Most of us are far more capable than we think and could achieve much more if we decided to.

Where is your focus?

Armstrong's goal was always to win the main event. He was not so worried about winning the daily stages. He knew when to put in extra effort and when to hold back, how to keep energy in reserve for the ultimate victory, rather than waste precious energy just to win the day. In business our focus is all too often on the short term. We are worried about getting through the day rather than being confidently working on our long term strategy. If we are not clear enough about the long term goal, we default to putting in all our effort to win the day. This short term focus sometimes takes us away from long term success. Is your long term goal clear and in your constant focus? Most of us need to decide what it is we really want and then to focus clearly on that long term goal.

How committed are you?

Armstrong learned that when the going gets tough, there is always a bit more you can find within yourself to give. Most people would have given up had they faced many of the challenges Armstrong faced. His life challenge taught him to keep going when he felt like giving up. Commitment to your goal means never giving in. How do you respond to challenges and difficulties in your business? Do you have the courage and commitment to keep going when it gets tough. Ultimate victory is never easy. But we can dig deeper and find the resources we need to keep at it when we feel like the effort is beyond us.

Do you really believe you can?

Armstrong, like all of us, had to overcome self-doubt. If anyone had an excuse to achieve less than the norm surely it is Armstrong. After all, how much do we expect from cancer victims? Just living to tell the tale is surely enough. So despite the new awareness of his capability, Armstrong still had to overcome the self-doubt that told him that it was too much to expect that someone like him could achieve more than most healthy people would aim for. Self-doubt is normal, but you don't have to believe the doubts. Armstrong chose to live above the doubts and chose to really believe he could achieve. What about you? What will you choose?

Do you match your tactics to the situation?

Armstrong mastered the art of clever tactics to suit each situation he was in. He didn't always go into a race with the same game plan. He was not totally predictable. He outfoxed his competition by using his brain as well as his efforts. How often do you think about your approach to business and how you compete? Are you predictable? Do you keep trying the same things, expecting different results? How can you develop tactics to keep you ahead of the pack? Do you spend enough time working on your business rather than just working in your business? We need to spend time to develop winning tactics, rather than spending all our efforts just trying to keep up.

Are you prepared to win?

Armstrong learnt that the race was never won in July, when all the riders were on the road competing. For Armstrong, the race was always won well before the event, by riding when others weren't willing to be on their bikes. Armstong puts his dominance down to the preparation he put into each event. He says, "If you want to do something great, you need a strong will and attention to detail." Armstrong learnt that nothing could compete with the hours of training and preparation he put in before the race began. How often do we go to work in our business not properly prepared? Have we spent enough time to learn the skills of selling, of leading other people, of managing our time, of managing our finances, of monitoring our performance? Have we prepared the tools to enable us to work at our best? Have we set up systems to monitor our results, so that we can see if our performance is improving or getting worse. Armstrong credits his success to all of these details. How can we expect to succeed in our business unless we are prepared, by putting in the time an effort that our competitors are not willing to give? Give yourself a fighting chance, by being prepared to win before you go to work.

Do you lead a great team?

You can't win the Tour de France by your own efforts. It is very much a team sport, even though there are individual winners. The team must be inspired by the leader to sacrifice their own efforts to put the leader into the best position to win. The leader tries to win for the sake of the team. Everyone on the team invests themselves in each other and inspires mutual belief. How much do you invest in your team to assist you on the road to success? Does your team understand and work for win-win outcomes? How important is your leadership in getting the best out of every member of your team? Do you enrich the lives of those around you? Or are you trying to win by your own efforts? We can't win the business race on our own. We can build a winning team to assist us to greater heights.

We can all learn lessons from Lance Armstong. We are all extremely talented, but we choose what we do with that talent. We can choose to cruise and achieve less than our full potential, like Armstrong before cancer. Or we can choose to give life our best shot, because we only get to do it once. What a shame if we don't make the most of it. We all have a gift that is our unique contribution to this planet and its people. Why not learn the lessons Lance Armstrong can teach us, to make every second count and be your best? Who knows what you could achieve?

Greg Roworth is the Managing Director of Progressive Business Solutions Limited, a business development consultancy firm with branches in Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand. Greg has created a unique business development program that assists business owners transform their business from a state of total dependency on them to a state where the business works so well they don't have to.

Greg is also the author of "The 7 Keys to Unlock Your Business Profit Potential," which describes the fundamental keys a business needs to achieve this transformation. Find out more, get 2 free chapters, or buy the book online at http://www.small-business-success.ws

What Is Faith?

1. Faith is a "spiritual substance" on the inside of you that can either grow or wane (decrease). The Bible says that:

"Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

I believe that this verse is telling us that faith is literally a "spiritual substance" that operates on the inside of us and that it is capable of "growing or waning."

2. The Bible also tells us that we are all given a "measure" of faith in which to work with. The verse that tells us that is: "... God has dealt to each one a MEASURE OF FAITH ..." (Romans 12:3).

The best way to understand faith and how it operates on the inside of you is on a scale of 1-10. "10" being the most amount of faith you can have and "1" being the lowest amount of faith you can have.

Most people start out at the lower end of that range - in the 1-3 category. And that is just fine with God! One of the most amazing insights that I feel God has given me on this subject is the following:

I felt like this really came from the Holy Spirit. He said to me: "If the Bible says that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain, what do you think faith the size of a golf ball could do? Or faith the size of a baseball? Or faith the size of a basketball?" This means that your faith is capable of growing or waning.

The mustard seed is supposed to be one of the smallest of all seeds. The above analogy tells us 2 things:

That your faith can "grow" with and in God over time - from a mustard seed size - to a golf ball size - to a baseball size - to a basketball size, etc. The verse that specifically tell us that our faith levels are capable of GROWING is:

"... because your FAITH GROWS EXCEEDINGLY." (2 Thessalonians 1:3) However, look closely at the above analogy. The Bible says that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains! That means we do not have to have faith up in the 5-8 category to get God to become active in our lives. All we need is a very small amount of faith to get the "show" going with God.

In other words, on a scale of 1-10, all you need is a "1" amount of faith to get God to start moving in your life - and just about everyone has at least a "1" amount of faith when they get saved. When you witness to others, explain this analogy to them. Explain to them that they do not need to have great or large amounts of faith to get God to become very active in their lives. God will take whatever amount of faith you have to start off with and He will start the building process with your life with just that small amount of faith!

How to Increase Your Faith

Now here is how faith is "built up" in the higher ranges over time. The Bible says:

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." (Romans 10:17)

"Hearing" means that the Word is entering into your mind either through "reading" the Bible or "hearing" someone preach or teach about the Bible. Either way, the Word is entering into your mind where you receive it.

What the Bible is trying to tell you is if each person will spend some good, quality time trying to read and understand the Bible, then the low amount of faith that you have started out with will start to grow. Why?

Because your mind is receiving information and knowledge about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all of Their ways. As you start to read all about God in the Bible and all of the miracles that He has done in the past with other people - your own levels of faith will start to grow and build up on the inside of you because you are actually starting to believe what you are reading. The Holy Spirit will also be bearing witness on the inside of you that what you are reading is real "God truth." The other catch on this is that I feel that it is really the Holy Spirit who will be the one to "build" up your faith on the inside and cause it to grow into the higher ranges. This is something He "magically" does for all of us. All of a sudden, your faith has just gone from a "1" to a "2."

Then a little further down the road, your faith will grow from a "2" to a "3" - and so on and so on. However, the Holy Spirit will not cause your faith to grow unless your are seeking after knowledge about God. And the Bible is the #1 source of knowledge that we have about God on this earth.

If you don't continue to seek after knowledge about God, your faith will "stagnate" - it will stop growing!

That is why the Bible says that your faith grows by "hearing the word of God." In other words, your faith grows as you increase your knowledge about God - especially through the study of Scripture. When you are "hearing the Word of God" - you are increasing your knowledge about God and that is what will cause the Holy Spirit to raise your levels of faith to higher levels on the scale of 1-10.

A good example on all of the above are the healing verses in the Bible. Sometimes it may take faith up in the 3-4 category to pull down a healing miracle from God. The way that is done is that the person needing the healing needs to meditate on, chew on the verses pertaining to divine healing. When you start reading all of the healings that Jesus did, all the healings that the apostles did and all of the prayer verses on how God can heal and answer your prayers - your faith will start to grow and build up on the inside of you. Maybe from a 1 to a 3 or 4. That 3 or 4 may be just enough faith and belief that God needs to heal you. But before He will heal you - He wants your faith built up to that range.

And it is built up to that range by "soaking" into all the Bible verses pertaining to healing. Your faith is growing as you are "hearing" the Word of God on this issue. "Hearing" in this case means you are "reading" the verses for yourself and believing what you are reading.

It's the "Word and the Spirit" working together that will really cause your faith to increase over time. When you start reading and studying Scripture in order to increase your knowledge about God, and at the same time establish a personal relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit - you have set a fuse to powerful bomb - a "1-2 punch" so to speak.

You have to have both - "knowledge" that the Word gives you and "power" that the Holy Spirit will flow through you by establishing a personal relationship with God and studying the Bible for increased knowledge about God. Do both of those, and over a period of time your faith levels will eventually grow from the 1-2 levels to the 8-10 levels.

Smith Wigglesworth was called the "apostle of faith" because his faith levels were operating in the 9-10 range with God. That is why he had such dramatic miracles in his ministry. He had the higher levels of faith to believe God for bigger miracles and God would do the bigger miracles for this man - just simply because he had his faith levels operating up in those higher ranges. And the only book he had ever read was the Bible!

That is why getting your faith levels up in the 5-10 category is so powerful. God will be able to do mightier and more powerful miracles through you if your faith is operating at those higher levels!

But your faith does not grow to these levels overnight. This is a "building process" that occurs over years - not months. That is why the apostle Paul calls our walk with God the "fight of faith." We have to fight for, to strive for, to press further on to get our faith levels to increase over time with God.

How Your Faith Can Decrease

Just as your faith can grow, it can also wane or decrease. Bad things can happen to you. Adversity has just struck. You felt like you just got hit with a two by four. All of sudden, you'll feel your faith "drop" from a "5" to a "2." Then you have to "fight" to get it back up to a "5." You do this the way athletes do when they go into slumps. They give themselves "pep talks." It's the same way in God's realm. From time to time, you have to give yourself a "pep talk" to keep from letting your faith levels drop too low for too long of a period of time when adversity hits you. You have to tell yourself that you are not nuts, that God has been with you all this time, that there is a reason for this adversity, that you can't give up and that God will eventually bail you out.

Pretty soon, your mind will start believing what your "pep talks" are telling you to believe, the Holy Spirit then starts to move back up on you and you feel your faith start moving back up to the level where it just knocked off of. That is how you "stay in the game."

And from time to time, God will arrange to test your faith levels - to see if you will still believe in Him and what He wants to do with your life. He will sometimes "allow" adversity to hit you. It is easy to have high levels of faith when everything is going great. But let adversity strike, and a lot of Christians will all of sudden "lose their faith" in God. How could God do this to me? I must be on the wrong playing field.

The story of Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness is a perfect example. All of the Israelites over 20 years of age did not make it into the Promised Land because their faith was not operating at a high enough level to "believe" that God could overcome the "giants and strongholds" they saw in the Promised Land.

Since they did not have enough faith and belief in God to overcome their enemies in the Promised Land, God would not allow them to enter in and only allowed Joshua, Caleb and the younger generation under 20 years of age to go in there - all because they did have high enough levels of faith in God that God could overcome these giants and give them this land! And God proved them right! Joshua was victorious in gaining every ounce of land that he stepped foot on. All because his faith and belief in God was so strong.

Article written by Michael Bradley, author of over 100 articles which can be found at http://www.bible-knowledge.com.

For a complete and clean copy of this article can be found at http://www.bible-knowledge.com/What-is-faith.html.

Copyright ? 2005 by Michael Bradley

How Bill Cosby got it Wrong

Bill Cosby got it wrong. His many speeches regarding the plight of poor blacks in this country and their lack of personal responsibility were not only off the mark, but completely irresponsible.

Cosby failed to take into account many mitigating factors, in what became his regular rants on poor blacks in this country. For example, the last of the civil rights laws was passed in 1965, so it's been forty years since the physical signs of government sanctioned racism have been in place. Please explain to me how in forty years we are to undo centuries of terror and government sponsored segregation, emasculation and murder?

While I don't believe blaming the white man for your problems is the answer, preaching to a roomful of upwardly mobile blacks who are probably doing nothing to help those who are less fortunate then they are is pointless and doesn't do anything to help the cause of those you're complaining about. Poverty is a hard cycle to break; especially if you're black and suffer a history where, in the not to distance past, if you dared to assert yourself as an entrepreneurial, educated black person you could find yourself hanging from a tree.

This is a country that used to burn blacks alive for fun. That not to long ago raped a man with a broom handle and two years ago sent a young black boy to prison for having sex with a white girl. This is a country where there are several states that have never sent a white man to death row for killing a black man but routinely send black ones to death row for crimes that they may not have committed, look at Illinois, and that is not even a southern state.

Now as a young black woman who was raised by a single mother, one who was welfare and who only has a GED, I could so easily be one of those non English speaking, uneducated loud dressing, black folk he was talking about. But I'm not. I'm well educated and I am quite familiar with the English language. But guess what, I've been denied jobs and treated horribly because I am black and for no other reason. And if Cosby or anyone else thinks that that doesn't have an effect on those who are not blessed to have a parent who recognizes the value of an education and who adequately prepares you for the racist country in which we live, then he and everyone else who feels that way are sadly mistaken.

Cosby failed to mention the sorry state of secondary education in many of the poor neighborhoods in this country and how that impacts the lives of the poor and black in this country. Our tax based system for supporting public schools leave many in poor areas with inadequate buildings, teachers, textbooks, and curriculum. Can someone explain to me how kids get to high school without the ability to read or do simple math? That isn't simply their fault, or their parents fault but the fault of a system that will simply pass kids along and believe them incapable of learning and not really caring whether they learn anything or not.

How about a high school system that offers classes that are useless for entrance into college? Or where kids graduate and haven't taken a single algebra class? High school is supposed to prepare you for college, regardless of whether the teachers or administrators believe the students are capable of a college education. You can be a very responsible person but if you were never given the proper building blocks for success then that responsibility will get you nowhere.

America and apparently Bill Cosby has a short memory. And while blaming the white man is pointless, and waiting for racism to end is pointless, personal responsibility alone isn't the answer. You can take all the personal responsibility you want but if you're born black and poor in this country, then you have a lot of odds stacked against you and more then likely will succumb to that environment. Poverty alone is a hard cycle to break, add being black and the weight of a history that has routinely stripped you of your identity and self worth and you've got what can seem like, and for many people are, insurmountable odds. Forty years and a ranting, wealthy black man isn't going to change that.

To read more articles by Tamika Johnson or to have you book, music or film reviewed visit http://www.prologuereviews.com

What about Potassium?

Information on potassium

When you read about potassium and senate document report 264 you'll life should be changed forever. You're going to discover that the biggest fallacy most people aren't aware of is that if we eat a balanced diet, (the four food groups), we get all the nutrients we need to stay healthy and live a long life. The truth is, this has been a matter of public record for the past 60 years. Fact is that our farming soils are severely depleted of these so important minerals such as potassium.

Without adequate mineral intake whether through supplements or certain foods the vitamins our bodies take in are worthless. We need this important mineral as it assists in muscle contraction and in maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance in body cells. Various surveys would have us believe that we get adequate amounts of daily intake but in truth how's that possible according to the senate document.

We're taught that potassium rich food does the trick but in reality that really can't be so. Fruits and vegetables are mostly depleted of nutrients ? yes they still look good in the stores for sure. A little fancy treatment makes good marketing sense for the venders but not for us. As we contemplate the issues it makes us really wonder who's needs are being met with so many conflicting reports.

The giant supermarkets aren't concerned about our nutrition; it's the cash register that dictates the bottom line. Plant foods are harvested before they've even ripened; many are gas retarded from ripening, trucked across the United States, and then gas ripened. By the time the food gets to our dinner tables there's little or no nutrition left. But they sure look good.

No longer can we rely on a "balanced" diet with merely so many calories or certain vitamins or fixed proportions of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know for certain that our diets must have a score of minerals. And potassium along with many others just isn't there.

Senate doc 264 and liquid vitamin supplements

10 Valentines Day Tips for Spouses Who Want to Improve Their Marriage

The best and most valuable gifts are often not material ones. While many spouses focus on Valentine's Day gifts such as jewelry or candy, spouses who are willing to invest the time and energy can give one of the most precious gifts possible-an improved, satisfying marriage.

Long after the romantic card is tucked away and the box of candy is empty, this marriage-enriching gift will still be appreciated and enjoyed. Follow these ten steps to give yourself and your spouse an unforgettable Valentine's Day gift:

1. Direct your energy into becoming the kind of marriage partner you'd like to have. It's easy to criticize a spouse for not being perfect while we overlook our own imperfections.

2. Focus on how you need to change in order to be a better partner. The only person you can ultimately change is yourself.

3. Accept responsibility for your own actions. You take a giant leap forward in growth the day you can say, "I'm sorry for my actions" instead of rationalizing and offering excuses.

4. Minimize blame and resentment. They are toxic and can poison your marriage and your life.

5. Practice forgiveness, not to let your partner off the hook, but because you want to move forward without carrying the weight of past hurts.

6. Break your marriage goals down into small steps and begin taking action. It'll be easier to continue moving forward when you start seeing progress.

7. Adopt the philosophy expressed in the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me serenity to accept what I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

8. Focus on what you can do and give instead of keeping tabs about who is doing the most or making the greatest effort in your marriage.

9. Strive for balance in your own life between family, friends, work, sports, hobbies, recreation, and other interests. Then you won't be as likely to obsess about the imperfections in your partner.

10. Reward and praise yourself often for hanging in there in a challenging situation. You deserve it!

Nancy J. Wasson, Ph.D., is co-author of Keep Your Marriage: What to Do When Your Spouse Says "I don't love you anymore!" This e-book is available at http://www.KeepYourMarriage.com, where you can also sign up for the free Keep Your Marriage Internet Magazine. Nancy can be contacted at Nancy@KeepYourMarriage.com.