Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
NATION
Good auto care can help cut costs
Are you perpetually scouting ways to trim household expenditures? Consider your car or, more precisely, improving its health and extending its life.Auto expenses can play havoc with a budget, so take a new, tender eye to car maintenance with a few oft-forgot tips from the October issue of Car & Travel Monthly, published by the Automobile Club of New York Inc.
» Remember your radiator: Although the fluid doesn't lose its freeze and boil protection properties, it will lose its ability to fight corrosion, and that can ruin a radiator over time. Antifreeze requires changing every two to five years, depending on the vehicle.» Study your owner's manual: It not only offers you scheduled maintenance, but will point out quirks specific to your particular make and model.
» Transmission rules: Many people forget the transmission, a vital partner in tandem with the engine. These are not maintenance-free. They will need new fluid and filters.
» Bathe your car: Not only will it look better, but frequent washing removes all sort of airborne and roadway gunk most metro area thoroughfares are tossing onto vehicles these days. Road salt, acid rain, dust -- all can be mitigated with ample fresh water.
» Drive properly: Don't be an idiot behind the wheel, squealing from stops with a lead foot, slamming on the brakes willy-nilly and shifting an automatic transmission without stopping fully. All of these will increase wear on your car, boosting maintenance costs.
Just your qualifications, please
Check the top of your resume, after the name and address bit. How do you kick it off?An evaluation of more than 100,000 resumes found that most of us (58.4 percent) state our career objectives and aspirations.
Yet, according to Vermont-based resume company ResumeDoctor.com, this approach doesn't accommodate one central fact about most job openings: Employers typically want to know what you're qualified to do, not what you'd like to do.
"I could say that I want to be a CEO of a large company, but that doesn't mean I'm qualified for the job," said Brad Fredericks, a ResumeDoctor.com partner.
So the company has a few tips:
» Create a headline. Begin with a concise statement conveying your title, industry background and area of expertise.» Know your audience. The best pitch is one tailored specifically for what the company needs.
» Just the facts. Cull vague and subjective language. Focus on quantifying your expertise and accomplishments.
Job satisfaction not just about pay
There have been ample reports in recent years of the huge gap between salaries of highly paid CEOs and the rest of us lower in the corporate hierarchy.But there's evidence of a broader, less prominent gap: the pay disparities between managers and hourly workers.
In a survey of how satisfied people are with their income, 60 percent of managers were OK with it, compared with only 44 percent of nonmanagers.
In the previous such survey, covering 1997 to 2000, the gap was 11 points.
"While pay is just one component of employee satisfaction, there is a link between greater employees' satisfaction with their pay, and overall satisfaction, as well as trust in management, and the feeling that management treats workers fairly," said Jeffrey Saltzman, chief executive of Sirota Consulting, a Purchase, N.Y.-based firm that specializes in attitude research.
The survey, begun in 1972, tracks employee attitudes about pay, job security and other employment issues at 346 companies.
Rocket ship shoots for $10M prize
MOJAVE, Calif. » SpaceShipOne is one flight away from clinching the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million award for the first privately developed manned rocket to reach space twice within 14 days.SpaceShipOne was scheduled to be launched today in an attempt to reach an altitude of at least 328,000 feet, or just over 62 miles, for the second time since Wednesday.
The choice of pilot for the flight remained a secret on the eve of launch, as it did last week.
That flight and a test flight into space on June 21 were flown by Michael Melvill, who has been awarded the nation's first commercial astronaut wings by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Melvill is one of four pilots who have undergone special training to fly SpaceShipOne. He had difficulty controlling the ship during the June flight but still reached 62 miles. Last week, he flew a perfect trajectory to an altitude of 337,600 feet, or nearly 64 miles, but the ship began rolling as it neared space.
After a safety analysis, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan posted data about the rolls on his Web site to address what he called the "incorrect rumors" that have circulated.
The St. Louis-based Ansari X Prize was founded in 1996 to kick-start private-sector development of rocket ships.
