Google Play cleans out nasty apps, updates its look

Suzanne Choney , NBC News ? ? ? 1 hr.

Google Play, the app store for Android phones and tablets, is not only rolling out a cleaner look, it's cleaning house, so far removing a reported 60,000 apps that were of questionable quality.

"The largest category of apps they cracked down was the MP3s and ringtones, which were heavily abused by slightly dodgy apps," Chester Wisniewski, Sophos senior security advisor, told NBC News Tuesday.

The apps "weren't technically illegal" as to violate Google Play rules, but were "heavily intrusive marketing vehicles that barely delivered on their promise," he said.

Google Play has 675,000 apps, and unlike "Uncle Apple," Wisniewski said, Google does "not prescreen apps using humans, there's an automated system" for apps to be allowed into the store.

The purging of the apps, he said, was done in February. "The fact that Google got rid of tens of thousands of apps that were duping people, upsetting users, is great. What we don't know is how have they changed their processes to make sure those apps don't come back in a week."

Problems with questionable ? and sometimes dangerous ? apps were becoming such an issue that in February 2012, Google introduced "Bouncer," a scanning service designed to identify malicious apps in Google Play.

NBC News has contacted Google for comment about the recent purge, and will update this post when we hear back.

When Bouncer was introduced, a Google Android engineering exec noted on the company's blog:

While it?s not possible to prevent bad people from building malware, the most important measurement is whether those bad applications are being installed from Android Market - and we know the rate is declining significantly.

Wisniewski said to be safe, Android users and buyers should make sure they have the latest version of Android that they can get on their devices. Phones and tablets with Android 4.0 and higher "have a whole ton of safety and security improvements on them," he said.

"There's still a whole bunch of cheaper ones out there running older OS's that are more vulnerable ? Android 2.2, or 2.1 ? really, really old versions of Android that are more vulnerable."

In the meantime, Google Play group product manager Michael Siliski shared news of the app store redesign, writing on a blog that the new look "focuses on bigger images that jump off the page. Similarly themed content is grouped together so you can hone in on a magazine to read or an app to try."

Google has also "simplified purchasing so you can breeze through checkout," he wrote.

The new look starts rolling out immediately for Android phones and tablets that use Android 2.2. and higher, and will be available around the world "in the next few weeks."

Check out Technology, GadgetBox, TODAYTech and InGame on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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White House celebrates the sounds of Memphis soul

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama said he'd been looking forward to a White House celebration of Memphis soul music for one reason.

"Let's face it, who does not love this music?" he asked Tuesday, opening the night's concert in an East Room bathed in amber light and transformed by the addition of a stage and backup musicians.

"These songs get us on the dance floor," Obama said. "They get stuck in our heads. We go back over them again and again. And they've played an important part in our history."

Memphis, Tenn., was segregated in the 1960s, but blacks and whites came together despite the institutional racism to create a soulful blend of gospel and rhythmic blues music that sought to "bridge those divides, to create a little harmony with harmony," Obama said.

He noted that two of the night's guests, Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper, helped form one of the city's first integrated bands.

"They weren't allowed to go to school together. They weren't always allowed to travel or eat together," the president said. "But no one could stop them from playing music together."

"And that was the spirit of their music ? the sound of Soulsville, U.S.A., a music that, at its core, is about the pain of being alone, the power of human connection, and the importance of treating each other right," Obama said. "After all, this is the music that asked us to try a little tenderness. It's the music that put Mr. Big Stuff in his place. And it's the music that challenged us to accept new ways of thinking with four timeless words: 'Can you dig it?'"

And with that, Obama took his seat and the show opened with Sam Moore, half of the duo Sam & Dave, and "American Idol" finalist and gospel singer Joshua Ledet belting out Moore's "Soul Man," followed minutes later by Justin Timberlake and Cropper's rendition of Otis Redding's (Sittin' on) "The Dock of the Bay."

Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, sat in the front row. The president and first lady at times clapped their hands and bobbed and weaved their heads to the pulsating rhythms.

The concert was the 10th in the "In Performance at the White House" series since Obama took office. Other performers included Alabama Shakes, Ben Harper, Cyndi Lauper, Charlie Musselwhite, Mavis Staples , Queen Latifah and William Bell. Latifah also was the host and Jones led the band.

Earlier in the day, Bell said the concert reaffirmed years of hard work that began in the 1960s when Stax Records was created in Memphis, and the label cranked out one soul and R&B hit after another for more than a decade.

Redding, Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Bell and Sam & Dave were among the company's artists.

"As kids coming up, we didn't think it would last this long," the 73-year-old Bell said during a rehearsal break. He later performed his hit, "You Don't Miss Your Water."

Al Green had been scheduled to perform but, about an hour before the show, the White House released a statement from the singer's spokesman who said Green had suffered a back injury and would be unable to attend.

Hours before the show, Michelle Obama kicked off a workshop featuring Moore, Staples, Timberlake, Musselwhite and Harper for students from 16 schools and organizations in Virginia, California, Memphis, New York City, Maryland, Florida and Washington, D.C., who got to question the artists.

She noted Memphis' history as the birthplace of Elvis Presley's rock and roll and B.B. King's blues.

"And while you can hear both of those influences in Memphis soul, this music has a style and a story uniquely its own," Mrs. Obama said, before launching into the story of Stax Records.

She noted that the label also represented "somebody my husband thinks he sounds like" ? Green. "Let's just tell him he does, OK? Since he is the president, we like to boost him up a little bit."

It was a reference to Obama singing a few bars of Green's "Let's Stay Together" during a Democratic fundraiser at New York's Apollo Theater in February 2012.

Obama also joked about his singing during his brief remarks opening the concert.

"Tonight, I am speaking not just as a president, but as one of America's best-known Al Green impersonators," he said to laughter.

At the workshop, Mrs. Obama also tried to encourage the students, including some aspiring musicians, by noting that it took years of perfecting their talent for the artists perched on stools in front of them to get where they are.

She recalled playing the piano as a young girl and said she regretted not sticking with it. But she said the skills one learns by studying music are useful in other areas of life.

"The discipline, the patience, the diligence I learned through the study of music, those are all skills that I apply every single day in my life," Mrs. Obama said. "I applied them as a student, as a lawyer, as a first lady, and definitely as a mother."

Since February 2009, "In Performance at the White House" has highlighted the music of Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, plus Hispanic music, music from the civil-rights era, Motown and the blues, Broadway and country music. The series itself dates to 1978.

The Memphis soul concert is set to air next Tuesday on PBS stations. It will also be broadcast at a later date over the American Forces Network for service members and civilians at Defense Department locations worldwide.

___

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-celebrates-sounds-memphis-soul-164730499.html

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Cuba y Venezuela, dos pa?ses unidos por el socialismo. El petr?leo y los m?dicos...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/elpais/posts/215088681965753

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Interior Painting Tips and Tricks - One House One Couple

This is a guest post by Nick.

Painting the interior of your home can sometimes feel overwhelming and end in less than excellent results. However, when done correctly, you can get extremely professional results and truly transform your home!

Being in the Denver interior painting industry for over 20 years now, Walls by Design owner, Nick May, has gained a lot of valuable knowledge. He is here today to share some of his best painting tips and tricks. So take close notes and enjoy!

Tip #1: Cutting in Baseboards and Ceilings

As tempting as it may be to bust out the roller and start covering the walls, don?t do it. Always cut in your edges first and roll last. Whether you cut in the baseboards or the ceiling first, it doesn?t really matter. However, if you are doing a fairly small room and you are worried about the paint drying too quickly, start on the baseboards, as the edge between the wall and the trim usually take the longest time to dry.

To begin, take a damp cloth and clean all your baseboards and door trim and then allow them to dry completely. In the meantime, lay down proper drop cloths, and cover all furniture as accidents always happen and you want to be prepared. Once the baseboards and trim have dried, apply blue tape and masking paper about a dimes width from the wall, creating as straight of a line as possible. It is best to use one continuous piece of tape on each wall to avoid any gaps or uneven lines. Once the tape is in place, apply a small bead of painters caulk into the crease and smear with your index finger. It is important to press the caulk down quite a bit, almost to the point that it disappears. The reason for the caulk is that it seals off the gap between the baseboards and the blue tape and prevents any seepage from occurring onto your baseboards. If done correctly, when you pull the tape off, you will have a laser sharp line.

Now that your trim is prepped, painting it with a brush will be quick and easy. Hold the brush firmly like a pen, apply a decent amount of paint, and with long brush strokes, paint away my friends! Don?t worry too much about being neat and clean, that?s what the tape and caulk is for. Corners can sometimes be tricky to fully cover and you often have to dab in more paint that usual. Because of this, be sure to wipe out any excess paint with a completely dry brush or at least one that have not been recently loaded with paint. This will help disperse and soak up the excess corner paint.

The most difficult thing to cut in is the ceiling. In fact, it?s a hard technique to describe without the use of a video, but I?ll give it my best shot. First and foremost, if you haven?t done this in the past, I would suggest practicing on your taped off baseboards or door trim to master the technique and hand coordination.

Once you are ready for the ceiling, there is no stopping once you start. Begin by adding just a small amount of paint on the front of the bristles. Make sure it?s enough that the brush will push along easily and cover the area, but don?t get so much that it gushes out everywhere and is dripping down the wall. Push the bristle down so they sort of fan out and place the edge of them right up to where the ceiling and walls meet. Then, with long quick brush strokes, paint away. The slower you go, the more shaky your hands tend to be, which is why I suggest you commit and don?t look back.

A lot of people want to tape and caulk the ceiling like the baseboards. However, this usually ends with paint bleeding under the tape and uneven lines, as it?s much harder to apply tape and caulk to the ceilings compared to the trim. Home improvement stores such as Home Depot or Lowes do sell painting pads that you can glide along the ceiling, but it is difficult to get the line right at the crease of the wall and the ceiling. If you are unable to get a nice straight line, you can always paint your wall and ceiling the same color, eliminating the need for cutting in the ceiling! Practice in this area is really the best way to get excellent results. And if you do make mistakes, be sure you have the ceiling paint on hand for touch-ups.

Tip #2: Folding a Drop Cloth Properly

After you have completely finished painting, clean up begins. Cleaning out and folding a drop cloth properly may seem silly to some people, but honestly it can save you a whole lot of time and headaches.

Step 1: Gather all dirty drop clothes and dump them into one ?main? drop cloth.
Step 2: Take the debris filled drop cloth outside and dump it into the trash.
Step 3: Shake out the drop cloth in the street or yard to dispose of any small left over debris.
Step 4: Pick up any large items and dispose of them in the trash.
Step 5: Use a good old fashion broom and dustpan to clean up excess debris.
Step 6: Fold all the drop cloths into each other so the dirty side is facing inward.
Step 7: Fold the cloth lengthwise twice and then fold it into itself until it fits into your particular drop cloth bin.
Step 8: Store drop cloths where appropriate until you need them next time!

While following some of these tips and tricks may seem tedious, they will actually save you a whole lot of time, touch-ups and headaches in the end! And if you decide it?s not worth the time and effort and you just want a professional interior painting company to do it for you, then call someone up in your area! However, be sure to ask them about their experience, techniques, processes, etc. before booking them. Not all interior painting companies are equal!

About the Author

This post was written by Nick May, owner of Walls by Design, a high-end interior painting company located in Denver, Colorado.

Thank you to Nick for helping us keep this blog alive. We couldn?t do it without people like you.

Source: http://onehouseonecouple.blogzam.com/2013/03/interior-painting-tips-and-tricks/

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Mourning in NY as baby dies after hit-and-run

This undated photo, provided by the New York City Police Department on Monday March 4, 2013, shows Julio Acevedo, 44, who police are looking for in connection with the death of an expectant couple that was killed in a car accident in Brooklyn early Sunday morning and their premature baby, who was delivered alive but did not survive. Police are searching for the driver of a BMW and a passenger who fled on foot after slamming into the livery cab transporting Nachman Glauber and his pregnant wife Raizy, both 21 years old. (AP Photo/NYPD)

This undated photo, provided by the New York City Police Department on Monday March 4, 2013, shows Julio Acevedo, 44, who police are looking for in connection with the death of an expectant couple that was killed in a car accident in Brooklyn early Sunday morning and their premature baby, who was delivered alive but did not survive. Police are searching for the driver of a BMW and a passenger who fled on foot after slamming into the livery cab transporting Nachman Glauber and his pregnant wife Raizy, both 21 years old. (AP Photo/NYPD)

FILE - In this file photo of March 3, 2013, mourners surround a casket outside the Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar synagogue at the funeral for two expectant parents who were killed in a car accident early Sunday, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The baby of Nachman and Raizy Glauber, a boy, was delivered prematurely cesarean section and survived until the next morning but died around 5:30 a.m. on Monday, March 4, 2013. Police were searching for the driver of a BMW and a passenger who fled on foot after slamming into the livery cab that transporting the 21-year-old couple to a hospital. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

In this March 3, 2013, photo provided by VosIzNeias.com, Orthodox Jewish mourners gather outside the Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar synagogue in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood for the funeral of two expectant parents who were killed in a car accident early Sunday, in New York. The baby of Nachman and Raizy Glauber, a boy, was delivered prematurely by cesarean section and survived until the next morning, but died around 5:30 a.m. on Monday, March 4. Police were searching for the driver of a BMW and a passenger who fled on foot after slamming into the livery cab that was transporting the 21-year-old couple to a hospital. (AP Photo/VosIzNeias.com, Eli Wohl)

NEW YORK (AP) ? A close-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was plunged into a new round of mourning Monday by the death of a baby who was delivered by cesarean section after his parents were killed in a grisly hit-and-run crash a day earlier.

Police hunted for the suspected driver, identified as Julio Acevedo, saying he was barreling down a residential street in a BMW at 60 mph, or twice the speed limit, early Sunday when he collided with a car hired to take the couple to the hospital.

The death of the newborn on Monday piled tragedy upon tragedy and compounded the community's grief.

The baby was buried near the fresh graves of his parents, Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21, according to Isaac Abraham, a spokesman for the Hasidic Jewish community. About a thousand community members turned out for the young couple's funeral a day earlier.

"The mood in the neighborhood is very heavy," said Oscar Sabel, a retired printer who lives near the scene of the accident. "We all hoped the baby would survive."

Brooklyn is home to the largest community of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside Israel, more than 250,000. The couple wed last year in a marriage arranged through a matchmaker and were living in the Williamsburg neighborhood.

They were members of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose men dress in dark coats and hats, wear long beards like their Eastern European ancestors and have limited dealings with the outside world. Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent rabbinical family. Her husband was studying at a rabbinical college; his family founded a line of clothing for Orthodox Jews.

Sabel, dressed in the traditional long black coat of the Satmar, said it was a terrible tragedy.

"But it's what God wants," he said. "Maybe the baby's death, and his parents', is not for nothing; God doesn't have to give us answers."

Shortly after midnight Sunday, Raizy Glauber, who was seven months pregnant, wasn't feeling well, so the couple decided to go to the hospital, said Sara Glauber, Nachman Glauber's cousin. They called a livery cab, a hired car that is arranged via telephone, not hailed off the street like a yellow cab.

The livery cab had a stop sign, but it's not clear if the driver stopped. Police said the crash with the BMW reduced the cab to a crumpled heap, and Raizy Glauber was thrown from the wreck. The engine ended up in the back seat, Abraham said.

Police said the driver of the BMW ran away.

The baby weighed only about 4 pounds when he was delivered, neighbors and friends said. He died of extreme prematurity, the city medical examiner's office said.

The driver of the livery cab, Pedro Nunez Delacruz, was knocked unconscious but was not seriously hurt. His vehicle should not have been sent to pick up the passengers because an application to use the Toyota as a livery cab had not yet been approved, the city Taxi and Limousine Commission said.

Acevedo, 44, was arrested last month on a charge of driving while under the influence, and the case is pending. He served about a decade in prison in the 1990s for manslaughter. No one answered the door at Acevedo's last known address, in a public housing complex in Brooklyn. Neighbors said his mother lived in the same building, but she did not answer her door.

"We in the community are demanding that the prosecutor charge the driver of BMW that caused the death of this couple and infant ... with triple homicide," Abraham said in a statement. "This coward left the scene of the accident not even bothering to check on the people of the other car."

How Acevedo came to possess the BMW is also under investigation. The registered owner, Takia Walker, was arrested on insurance fraud charges Sunday in a scam involving the car, police said. She was not involved in the crash. A telephone number registered to Walker rang unanswered.

A person familiar with the investigation said Walker bought the car legally, or allowed her identification to be used in the purchase, then gave the vehicle to a middleman who either lent or rented it out to the driver. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Fitzgerald in Kiryas Joel, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-05-Expectant%20Parents%20Killed/id-600cb37d0eb14682996db583beca6445

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How the brain loses and regains consciousness: Brain patterns produced by general anesthesia revealed

Mar. 4, 2013 ? Since the mid-1800s, doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery. Despite their widespread use, little is known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness.

In a new study that tracked brain activity in human volunteers over a two-hour period as they lost and regained consciousness, researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified distinctive brain patterns associated with different stages of general anesthesia. The findings shed light on how one commonly used anesthesia drug exerts its effects, and could help doctors better monitor patients during surgery and prevent rare cases of patients waking up during operations.

Anesthesiologists now rely on a monitoring system that takes electroencephalogram (EEG) information and combines it into a single number between zero and 100. However, that index actually obscures the information that would be most useful, according to the authors of the new study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 4.

"When anesthesiologists are taking care of someone in the operating room, they can use the information in this article to make sure that someone is unconscious, and they can have a specific idea of when the person may be regaining consciousness," says senior author Emery Brown, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and health sciences and technology and an anesthesiologist at MGH.

Lead author of the paper is Patrick Purdon, an instructor of anesthesia at MGH and Harvard Medical School.

Distinctive patterns

Last fall, Purdon, Brown and colleagues published a study of brain activity in epileptic patients as they went under anesthesia. Using electrodes that had been implanted in the patients' brains as part of their treatment for epilepsy, the researchers were able to identify a signature EEG pattern that emerged during anesthesia.

In the new study, the researchers studied healthy volunteers, measuring their brain activity with an array of 64 electrodes attached to the scalp. Not only did they find patterns that appeared to correspond to what they saw in last year's study, they were also able to discern much more detail, because they gave the dose of propofol over a longer period of time and followed subjects until they came out of anesthesia.

While the subjects received propofol, the researchers monitored their responsiveness to sounds. Every four seconds, the subjects heard either a mechanical tone or a word, such as their name. The researchers measured EEG activity throughout the process, as the subjects pressed a button to indicate whether they heard the sound.

As the subjects became less responsive, distinct brain patterns appeared. Early on, when the subjects were just beginning to lose consciousness, the researchers detected an oscillation of brain activity in the low frequency (0.1 to 1 hertz) and alpha frequency (8 to 12 hertz) bands, in the frontal cortex. They also found a specific relationship between the oscillations in those two frequency bands: Alpha oscillations peaked as the low-frequency waves were at their lowest point.

When the brain reached a slightly deeper level of anesthesia, a marked transition occurred: The alpha oscillations flipped so their highest points occurred when the low frequency waves were also peaking.

The researchers believe that these alpha and low-frequency oscillations, which they also detected in last year's study, produce unconsciousness by disrupting normal communication between different brain regions. The oscillations appear to constrain the amount of information that can pass between the frontal cortex and the thalamus, which normally communicate with each other across a very broad frequency band to relay sensory information and control attention.

The oscillations also prevent different parts of the cortex from coordinating with each other. In last year's study, the researchers found that during anesthesia, neurons within small, localized brain regions are active for a few hundred milliseconds, then shut off again for a few hundred milliseconds. This flickering of activity, which creates the slow oscillation pattern, prevents brain regions from communicating normally.

Better anesthesia monitoring

When the researchers began to slowly decrease the dose of propofol, to bring the subjects out of anesthesia, they saw a reversal of the brain activity patterns that appeared when the subjects lost consciousness. A few minutes before regaining consciousness, the alpha oscillations flipped so that they were at their peak when the low-frequency waves were at their lowest point.

"That is the signature that would allow someone to determine if a patient is coming out of anesthesia too early, with this drug," Purdon says.

Cases in which patients regain consciousness during surgery are alarming but very rare, with one or two occurrences in 10,000 operations, Brown says.

"It's not something that we're fighting with every day, but when it does happen, it creates this visceral fear, understandably, in the public. And anesthesiologists don't have a way of responding because we really don't know when you're unconscious," he says. "This is now a solved problem."

Purdon and Brown are now starting a training program for anesthesiologists and residents at MGH to train them to interpret the information necessary to measure depth of anesthesia. That information is available through the EEG monitors that are now used during most operations, Purdon says. Because propofol is the most widely used anesthesia drug, the new findings should prove valuable for most operations.

In follow-up studies, the researchers are now studying the brain activity patterns produced by other anesthesia drugs.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, including an NIH Director's Pioneer Award, New Innovator Award and K-Award, and the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Anne Trafton.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Patrick L. Purdon, Eric T. Pierce, Eran A. Mukamel, Michael J. Prerau, John L. Walsh, Kin Foon K. Wong, Andres F. Salazar-Gomez, Priscilla G. Harrell, Aaron L. Sampson, Aylin Cimenser, ShiNung Ching, Nancy J. Kopell, Casie Tavares-Stoeckel, Kathleen Habeeb, Rebecca Merhar, and Emery N. Brown. Electroencephalogram signatures of loss and recovery of consciousness from propofol. PNAS, March 4, 2013 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1221180110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/MvxTcQ9jHJU/130304211530.htm

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Satisfying Retirement: Adapting to a Retirement Community

This is a guest post from Sarah Jennings on the steps one can take to make the move to a retirement community as stress-free as possible. Whether a retirement community is in your future or maybe for a parent or relative, I find her suggestions and ideas wothwhile. ?
After retiring, many people choose to live in active retirement communities. Unlike assisted living homes, retirement communities are designed to keep newly retired individuals living independently but with an array of activities, hobbies, and social events to choose from. However, as appealing as those services are, it can be hard to adjust to living in a different place than the one where you made memories in raising children, developing your career, and forming the person you are today. It?s often difficult at first to really feel at peace with the decision, but just like any major life change, it?s normal to experience cold feet and second thoughts. Chances are you made the right choice, but just like any species on the planet, being in a new environment is all about learning how to adapt.

As obvious as this tip is, it?s normal for new residents to not decorate and adorn their new home right away, if at all. Remember, your new apartment is your home; it?s not a dorm room where you?ll be moving out it nine months. Don?t be afraid to go all out and really get creative with it as bare walls and naked rooms can make it hard to truly feel at ease. ?Making it feel like a safe, relaxing, and comfortable place you can retreat will really speed up the adjusting process. Hang up pictures of friends and family, set and decorate the table, and get all your old, familiar mementos out and ready to display. However, try to avoid making it look exactly like your old home; let this be a new chapter in your life, and it?s important to let your new home be just that: your new home, not a replica of your old one.

This doesn?t mean a quick wave to the person who lives across from you or an occasional, ?How are you?? This is one circumstance where it?s good to be old fashioned; introduce yourself, offer your neighbors some baked goods or a glass of wine, and really get to know them. This is what the term ?community? is all about. Getting to know the people who live around you allows for friendships to flourish, and the feeling of familiarity will make easing into your new home go much smoother.

Your retirement community most likely offers a large variety of events and activities to choose from. Avoid being a homebody, and get active. The sooner you start taking advantage of the available activities, the sooner you will warm up to the facility. Getting involved is the best way to meet other residents with similar interests, and making new friends is the key to feeling at home in a new place. Even just taking a good book down to the lobby to read is a simple way to surround yourself with others. Keeping yourself isolated does nothing but prevent you from experiencing your new life to the fullest, and a large percent of your rent goes to the amenities offered. You might as well take advantage of them and have a good time.
Keep in Contact with Friends and Family
One of the biggest arguments against living in an active retirement community stems from the fear of losing contact with close friends and family. However, it?s all about how you personally make an effort to keep in touch, and most facilities are more than happy to allow your guests to visit and even stay overnight. Minimizing your contact with friends and family can contribute to resenting your decision later on, but remember you?re not on a desert island; you just changed locations. Have your family over frequently to share meals or attend events, or schedule a coffee date with an old friend or neighbor. Sometimes, nothing is quite as comforting and enjoyable than spending time with a familiar face.

It?s just as important to get to know the staff as it is other residents. It?s a good idea to build a friendly relationship with any them as they?re the ones responsible for taking care of any issues you have with the facility. Also, the employees see new residents move in all the time, so they most likely have some tips and ideas that would be helpful in getting you better acquainted with the place.
Moving into a retirement community is a major life decision, and it can take some time to fully adjust. However, by making your new place comfortable, actively reaching out to connect with others, and keeping old ties close, the initial hesitation will ease into a feeling of satisfaction and excitement about your future. It?s a brand new phase of your life; you might as well do all you can do make it one of the best ones yet. ____________________

Sarah Jennings has been taking care of others her whole life. In 2005, she moved her mother into her family home. She uses her personal experience to share with others about caring for the elderly. She currently writes on behalf of Brookdale Senior Living.

Note: I received no compsensation for this post or the links included.

Source: http://satisfyingretirement.blogspot.com/2013/03/adapting-to-retirement-community.html

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