While watered-down performance may be a possibility for some mass-produced cars, that’s not going to fly for Lamborghini. Instead of backing down to a smaller engine and tacking on an electric motor, the brand opted to attach two motors to the front and one to the back and matched them to a new V12, the lightest one the automaker has ever built. Then Lamborghini whipped up a recipe for a battery that regenerates so quickly that it never gets all the way down to zero, and added a plug-in port for good measure.

Read more at Popular Science at this link!

Find the latest here: Muck Rack article updates

Would you rather have a purple nose or green ears?

Would you rather live without music or without television? 

Would you rather eat a dead spider or a live worm? 

In that vein, in 2014 Edmunds conducted a multigenerational survey about the car-buying process. One in three, or 33%, of those surveyed would rather go to the DMV, do their taxes, or sit in the middle airplane seat than go through the process of buying a car. That’s clearly a conundrum for the automotive industry.

I’m one of the strange ones who enjoys the process, but I’m definitely not in the majority. Last time we bought a car, my husband insisted on buying from a brand that doesn’t haggle. What is the fun in that? Well, as it turns out, most people don’t like to haggle, either.

Save Time on the Financial Side

As much as you want to buy a new car for yourself, your spouse, or a child, the process takes a long time. From the moment you start researching the kinds of vehicles you want to the time it takes to test drive a couple of them and narrow down to the time you sit down at the dealership, you have already spent hours and hours. Add on the process of negotiating, haggling, and finance checking, and you’re exhausted. And the truth is, everyone buys cars differently and for different reasons. There are, perhaps surprisingly, very few commonalities.

In today’s world, personal digital experiences are what consumers have come to expect.

Capital One (yes, the one with the Jennifer Garner commercials) has a service called Auto Navigator designed to help streamline that process. So in this case, it’s not “What’s in your wallet?” but “What’s on your phone?” or “What’s on your computer?"

The site/ app simplifies the car buying process, offering a database of dealerships and cars for your review, then you give them permission to do a "soft pull" of your credit that will not affect your credit score. The site tells you your rate and the monthly payment you can expect to make; you can make any changes on the fly as you discuss additional options, like service contracts. Ultimately, pre-qualification doesn't guarantee final financing, and your final terms will depend on the hard credit pull at the dealership. However, the option to walk into the dealership knowing your parameters is empowering all by itself.

It reminds me of Progressive insurance in that once the dealership pulls your hard credit, options will be generated for you. At that point, you can use the Capital One financing or accept another offer from the dealer.

We're not getting paid to create an advertorial for Capital One, but I think this is worth looking at. Anything that makes the car-buying process less painful is one that could help us all, and smoothing out the financing part is key. After all, no one goes out shopping for a car loan; they're looking for a car.

This post first appeared on my automotive site, Drive Mode Show.

When I got my first car - a 1977 Dodge Aspen - the first thing I did was to replace the AM radio with an FM radio and a cassette player. My dad pulled out the old and installed the new, and I helped him twist the black and red wires together to spark the connection between the radio and the power source. Often, the wires would become untwisted after being jarred and jangled apart on rocky roads, and I relished the opportunity to take out a pair of wire strippers to pull off the coating and re-twist the cables together again. I fancied myself a Fixer of Car Things.

One of my first cassettes was Guns N Roses’ debut album Appetite for Destruction. I cranked that stereo up as loud as I could and tore up the county roads of suburban northern Indiana. And later, when my son was born, my favorite lullaby to sing for him was “Patience” from the Lies album. In fact, it was a special treat to take my now-10-year-old son to see GNR at the Austin City Limits music festival this year. We agreed that the guitar and bass playing is still up to par but the singing was a little off.

LEXUS RX + MARK LEVINSON IS A KALEIDOSCOPE OF AUDIO SOUND

I have to have music when I’m driving. There’s nothing like belting out tunes while you’re on the road, and because I’m such a music fanatic, good car audio is important to me. With that in mind, Mark Levinson partnered with me at the LA Auto Show this year to talk about their upscale audio products, and the first video I created was with Michael Rippe from Lexus, who riffed with me about some of the music he likes to hear and why the RX has been such a popular model for families for more than two decades.

FEATURING HARVEY BRIGGS OF RIDES AND DRIVES

Harvey Briggs of Rides and Drives accompanied me in my second video at the LA Auto Show in a Lexus RC F. We discussed female vocalists and why it matters to teach your kids about music. We noticed the Mark Levinson brand’s Clari-Fi technology, which improves the quality of highly compressed digital audio by restoring the authenticity, ambience, warmth and clarity that is lost in the compression process.

Mark Levinson, the person for whom the brand was named, started his life as the child of two psychologists. His mom was also a cello player, which inspired him to name his second company Cello. The first products Mark developed were mixers for location sound recording, and he made only a few of them. One such mixer was used onstage at the legendary 1969 Woodstock event, making the Mark Levinson name a symbol of historical know-how.

“The most important thing for me is a system that makes me want to listen, and won’t let me stop, he said. “It’s the seduction of a great live event. It should be like meeting someone who is so fascinating that you just want to keep talking and be with that person. When the playback system sounds like the live event, you know you are doing something right.”

Stay tuned, because next up I’ll post a video of me and my mom singing karaoke. And head banging.

FUN FACTS

• In a Lexus RX, a Mark Levinson audio system cranks out 835 watts from 15 speakers; in the sporty RC coupe, 17 speakers.

• Standard for 2020 Lexus RX: touch-screen display, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Amazon Alexa.

• Mark Levinson is owned by Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of South Korean company Samsung Electronics.

• The first car radio is believed by some historians to have been introduced by Chevrolet in 1922
  
  

On the day after Christmas, I’m not going to be returning gifts or shopping the day-after sales. I’ll be sitting on my couch, happily watching a new animated series on Netflix about CARS, glorious cars.

I love action movies like The Fast & The Furious and since I’m (ostensibly) a grown-up, the adult themes are appropriate for me. Not so much, however, for my ten-year-old son. Common Sense Media says the series is “as close to an R-rated film as it can be and remain PG-13.” What I don’t love about the movies is that there is quite a bit of “women as sex objects” treatment and my son and I will be having more conversations about that as he gets into the tween and teen years.

So I’m thrilled that there is an animated series called Fast & Furious Spy Racers aimed for kids, with the fun and action and cars, but without the violence, strong language, and sexism.

Here’s the plot line of the new Fast & Furious Spy Racers, which follows in the footsteps of the movie franchise but is more kid friendly:

Tying together the Fast & Furious movie themes, Spy Racers features the teenage cousin of Vin Diesel’s character Dom. Tony Toretto (voiced by Tyler Posey) is recruited by a government agency along with his friends to infiltrate an elite racing league serving as a front for an evil crime organization called SH1FT3R.

The series is executive produced by Diesel, Neal H. Moritz, Chris Morgan, Tim Hedrick and Bret Haaland. In addition to Posey, Spy Racers features the voices of Camille Ramsey (American Vandal) as SH1FT3R underground racer Layla Gray and Luke Youngblood (Lee Jordan in Harry Potter movies) voices 13-year-old tech genius Frostee Benson. They are joined by Charlet Chung (Overwatch) as Echo and Jorge Diaz (Jane the Virgin) as Cisco Renaldo.

I’ll be tuning in!

Check out the official trailer here:

One of our favorite family traditions is to spend a holiday weekend at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas, just north of Dallas. As soon as you walk in the door, it’s going to be a toss-up as to which of you - the adults or the kids - are most wondrous about the sparkling lights and decorations that turn the Gaylord Texan into a fairyland of Christmas and Hanukkah cheer.

TRY ONE OR MORE OF THESE ACTIVITIES:

• Mrs. Claus’ storytime and cookies: Join Mrs. Claus for the reading of holiday classics and join along in the singing of Christmas carols during this 30-minute show. Includes Mrs. Claus’ world-famous cookies dunked in cold milk.

• Ice skating: Enjoy a perfect day or evening under the stars by going on a yuletide glide at Gaylord Texan's 6,000-square-foot outdoor ice skating rink.

• Santa’s Snow Throw: Grab a bucket of real snowballs, then take aim at the interactive targets created by Santa's Elves.

• Snow tubing: Thrill-seekers of all ages will enjoy barreling down our 8-lane, two-story-tall, indoor hill covered with two million pounds of real snow!

• Christmas Carousel: Get in the holiday spirit by taking a spin on this timeless family-friendly ride. 

• Merry Snoopy Scavenger Hunt: Search high and low to help Snoopy deck his house out for the Dog House Decorating Competition in this fun scavenger hunt. Complete the quest to win a souvenir.

• Gingerbread decorating shop: Choose from three different design options and then make your way over to meet the gingerbread man for a heartwarming hug you can capture with your own camera.

• Escape rooms: Two fun holiday-themes

• Visit Santa, of course!

GOOD GRIEF! GAYLORD TEXAN ICE! 2019

The gorgeous ice sculptures of Charlie Brown and friends are carved from more than two million pounds of colorful ice. Crafted by master artisans who travel to Texas from Harbin, China, families can enjoy spectacular holiday scenes, colorful characters and ice slides. We rode down the ice slide until my hands were so cold I had to head out for some hot chocolate.

Before you enter the ICE! display, each of the people in your party is handed a giant blue parka to borrow to keep you warm (and dry on the ICE! slide). You’ll feel the chill of 9°F as soon as you approach the door to the tent, so be sure to bring your hat and gloves. My friend Heidi recommends hand warmers, which is a brilliant idea to keep both your hands and your photo-taking devices comfortably warm.

Winding your way through the ICE! display, you’ll find hand-carved scenes from the holiday movie classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. Two million pounds of ice have been shaped by Chinese artisans into colorful, whimsical sculptures. And as you prepare to exit ICE!, an ethereal clear-ice set of sculptures will tell the story of the Nativity.

On your way out of the ICE! tent, rub your hands together, get warm, and turn in your parka. Then turn toward the hot cocoa and warm up. Or if you’re a little crazy, like me, get Carvel ice cream (with sprinkles, of course).

My friend at Rebecca of R We There Yet Mom is offering a coupon for 50% off tickets to ICE! Use the code RWETHEREYET online.

What are the top Black Friday & Cyber Monday LEGO deals for 2019? Deals experts at The Consumer Post have compared savings on Star Wars, Friends and Harry Potter playsets, BOOST building kits, Dimensions packs and more LEGO toys and are listing the best live deals below.

Best LEGO deals:

● Save up to 34% on a wide-range of LEGO toys & sets at Walmart - check live prices on shoppers’ favorite sets such as LEGO Boost Creative Tool Boxes, Harry Potter, Friends, Star Wars & Dimensions

● Save up to 25% on select LEGO Dimensions, Star Wars & more LEGO toys at Amazon - click the link for the latest prices on more LEGO favorites including Friend, Harry Potter & more

● Save on LEGO Boost kits at Amazon - check live prices on Boost best-sellers such as the Creative Toolboxes & the Star Wars Boost Droid Commander sets

● Save up to 20% on LEGO Harry Potter toy sets at Walmart

● Save up to 25% on LEGO Star Wars building sets & minifigures at Walmart

● Save up to 28% on LEGO Dimensions video games at Walmart

Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals run for a limited period of time. For the full range of live deals check out Amazon’s Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals page and Walmart’s Black Friday & Cyber Monday home page. The Consumer Post earns commissions from purchases made using the links provided.

LEGO toys, such as the LEGO Friends and LEGO Dimensions, are helpful in stimulating a child’s imagination while enhancing their creativity. With constant product innovation, the company was able to incorporate robotics in its toys and eventually came up with the LEGO BOOST and Start Wars BOOST: Droid Commander.

What store has the best deals on Black Friday? The two retailers leading this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping holidays are Amazon and Walmart.

Last year Amazon.com sold over 180 million products over the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Amazon makes their customers’ shopping experience easy and convenient by providing gift recommendations for every demographic along with impressive customer support.

Last year, both Walmart and Amazon experienced considerable online growth during the two-day period encompassing Thanksgiving and Black Friday, with a year-over-year increase in total online revenues of 23% and 25% respectively.

This post originally appeared on Business Wire.

Finding healing in the outdoors

At 33, Jamie Schou was diagnosed with Synovial Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer. In the middle of treatments that left him feeling sick and fatigued, he was determined to find relief in nature. An avid skier, Schou had been living in Truckee, Nevada, since he graduated from college and he lived for powder days on the hills with his friends.

A year into his diagnosis, Schou wanted to do something more meaningful to both live his life fully with whatever time he had left, and help others in his age group experiencing similar health challenges to get outside and still enjoy the activities they loved while they were pushing through difficult times.

“When he was going through treatment, being outdoors was the light at the end of the tunnel,” says his sister Katie Schou. “It was what he was fighting for: to stay alive to have adventures outdoors. He was very committed and deliberate about how to spend his time.”

Jamie registered for a 501c3 designation, started putting together a board, created a logo, and started selling t-shirts for his mission. He decided to call it Send It.

“Send It is an expression; it’s a slang term from the outdoor sporting community,” Katie says. “’Just Send It!’ means give it your all. So it was something we’d say in our normal life that shifted to his cancer fight. We’d cheer him on during his treatments with ‘Yeah, send it! You can do this!’”

For Schou, ‘Send It’ became his mantra. With every break in treatment, he skied, biked, paddled, summited Half Dome, and jumped out of airplanes to keep himself positive and happy. He knew he’d have three days of feeling terrible during chemo and then he would have a few days of feeling great, so he scheduled his activities around that cadence.

Not long after he started selling Send It apparel, he created the Sent It Foundation, a non-profit providing outdoor adventures for young adults battling cancer.

Schou knew that his prognosis was grim. There wasn’t a proven treatment protocol for this particular kind of cancer and he grabbed onto the feeling of being alive when so much had been taken away from him. He endured countless hours of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. What started as a tumor in his back spread to become over 30 tumors in his lungs. Every day; every moment was precious.

Send It’s first adventure

Jamie passed away July 12, 2014, and his sisters didn’t want Send It to die with him. So Katie quit her job as a management consultant and Caroline joined her to help other people see what their brother had figured out: live hard, love hard, play hard, and that sometimes, waiting for “someday” is not an option.

In 2015, Send It hosted its first adventure with seven participants join us for a mountain biking trip in Lake Tahoe and it has been growing ever since.

All programs are free for participants; Send It funds everything, including airfare, food, supplies, and medical staff. Send It participants vary in their state of treatment: some are in active treatment, some in remission, and some are terminal. Programs are first-come, first-served and include skiing, surfing, mountain climbing, rock climbing, and backpacking for adults 21-40.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 60,000 young adults aged 20 to 39 are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States. Only about 4 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in people in this age range, creating an isolating, lonely experience for those in the middle of it.

“Your life stops,” explains one participant. “Your friends, family and colleagues, they go on and continue their lives.”

During the program, every night after dinner the group gathers for a form of unplanned therapy to share their fears and issues fighting cancer in a peer group that truly gets it. Katie and the team keep the group small to stay attentive to individual needs.

“We stay together in a big house on every trip,” says Katie. “The real connection and supportive conversations happen around the fire after dinner, or over coffee, or going to sleep at night. Bringing some of those conversations forward really helps these young people.”

Jamie’s Titan: “It’s the only thing we had left of our brother”

Last fall, Katie and Caroline attended an event called Outpost Trade in Mendocino, California. Outpost Trade is a series of events designed to disrupt the conference model in the outdoor lifestyle space; networking is a key focus. Katie had heard about it just a few weeks before the event and she reached out to see it Outpost Trade had any nonprofit partners. The organizers offered Send It a table to share information about the program, and the sisters made a number of connections there.

While at the event, they met Wendy Orthman and Kevin Raftery from Nissan USA. Katie told them the story of their brother’s truck, a 2006 Nissan Titan that Send It used as its official “adventuremobile”.

“This truck was Jamie’s first new vehicle, and he was so proud of it,” Katie remembers. “He was 6’8” and needed something that would be comfortable for him, and he loved it.”

After more than a decade of use, however, the truck was aging. It had more than 200,000 miles on it and it required more than $5k in repairs and updates. Katie and Caroline didn’t want to let it go; it was the only tangible item they had left of their brother.

Nissan’s Calling All Titans movement celebrates its truck owners and the ways those people give back to the community, and it made sense to Orthman and Raftery to support Send It with a gift of repairs at a local dealership to get the truck back into shape. It makes a world of difference to them, Katie says.

“My stepkids sometimes they ask me about my Send It trips, and I tell them that I help sick people to connect and make friends with other sick people so they have someone to talk to about it,” Katie says. “They kind of get it but even so, at some point they’ll grow up and realize what we’ve been doing. They talk about Jamie all the time even though they never met him. They see the truck and say, “Oh, that’s Uncle Jamie’s!’”

Moving forward to honor Send It’s legacy

Katie wants to keep building Send It and honoring her brother’s legacy while building her own.

“I’m blown away by how much Send It has grown over the last couple of years,” she says. “Sometimes I get a little bogged down and then we run a trip and I leave so fulfilled and proud. I see people crippled with fear about rappelling down the rock wall and they do it and they’re so stoked. They get from this scared, lonely place to a stronger, ‘I can do it’ place. We’re making a difference in people’s lives.

“Send It is all about doing all the things you want to do… say the things you want to say… love the ones you want to love. Jamie felt a deep, deep gratitude for his life and he wondered why he hadn’t been living this way forever. That was the message he wanted to share.

We want to create experiences that create empowerment. It creates a sense of community and support.

For me, this came at a time when I was personally starting to question what I’d do next. I didn’t know where my career was headed and his became the gift Jamie left for me. I was a management consultant for a boutique firm – got my MBA in sustainable management. I knew it wasn’t my forever.

We’re at a growth point right now – we’re 4 years into trips and a growing community of alums. Our alumni come back and volunteer and we have an alumni trip every year. We also have a big wait list and it’s our mission to fill that need. And yet, we’re a small, family-run organization. It’s my sister and I running this, and it’s a connected experience.

Trying to find ways to grow without losing our value. Alumni are starting to join us as volunteers and staff and even leading trips. We also put people together so they have support in their area.

Phase 2: growing Send It to the next level to reach more young adults

Send It’s next goal is to create a podcast to drive conversation and peer support.

“Send It participants go home feeling that they’re not alone. They have someone to call when nobody else gets it.”

Alumni of the program join the trips as support volunteers now and they’re starting to lead trips of their own. Send It joins together those dealing with cancer so they have support in their local area, even if they can’t join a trip. It’s a movement of connection that Katie believes firmly that her brother can see, even now.

“Jamie was an incredibly kind, gentle human. He was dealt a terrible hand and never once complained. He felt like if anyone was going to beat it, it was going to be him. He wrote in his journal that he was going to beat it and win every day. I think he would say, ‘Kates, you’re doing it! You’re sending it.’”

I can only remember my father being angry a handful of times.

The Violent Femmes were blaring loudly from my sister’s stereo in her room, where I had commandeered her boombox. I was bopping along when my father strode purposefully into the room, pushed the STOP button and then EJECT.

“We don’t listen to this kind of music in our house,” he said. And then he threw the cassette in the trash on his way out the door.

I fished it out and learned a valuable lesson that day: don’t listen to songs containing the F word in front of my dad. Despite the music police and Tipper Gore’s best efforts, I still listened to music that was explicit. And honestly, most of the time I sang along blithely, not thinking about what the lyrics meant or even knowing them word for word. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was 18 before I realized that the Phil Rizzuto play-by-play in the middle of Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” was not about baseball at all.

In the shelter of my parents’ screen porch, summer evenings were accompanied by 8-tracks of Buddy Holly, the Beach Boys, and KISS. My parents tolerated Ace Frehley as long as there were no swear words. And I learned to love “Little Deuce Coupe” and “That’ll Be the Day” as much as I did “Snow Blind”. To this day, my mom and dad still have dinner in that screen porch and when I visit, the music turns back time to any given summer of my childhood.

As it turns out, my son loves music as much as I do. As a toddler, he lisped the words to the country songs we played on the radio. To my amusement, that even included Eric Church’s “...all you gotta do is put a drink in my hand.” My husband introduced him to Tupac and George Strait; I crooned Guns N Roses “Patience” to him as a lullaby and taught him how to play the air drum to a Stone Temple Pilots song. He was a sponge, and I’d glance in the rear view mirror to find him singing along to an obscure 80s song I didn’t remember playing for him.

The challenge came when he got into music with the same colorful lyrics that upset my father 30 years ago. I was doing laundry in the basement at my parents’ house the summer before my son turned 6, and he padded down the stairs.

“Mom, what does [insert 4-letter word here] mean?”

I guess I could have handled it in a number of ways; I opted to drive straight in. I explained to him what that particular word meant, in a way that a kindergartener could digest. He nodded and went back up the stairs.

As he grew, he gravitated away from country and pop and toward hip-hop. The discussion morphed from hearing unfamiliar words to explaining why certain words were not acceptable in our family’s lexicon. In the same way I approached the topic of the sanctity of his own body and the birds and the bees, my feeling was that if I could tackle the subject of words in all of their glory head on, we could build a foundation of trust. Further, I know he understands when I tell him that it’s not a good idea to get in the habit of using explicit language every day because if he slips up at school in front of teachers or other kids, that could mean trouble he doesn’t wish to invite.

We live in one of the great music capitals in America: Austin, Texas. And the Austin City Limits music festival is the mother of them all in our state, so my son and I found our way there the autumn following that first inquiry into the world of explicit words. Starting with the kids’ stage, I started my son’s live music education with kid-appropriate lyrics and tunes.

Fast-forward to last year, when I excitedly looked forward to seeing Metallica and equally wanted to introduce my son to one of my favorite bands. So we cut a deal: he’d see Metallica if I agreed to take him to see Travis Scott. As it turned out, both of us were surprised; the hard-driving drums and raspy vocals appealed to him and the lights and showmanship impressed me.

Music is my coffee and his attitude adjuster. Every weekday morning, one of us picks a song while I prepare breakfast. It might be Young MC. It might be Post Malone. It might be The Cure. It might be TroyBoi. It never fails to start the day out right. It brings us together and reading from the same songbook.

He and I have developed a language based on our mutual appreciation of notes on a scale and words that rhyme and flow. It’s something we share and can find common ground even if we disagree. Sometimes, he even rolls his eyes.

“Really, mom? ABBA?”

And then I’ll catch him singing along.

This post originally appeared on the TODAY Show parenting page at this link.

For the third year in a row, Austin Parks Foundation (APF) is presenting Rock & Recycle and Divert It! during both weekends of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, Oct. 4–6 and Oct. 11–13, at Zilker Park. Rock & Recycle seeks to enhance the festival’s greening initiatives by encouraging festival-goers to join in recycling and sustainability efforts. Divert It! enlists volunteers to encourage and educate attendees by helping them compost, recycle, and send less waste to landfills.

Through Rock & Recycle and Divert It!, ACL goers have an opportunity to educate and involve Austinites in practices that are being implemented throughout the city, in part due to these programs. The thousands of attendees and hundreds of volunteers who aid in festival upkeep are an integral part of making Austin’s nearly 300 parks and green spaces beautiful and accessible.

Rock & Recycle rewards fans for filling one bag of recyclables from the festival grounds with a commemorative ACL Festival T-shirt, all designed by local artists from the HOPE gallery. Participants will be entered for a chance to win a Fairdale bicycle each weekend and a pair of 2020 ACL Fest tickets each night. APF will then set aside $5 per participant for the Recycling in Parks initiative, which aims to provide recycling in all of Austin’s 300+ parks. 

Divert It! will have a larger presence on the grounds, and fans will be both encouraged and educated to divert waste from the festival toward composting efforts. Volunteers will be present at both food courts to help festival-goers correctly sort materials into compost, recycling, and landfill bins. During the 2018 ACL Fest, fans, volunteers, and staff helped divert 34% of waste from the landfill.

APF is also partnering with the following organizations focused on the environment, public space, and community engagement: 

• Live Painting with HOPE: The artists that design the 12 recycling tour bins, and special Rock & Recycle lineup tees will be on site each day of the festival. Fans can stop by to watch the masters work!

• Don’t Mess With Texas: TXDOT’s signature litter abatement campaign will have bins on site to remind festival attendees that our parks, trails, and green spaces are no place for litter.

• Kammok Lounge: This local Austin brand, focused on community and the great outdoors, promotes access to thriving public green spaces and will host festival-goers in a shady hammock lounge in partnership with NIDO structures. 

In 2018, over 300 volunteers led the Rock & Recycle program and more than 7,900 fest attendees participated in recycling efforts throughout the festival. Beyond these programs, attendees contribute to Austin’s green spaces by simply purchasing a ticket as a percentage of sales go back into our park system, which in turn contributed $5.1 million towards Austin’s green spaces last year alone. APF and ACL Fest’s signature greening programs are setting the bar for what is both acceptable and necessary. The City of Austin is also working to make recycling and composting more accessible in Austin’s public spaces year-round by partnering with Austin Parks Foundation and ACL Fest as well as other special events throughout the year.

For the past 14 years, APF has been the presenting partner and primary beneficiary of ACL Fest. The festival has contributed more than $35 million to Austin’s parks system, making necessary improvements possible to parks, pools, rec centers, trails, and greenbelts. Through the partnership between APF and ACL Fest, major renovations have been made to beloved spaces in the city, including $5 million towards Auditorium Shores renovation, $2.5 million towards Zilker Park Lawn restoration and tree care, $1 million towards Republic Square renovation, and more.  

For more information on Rock & Recycle and Austin Parks Foundation’s programs during ACL Fest 2019, visit www.austinparks.org/aclfest. 

Today, Stanley Black & Decker kicked off its second annual Maker Month, a celebration of the makers and creators shaping the world around us. Throughout the month of October, the company encourages students, parents, educators and makers of all ages to participate in activities and challenges that spark curiosity and build excitement for the power of making.

There are 10 million manufacturing jobs around the world that remain unfilled due to the skills gap. Stanley Black & Decker sees that gap and is committed to ensuring its workers, as well as those in surrounding communities, can gain the right skills and secure sustainable careers.

The second annual Maker Month builds momentum from last year’s inaugural celebration, when the company engaged more than 17,000 students and 3,000 schools from more than 40 countries through STEAM projects. For 2019, Stanley Black & Decker seeks to inspire 45,000 creators and makers through Maker Month initiatives as part of its goal to empower 10 million people by 2030.

Challenges, Scholarships and Projects

As part of its partnership with Discovery Education, the global leader in standards-aligned digital curriculum resources, engaging content, and professional learning for K-12 classrooms, Stanley Black & Decker invites aspiring makers in the U.S. to participate in the Making for Good Challenge. During the challenge, teams of two-four students can submit their best ideas for product designs that achieve a social good. The top team will receive $15,000 and a virtual mentorship from Stanley Black & Decker. For rules and regulations, visit Innovation-Gen.com.

Additionally, the DEWALT Trades Scholarship program will award five students with a $10,000 scholarship to pursue secondary or post-secondary education at a trade school, vocational school or career center in the U.S. Starting October 21 students can submit an application and a video sharing why they entered the trade of their choice.

There will also be several opportunities for aspiring makers to learn more about careers in manufacturing:

• October 4: Stanley Black & Decker will participate in National Manufacturing Day at their various locations across the globe, introducing students and educators to modern manufacturing through tours, panel discussions and facility activities.

• October 10: Students, teachers and parents can tune in for Discovery Education’s virtual Day of Learning for a full day of online content, including career profiles and career connection resources by following @DiscoveryEd on Twitter.

• October 23: Stanley Black & Decker will sponsor Global Maker Day, an all-day live, online event featuring guest makers discussing projects, learning spaces, coding, 3D design and other topics. To learn more and register for the event, visit: https://www.globalmakerday.com/.

Throughout the month, Stanley Black & Decker employees around the world will partner with local schools and organizations to lend their time and skills to lead Maker Month activities.

Maker Month is just one example of Stanley Black & Decker's global initiatives to empower makers, which include Makerspace collaboration initiatives with universities and other organizations, global apprenticeship programs, sponsorship of WorldSkills International, the Manufactory 4.0 initiative and the STANLEY+Techstars Additive Manufacturing Accelerator program.

Stanley Black & Decker’s overarching Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy focuses the company's efforts on three key pillars: empowering makers, innovating with purpose and creating a more sustainable world.

For additional resources on maker activities and STEAM curriculum, click here.

Kids – and adults, too – learn experientially. On your next road trip, make your teen drivers part of the process and use the time to exhibit behaviors that put passenger safety first.

Please click on the button below to read my latest post at Traveling Mom about teen drivers and safety tips.

Please click on the button below to read my brand-new review at TravelingMom.com!

It's not too much for me to ask my son to be better than I was as a kid. It's not too much for me to expect that things could be different now.

I’m not taking it for granted that my son knows that kids and parents come in all shapes, sizes, genders, religions, and colors. Talking about how people are different is not separating them, it’s uniting them under one category: human. Friends of different abilities and of color have taught me that the right thing to teach my kid is not to be difference-blind, but to be difference-inclusive. Talk about how people are distinctive… uncommon… unique… and celebrate those differences. Embrace them.

If I do my job well as a mother of a future adult leader, then I am raising a son who will grow up to be empathetic and kind to all. He will become someone who helps others see that we are all humans. All deserve respect.

Please read the rest of the story at TODAY Parents!

This post was written in collaboration with Waterloo Dentistry and Project Smile. Project Smile is an event to raise awareness for underserved communities unable to access dental care in the Austin, TX area.

Your family’s oral health (especially your young children’s) can be difficult to care for at times. However, following these simple tips will help you to not only prevent potential future oral and dental health problems but to also promote healthy habits for your family’s future. 

Stop Thumbsucking Early 

While thumbsucking might seem harmless and even cute at times, it can have long-lasting developmental effects. Dental malocclusion or tooth misalignment is the most common issue caused by thumbsucking. Tooth misalignment can lead to a multitude of issues, including bite misalignments and even speech impediments.

Children can be cruel to each other, unfortunately, and speech impediments or tooth misalignments may even lead to social issues.

The key to preventing these issues is to stop thumbsucking early. For babies and toddlers, use a pacifier. A pacifier helps to protect the development of your child’s teeth and is easier to stop as a habit than thumbsucking. For older children, it may not be as easy. Thumbsucking is often a comforting act for your child, so try using encouragement and positive reinforcement to help them stop. 

Prevent Developmental Problems With At-Home Checkups 

As your child grows and their permanent teeth develop, there are many opportunities for dental health problems to arise. From gum infection to permanent teeth growing out of alignment, many problems can be curbed with the help of a simple checkup.

One of the most important dental checkups your child can have is the one that you give them. Checking your child’s teeth regularly can help you identify anything from a little food stuck between teeth to tooth decay.

No matter the state of your child’s mouth, regular checkups can help you to identify and treat problems early on. Even if the issue is something serious that you can’t treat at home, you will be able to bring them to a professional before it gets too serious.

For teenagers, checking on the development of their wisdom teeth is also incredibly important, as infections can develop in the gums where the wisdom teeth are growing. 

Wear a Mouthguard 

If your child plays sports of any kind, it’s a good idea to get them a mouthguard to use. Even if your child is not playing contact sports like football or wrestling, mouthguards are still highly recommended. Children playing sports like tennis, basketball, or soccer can still be bumped by people or objects in the mouth, potentially hurting the alignment of their teeth.

Mouthguards are very accessible for a wide range of styles and prices. If buying a custom-fit appliance from a dentist isn’t an option for you, invest in a good quality mouthguard available at most sports equipment stores. These come with instructions for fitting and use. Also, be sure that the mouthguard that you buy is sport-appropriate, as different sports may require different types.  

Make Brushing and Flossing Fun 

One of the best ways to do this is by making brushing teeth fun. Brush together when possible. Listening to fun music can help you to not only have more fun but also time your brushing. Dentists suggest brushing for two minutes a session, with two sessions a day. If you’re not able to be there when it's time to brush teeth, use incentives to keep your younger children from skipping brushing. The same goes for their once-a-day flossing. Flossing might seem like a hassle but it has to be done, regardless of the inconvenience. There’s just no getting around it. 

Help Your Children Meet Their Dentist 

Is your child afraid of the dentist? Is that fear causing problems at the dentist's office? One of the best ways to help to address this fear is by letting your child meet their dentist before their next treatment. Call your local dentist office to set up a time where your child can meet their dentist or one of the dental hygienists to talk about who the dentist is and what they do.

Many fears come from confusion as to who the dentist is and what they do. Most dentists are willing to speak to their young patients about who they are and the procedures that your child may need to help them become more comfortable in the examination chair. A child is less likely to fear a visit to a dentist that they already trust so building that trust is key in helping your child put their fears to rest. 

As part of Project Smile, Dr. Graham Reed of Waterloo Dental will giveaway a free smile makeover. More information on the giveaway can be found on this page. https://www.waterloodentalatx.com/project-smile-2019/ 

 Waterloo Dental, 4106 Marathon Blvd Unit A , Austin, TX 78756, (512) 451-1222