It was a chilly winter night in December of 1991 and time for our annual trip to Christmas in the Park. This year we had our first, new baby girl, to share the sights and sounds with and were looking forward to sharing it with her. I had worked retail for many years, so to me the holidays did not mean much except extra

Have you noticed how the small things in life affect your everyday living?

Did you get a cheery "good morning" at the breakfast table this morning or just a grumble? Did you give a warm smile and happy greeting in return? Do you look people in the eye and give them your undivided attention when they speak? Do you really listen for a reply when you ask someone a question? Do you really care or do you insulate yourself from the negative views you hear each day?

In the enterprise, the more you know about the future, the better off you are. This allows executives to make plans for deployments, deal with IT dilemmas and make sound contingency plans. Yet one trend is clear: What we know about technology now will change. Email used to be the standard for most corporate communication, but now the writing is on the wall, giving way to more immediate social transmissions. These seven trends for 2013 will likely affect many businesses of all sizes—including yours.

While it is a painful truism that brutality and violence are at least as old as humanity, so, it seems, is caring for the sick and disabled.

And some archaeologists are suggesting a closer, more systematic look at how prehistoric people — who may have left only their bones — treated illness, injury and incapacitation. Call it the archaeology of health care.

CARLSTADT, N.J., Dec. 6, 2012 – Pantone LLC, an X-Rite company and the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 17-5641 Emerald, a lively, radiant, lush green, as the Color of the Year for 2013.

First grade gets you ready for second grade and so on. Life is always getting you ready for the next level. Every experience you have in life is getting you ready for the next experience. Readiness is all.

Whatever you get yourself ready for, life will give you the opportunity to earn; it must be earned in order to be cherished.

A letter arrived to the old professor's home where he had retired after teaching and graduating many generations of scholars. The letter came from James, an average student who had struggled to pass the professor's classes but had finally made it.

Dave Brubeck, a giant of modern jazz, died Wednesday at the Norwalk Hospital, near his longtime home in Wilton, Conn.

Mr. Brubeck died of heart failure while on his way to a regular doctor's appointment, according to Russell Gloyd, his longtime manager. Mr. Brubeck would have been 92 today.

Born in Concord and raised on a ranch in the Central Valley Mr. Brubeck became a San Francisco bandleader and pianist credited with one of the major innovations in popular music. Working with the San Francisco saxophonist Paul Desmond, Mr. Brubeck was the first pianist to break 4/4 time in jazz, by adding a fifth beat to the measure, according to jazz historian Ted Gioia.

Another Starbucks may soon pop up around the corner, as the world's biggest coffee company plans to add at least 1,500 cafes in the U.S. over the next five years.

The plan, which would boost the number of Starbucks cafes in the country by about 13%, was announced at the company's investor day in New York Wednesday. Taking into account Canada and South America, the company plans to add 3,000 cafes in its Americas region.

Worldwide, the company says it will have more than 20,000 cafes by 2014, up from its current count of about 18,000. Much of that growth will come from China, which the company says will surpass Canada as its second-biggest market.

Everyone cringes a bit when a beautiful sports car is blown up in movies. It happened in James Bond's Skyfall with the iconic Aston Martin DB5. But fret not, that wasn't an original car; it was a miniature replica that was "printed" out.

The production team could not destroy the vintage car, so they turned to a British company that could print a replica at one-third the original scale. The process is known as 'additive manufacturing' or 'rapid prototyping'. And here's the good news: it's getting cheaper and you can own such a printer.