Designated Driver Gift Cards Available at saveMOlives.com

Looking for the perfect gift for that friend who has everything? Send a Designated Driver Gift Card and serve as their sober driver this holiday season to ensure they make it home safe and avoid a DWI arrest.

“Even a little holiday cheer can impair your driving,” said Leanna Depue, chair of the executive committee of the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety. “These gift cards offer a free, safe alternative to driving impaired.”

The gift cards, distributed by the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety, can be sent electronically at saveMOlives.com. Designated Driver Gift Card-givers merrily offer to be a sober chaffeur to the recipient. When sent online, recipients are asked to return the favor.

Missouri law enforcement will be cracking down on impaired drivers Dec. 7-13 as part of a special holiday campaign known as You Drink & Drive. You Lose.

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually filled with lots of holiday travel and cheer. Unfortunately, it can also be a very dangerous time on Missouri roads. In 2008, between the two holidays, 94 people died in traffic crashes (15 were alcohol related) in Missouri and 5,163 were injured (with 363 related to alcohol).

Even if you are not involved in a crash, consider the consequences if you are caught driving while intoxicated: you could have your license suspended, or even lose it, incur thousands of dollars in fines, and end up serving jail time.

Make sure your friends and loved ones Arrive Alive this holiday season. Give the gift of a safe lift. To send a Designated Driver Gift Card, visit saveMOlives.com.

Techcrunch has a great story about one of the best known scams going, Video Professor. It falls squarely into the "if it sounds too good to be true" category, yet people still fall for it every day. Perhaps it's the sheer volume of advertisements they run. The computer is a confusing tool for many people, it's sad that companies like this take advantage of them. It is perhaps even worse that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) still allows minimal disclosure on actual charges-- something that needs to be changed.

“The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” – 1914 by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1850-1936)

Here’s wishing you and yours a pleasant holiday. Today in America, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November, thanks in part to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress in late 1941. It’s interesting to note that despite the crisis surrounding the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, Congress and the president found time to agree on formalizing the date of the holiday. Roosevelt signed the bill on December 26th.

President Abraham Lincoln began the annual observation of Thanksgiving in 1863. From then until 1941, Thanksgiving was a holiday that was an annual “declaration” by the sitting president observed on the final Thursday of the month. Before Lincoln, Thanksgiving was a sporadic occurrence.

Washington proclaimed two thanksgivings while serving as our nation’s first president, Adams likewise in 1798 and 1799. Thomas Jefferson issued no proclamations in office, but later James Madison took up the tradition in 1814 and 1815.

The first modern American Thanksgiving is generally recognized as a celebration at the Plymouth Plantation in 1621. William Bradford mentioned a “great store of wild turkeys” – so perhaps that celebration began the tradition of turkey being served that continues nearly 400 years later.

Submitted

JEFFERSON CITY – What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Thanks to the quick-thinking of Missouri Department of Transportation employees, residents at a St. Louis area independent living facility can keep quality transportation on their list.

Gambrill Gardens is a not-for-profit independent living center in Ellisville. They utilize a wheelchair-lift-equipped transit vehicle daily to assist residents with doctor appointments, grocery shopping and other errands. A crisis occurred for them this month when their vehicle was deemed unsafe and unavailable for use. In fact, Jim Manis with Gambrill Gardens called it “an emergency transportation need.”

The normal method for the facility would be to work through a grant application process to request funds for assistance in purchasing a new vehicle. With seniors that need transportation each day and a tight budget, Gambrill Gardens didn’t have the time or money for that process and required a faster way to help their residents.

Manis sent out a call for help and MoDOT employees were quick to provide an innovative solution that enabled the facility to have a vehicle for use within two weeks.

Recent federal recovery act funds enabled MoDOT to replace a large amount of existing rural and small urban transit vehicles. Most had 200,000-300,000 miles and had far exceeded useful life. Once vehicles are replaced, MoDOT’s Multimodal Unit works with local transit agencies to dispose of the used vehicles. They were able to work with Manis to quickly arrange the purchase of one of these older vehicles that still had some life and meet the seniors’ needs.

“It is not the new vehicle we eventually would like to get, but it really helped us get through this emergency,” said Manis.

“We normally are only able to help with about half of the new vehicle requests we receive,” said Brian Weiler, MoDOT’s multimodal operations director. “But recovery act funds created this unique opportunity to help.”

MoDOT administers several federal and state assistance programs for Missouri, thirty-five public transportation agencies and about 190 specialized transportation providers.

“We didn’t expect help so quickly,” said Manis. “Government doesn’t usually act this way, and it really helped us to get through this emergency.”

Submitted

More and more employers are offering their employees the option of directing their health care spending with Flexible Spending Account Plans (FSA), “Cafeteria” Benefit Plans or Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA). And savvy plan participants are directing that spending towards eye care, according to Dr. Brian Eveland, Therapeutic Optometrist with the Lake of the Ozarks Family Eyecare Associates.

“Most participants know they can use their plan dollars for eye examinations, eyeglasses and contact lenses,” Dr. Brian Eveland said. “But there are many more ways to apply those dollars towards eye care.”

For example, plan participants can use their accounts to pay for prescription medications for eye conditions such as dry eye syndrome, contact lens care solution, even LASIK or laser vision surgery.

Dr. Brian Eveland added that these plans may be used to extend the benefits of a patient’s vision plan. “A patient, who is covered by a separate vision plan, can use flex dollars for the co-payment on a covered eye health examination Dr. Eveland said. “ Or, if their vision plan provides one pair of eyeglasses, the patient can use plan dollars to pay for computer glasses, driving glasses or prescription sunglasses.”

Some plans have a deadline by which the employee must use the dollars in their account or forfeit them. Contact lens patients who face such a deadline may consider purchasing an annual supply of lenses with their remaining plan dollars, Dr. Eveland added.

Dr. Eveland owns and practices at Family Eyecare Associates with locations in Camdenton, Lake Ozark, and Laurie or online at www.LakeFamilyEyecare.com. He is a member of Vision Source, the nation’s number one network of private practice optometrists. Founded in 1991, The Vision Source network includes more than 2,000 offices in all 50 states and in Canada.