GAL Magazine

Justin�s Fight Club Kicks Cancer�s Butt

Written by Karin Goodhue

It was a crisp morning October 11th, 2008 when my family and I entered the parking lot of WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, NC for the annual Cary Walk For Hope to benefit the LUNGevity Foundation. My two-year-old nephew Jeffrey sat in his car seat between my sister and I in the back. Justin drove while my father rode as front passenger. All five of us wore matching yellow shirts reading the team name, Justin’s Fight Club on our backs and white rubber bracelets on our wrists. Jeffrey played with one of the bracelets etched with his father’s team name and a slogan reading “Kickin’ Cancer’s Butt”. Signs for the event lined the edge of the pavement pointing us in the right direction. It was our first time at a cancer walk and the first of many for Justin Andrews, my brother-in-law recently diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.

Match

Written by Catherine Zickgraf

I know what you are.
I saw you. I know:
you punctured her arm
inside her elbow
and licked
what dripped
down her fingers. And when

her gasoline veins slowed down
to a trickle, and stains
pooled on the bathroom floor,
you left her.
You were bored.

Yes, she was
doomed to explode,
her blue muscle pumping
a volatile load. But

I know what you are.
I saw you. I know:
you are not
her electric glow.
You’re not a light bulb
in the dark.
She is the gas
and you are the spark.

--------------------------
Catherine Zickgraf is a former northerner - excited about growing her roots into the Georgia clay. One day, she hopes to earn her MFA in Creative Writing.

Trials and Tribulations of a Pregnant Chef

Written by Christine Campbell

Wine. Sushi. Beautiful raw stinky French cheese. Gourmet home-roasted and blended coffee. *Sigh.*

This is the part of being pregnant that I knew I would hate.

As a chef and food writer, my life has always centered around food and the art of pushing the envelope with what people would eat. My industry would be nowhere without adventurous individuals who tried new things and lived to tell the tale. However, six months ago (almost 7 now), my life was no longer All About Me. My life suddenly became All About the Small Being in My Belly; the hedonistic part of me had to be retired and the new, improved, responsible me came out to discover what life had to offer.

Classic Italian Dish

Written by Eileen Leroux

I have tried this dish in many restaurants, but found none that beat this version.

PASTA FAGOLI

This recipe is an original. By that I mean I have put my own touches to it, creating my own version. There are several variations, but I feel my take on this dish is a little different. The original dish, from the boot of Southern Italy, required one type of bean. I, however, require three or four different types of beans. Many years ago I tried my version on my father-in-law. He was Italian from Southern Italy and he fell in love with this dish.

Click "Read More" to review RECIPE

Justin�s Fight Club

Written by Karin Goodhue

A lot of kids start smoking because they think it is cool or trendy or might attract the attention of a love interest. But they don’t think ahead to what the action could do to their health. Even if they do recognize the dangers of smoking and want to quit, the nicotine has already sparked an addiction. So people smoke a little longer, thinking the chances of smoking-related health problems are so far down the road, it is simply not a concern right now. Well my brother-in-law thought all those things like most people and loosely entertained the idea to quit smoking many times. On his 28th birthday, April 22, 2008, he laid down his last pack of smokes and never looked back. Soon after his decision to change his life for the better, he started feeling intense pain in his neck and then in his shoulder. Four months trickled by with some doctor visits, but the pain kept increasing. Finally my brother-in-law insisted on an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of his neck. The MRI revealed a soft-tissue mass close to the spine. Further tests showed approximately eight tumors present throughout his body, the largest being a mass on his lung, and the majority of the tumors existing in his bones. Justin Andrews from Creedmoor, NC smoked 14 years. He has a two-year old son, a beautiful home and family, a fantastic job, and Stage IV inoperable lung cancer at age 28.

Justin was diagnosed on September 5, 2008. The news was a hard blow to the family. Loved ones immediately pulled together to think positive and embrace the illness. The morning after the diagnosis, my sister (Justin’s wife Kristy) created a tribute page on CaringBridge, a website that offers support and updates for patients who are ill, undergoing treatment and recovery. In two weeks, they have had over 7,000 people visit their page and over 350 guestbook submissions from people offering prayers and encouragement. My sister has written a journal entry on the website every day since the diagnosis to provide updates on Justin’s progress, and she continues the journal postings daily.

**Photo Submitted by Karin Goodhue

Have a Happy Period?

Written by L. D. Lee

Every time this commercial comes on the tv I literally cringe. I grit my teeth so hard and cause such pain I actually emit a sound much like that of a mother whale who has just witnessed the shark attack of her calf. You know the sound. It’s a high pitched whine; really hurts your ears, and if I’m correct can only be picked up by sonar. Yeah- that’s the one.

I can never quite figure out if I’m mad about it or just in a stupefied state of disbelief when I see it. Why are women’s issues so trite? Ha, ha, ha. Where's the commercial proclaiming "Prostate problems? Walk it off."
I swear I’d have preferred the announcer say, " Look we know you’re miserable and we’re not gonna do a damn thing about it, so pull your big girl panties up, get on with your life, oh, and while you're out there, buy our product”.

Someone came up with this idea and couldn’t wait to get to the Monday morning think tank with this gem. They huddled around their corporate boardroom table, gorging themselves on the free bagel tray and all agreed this would be a neat way to advertise their product? Where can I locate this group of rocket scientists? Please, somebody hold me back.

Reinventing Me

Written by Moniece Robinson

I’ve always felt like a work in progress. Unfortunately, I was plagued with the “Treadmill Syndrome.” I employed this term each time I felt as if I was working hard, toward my goals only to look up and realize that I was in same place that I started. I was frustrated and I wanted to “get off the treadmill.” I used this analogy constantly for years and it is quite ironic that running became the remedy.

I started running because I was bored. Every weekday, I worked, came home and plopped on the couch in front of the tube until bedtime. Every weekend, I did for everyone else, but never for myself; little did I know that I would start an improved relationship with life by becoming a runner. It all started with a one mile Dog Jog to benefit a local animal shelter. I wanted to get out of the house and do something different. Itt was a bonus that I could take my dog along. Having never done anything like this before, I was anxious to get started, and once we began to run - very eager to reach the finish. Afterwards, both my dog and I were exhausted. Looking back, we started way too fast and both of us panted for the rest of the afternoon.

Ways to increase your Alexa ranking

The following list can be found @ doshdosh.com.

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. - this will count only as one hit a day, no matter how many times you open your homepage

2. Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. - it may help, provided that your visitors are interested in your Alexa ranking, which is highly unlikely.

3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar including friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. - there is no true benefit of having Alexa toolbar installed. Regular visitors to your website don’t need it at all.

4. Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. - Your bosses may come down with all their wrath upon you when you do something that crazy.

5. Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. - it is a pure nonsense.

6. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). - this might be true, if you have time and energy.

7. Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. - 100% right. This is a legitimate way.

8. Write content that is related to webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. - can’t argue with this one.

9. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.doshdosh.com . Replace doshdosh.com with the URL for your website. - doesn’t work.

10. Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. - nonsense

11. Create a webmaster tools section on your website. This is a magnet for webmasters who will often revisit your website to gain access to the tools. - this must make sense to your visitors. If your website is about Florida beaches, this is one bad example.

12. Get Dugg or Stumbled. - may help a bit.

13. Use PayperClick Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in Traffic. - this is a legitimate way but may prove very expensive.

14. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa. - only if you have a webmaster-related website

15. Optimize your popular posts. Got a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines? - that’s a good indicator what to write and which direction to go.

16. Buy banners and links for traffic from webmaster forums and websites. - true and costly.

17. Hire forum posters to pimp your website. Either buy signatures in webmaster forums or promote specific articles or material in your website on a regular basis. - see above.

18. Pay Cybercafe owners to install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as the homepage for all their computers. This might be difficult to arrange and isn’t really a viable solution for most. - i can’t even imagine that. People know how to change the homepage. In addition, your website would have to look more like Yahoo or MSN.

19. Use MySpace . - fishy

20. Try Alexa auto-surfs. Do they work? Maybe for brand new sites. I think they are mostly suitable for new websites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. - don’t even bother.

Local Paradise

Written by Karin Goodhue

Hot weather, beaches, pools, cold drinks, and cookouts are only a few things that make summer spectacular. The season is also known for summer vacations. Potential vacationers might desire tropical climates such as Bermuda, Costa Rica, or even Cozumel. But they should know that they don’t have to go as far to get what they are looking for. Just off North Carolina's inland situated between the Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean features our own local paradise.

Ocracoke Island resides as part of the North Carolina outerbanks; but in addition, it is its own little island in Hyde County. Measured atabout 9.6 square miles, it is only reached by sea or private plane. Three ferries travel back and forth to the island, departing from Swan Quarter, Cedar Island, and Hatteras daily. Ferries are controlled by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. To reserve your spot on a ferry this summer, call 1-800-BY-FERRY.

Ocracoke Island is home to around 800 residents on the island, otherwise referred to as ‘locals’. Their means of survival revolve around the success of their summer season. Ocracoke resembles a ghost town during the winter, so it is necessary for the locals to make their living between the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends to last them through the dead months.

Luckily, it is not difficult for the residents of Ocracoke to achieve their success. Vacationers travel from afar to see Dr. Beach’s #1 choice for best beach in the country last year for 2007. Ocracoke bears beautifully clean sand that travels far from the grass to the water. 4-wheel drive vehicles are allowed to drive directly onto the sand next to the water for easier access. Otherwise, pedestrians only have a short walk from the parking lots to their desired place of relaxation.

Real Fashion - Our Way

Written by L.D. Lee

With summer approaching all of the fashion websites have tips and ideas for cool new clothes. In my web surfing for some summer duds I ran across an interesting article. “What never to wear if you’re Over 40”. Um, I’m sorry, excuse me?

I thought we were grown woman, spending our own money, thereby allowing us to purchase and wear what we liked. While there are some time honored old rules grandma taught us about what’s appropriate for work, church, showing up for your parent-teacher conference, the rest of my life is up for grabs.

What’s the over 40 dig about? Oh that’s right; I lost my mind for a moment. We all know any woman over 40 is no longer attractive, vibrant, or should be interested in being fashionable. Oh and if you weigh more than 100 pounds you’re a cow. Who makes these decisions and what gives them the right to decide I’m too old for something? Are you kidding me?

Why is ok for the over 40 Hollywood women to wear fabulous, hot clothes but the soccer mom in suburbia is rule ridden? Because we’ve not been nipped, tucked, starved or touting a $400 hair cut? Give me a break; we’re the only real women left.