Intervals

The Chimes and Intervals, two nonprofit groups serving children and adults with mental retardation, have merged operations to provide better service and save operating costs.Under the sole leadership of Terry Allen Perl, president and chief executive officer of Chimes, the groups will work together to complement their experiences with different types of clients.The groups will keep their names and boards."We merged to enhance programs and services and to provide more cost-efficient administrative support," said Mary "Terry" Chapman, who was chief executive officer of Intervals and remains as its chief operating officer.

Bridge over Stoney Creek will close to pedestriansThe bridge that carries Fort Smallwood Road over Stoney Creek in Pasadena is being closed to pedestrian traffic by the State Highway Administration from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily through Thursday while maintenance crews work on the bridge.Motorists also can expect single lanes to be closed between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.On Friday, the single-lane closings are scheduled between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. The $352,500 project is to be completed by May 20, highway officials said.

ON Independence Day, suggestions for financial independence: "When buying Treasuries, divide your investments by maturity dates. This way you'll always have funds maturing so if you need the money you'll get full face value, or close to it." (Dick Davis Income Digest, June)"Fed up with your bank's numerous fees and low rates on deposits? If so, America's brokerage firms are eager to sign you up for an asset-management account. You may do better banking with your broker." (Money, July)If you're looking for utilities, BGE and Potomac Electric Power stand in the highest quality categories in Argus' latest "Electric Utility Rankings."

One piece of unsolicited mail, several credit-card billings, a few pleasant beach days and several uncomfortable hours at sea have arisen so far in my 15-month relationship with the vacation certificate industry. But like many troubled relationships, ours comes down to a few waves of anxiety and a couple of decisive moments.The most crucial of those moments cropped up on a January afternoon on Florida's southeast coast. My wife and I sat in the last-chance salesroom, the one that many customers don't realize is a salesroom until they're in it. Ahead of us lay the Florida-Bahamas vacation that lured us here in the first place.

I've been very fortunate in my choice of books recently; they've been fascinating. I just put down William Manchester's "American Caesar," about Douglas MacArthur. It's outstanding. He's not shy about making judgments and he always backs those judgments solidly.And Alan Bullock's "Hitler and Stalin" is terrific. He compares the two lives in five-year intervals - he really shows how horrible they both were.I don't read fiction much, but I did like "The Runaway Jury" by John Grisham. It was very topical, about a tobacco company lawsuit.

Some women with asthma find that they seem more likely to have attacks around the time that their menstrual periods begin. But even though the possibility of such a link was first reported in a medical journal in 1931, it has never been proved or studied extensively.A study appearing in the current issue of Archives of Internal Medicine provides evidence that the connection is real, and its authors said in interviews that some women who had asthma might benefit from additional treatment with preventive medications to ward off attacks at that time.

APPROACHING Halloween, we present some financial ghosts, goblins and goodies:HAUNTED HOUSE: "There's a downside to today's institutional buying wave. These managers aren't buying because they want to; they do it to show respectable results. In other words, they have to. I worry that they could then sell just as easily as they bought." (Laszlo Birinyi, Forbes, Nov. 4)PUMPKIN PIE: "Investors should now use 'dollar-cost averaging' -- set amounts at regular intervals (each month, quarter, six months, etc.)

History says Libertytown took a turn for the worse the day folks voted not to let the railroad wind its way through the area.Talk to people who live in the Frederick County village today, however, and they tell a different story.Jan Dijkstra and Kristina Zaal found their dream home on Main Street in Libertytown. Veronica and Dean Perkins discovered a business opportunity. And Vince and Tami VanSant looked only as far as their own front yards to find a place to raise their children with the same strong morals that punctuated their own youth.

TURKEY, Texas -- Out on the sculpted caprock and between the rows of cotton, the wind is tearing along like a runaway freight train, raising curtains of dust and playing holy heck with the electric lines. Inside the Bob Wills Center, the people of Turkey are belly-up to heaping helpings of their namesake bird, eaten on long folding tables off plastic foam plates."Hi!" grins a weathered retiree in a plaid shirt and a well-worn cowboy hat. "I'm Ray Whitaker and I live in Turkey, Texas -- just the other side of Gobbler's Knob!"

The Dow Jones industrial average recovered from a 15-point early-morning loss yesterday and managed a slim gain. Following bonds higher, the Dow index edged up 1.62 points to close at 3,755.43. Many investors remained on the sidelines, awaiting Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan's appearance on Capitol Hill tomorrow.Speaking of stocks, here's good advice: "The single most important rule about successful investing is to avoid taking a big loss. Dollar-cost averaging -- investing a set amount of money at fixed time intervals -- is the investor's best approach to long-term investing.

After almost two weeks of disruption, the Maryland Transit Administration will restore service to the northern half of Baltimore's light rail system tomorrow - just in time for the Ravens' 1 p.m. game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The MTA said it can resume service to stations north of North Avenue because it has devised a way to operate trains on slippery tracks without causing damage to the wheels. A computer system that forced a hard stop when trains encountered slippery conditions - such as fallen leaves - caused so much damage to the wheels that the MTA was sending cars to its maintenance shop faster than it was able to fix them.

Want to walk but don't do much of it now? Here are some tips on how to get started. The basics: The goal is to get your active metabolic rate between three and six times your resting rate. For most people, that means walking between 3 and 4 mph. Not sure whether your pace is on target? Try timing yourself at a track or on a treadmill at the gym to see what 3.5 mph feels like, says Steven Blair, professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina. How long? Ten-minute chunks at a time are fine - but you'll build even more endurance by sustaining a longer bout.

TURIN, Italy --Ever have one of those days? I mean the really, really bad ones. When you can't nap because of all that noise outside your window. And then when you try to catch a bus, someone went and changed the schedule on you, and the thing never shows up. So you curse, scream and stamp your feet until someone relents and gives you a ride. Of course, by now you're running late, so forget about feeling loose and comfortable. You bail on your quadruple toe loop and abandon five other jumps altogether.

NEW ORLEANS -- At almost any time of day, vehicles on this city's grandest avenue, St. Charles, crawl along at 7 mph. The French Quarter is packed with cars and delivery trucks, not to mention horse-drawn carriages. Side streets in the Garden District and Uptown are blocked, offering no escape. More than half the city's 450 traffic signals are nonfunctioning or nonexistent, blown away by Hurricane Katrina or corroded by the floodwaters that followed. Nearly five months after the storm, traffic in New Orleans is, in a word, terrible.

Every generation deserves its mismatched-lovers-who-aren't-as-mismatch ed-as-they-think movie. You know, where boy meets girl, boy and girl develop a friendship that stops just short of being a relationship, boy and girl spend years before realizing how made for each other they are. Think When Harry Met Sally. Think Four Weddings and a Funeral. Now you can add A Lot Like Love, in which Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet meet over passionate, nameless lovemaking in an airplane restroom and spend the next seven years trying to deny there's more at work here than spur-of-the-moment passion.

What is Fartlek training? Ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different definitions of Fartlek training. Derived from the Swedish words for speed and play, Fartlek is a training technique in which you vary intensity in random intervals based on how the body feels. Most often applied to running, the term has come to be loosely defined as any interval training without pre- determined, measured intervals (including manual resistance exercises like squats and push-ups). A Fartlek session might involve pinpointing a landmark ahead (like a mailbox or bend in the road)

Getting a chiseled body this year could be as easy as pushing a button -- well, almost -- as the newest fitness videos put a spin on a popular trend. Think of it as Pilates fusion. Jammed for time but want to maintain those rock-hard abs? Try a tape that mixes the strength-building Pilates program with weight-training. Kids got the sniffles? Burn fat at home with a video that fuses aerobics with Pilates intervals. Intimidated by gyms but wondering what the Pilates hype is all about?

The State Highway Administration will temporarily close all lanes in 15-minute intervals along southbound Interstate 97 at Route 174 between 11 p.m. today and 5 a.m. tomorrow, weather permitting. The lanes are being closed so that crews can remove the steel girders from the Route 174 (Quarterfield Road) bridge as part of a project to replace it. State police will assist with traffic control.

The Maryland Department of Transportation's State Highway Administration will temporarily close westbound and eastbound lanes of Interstate 70, for 15-minute intervals, daily through Friday. The work is part of the reconstruction of the interchange between I-70 and Interstate 270 in Frederick County. Work will begin each evening at 7 and continue until 5 a.m. Single lanes will be closed in both directions beginning at 7 p.m. About 10 p.m., all lanes will be closed for 15 minutes in periodic intervals.

Tango music will be accompanied by the aroma of salsa and coffee in the Media Center of Clarksville Middle School today. Seventh-graders will culminate their study of Latin America cultures with a daylong fiesta. Children in the Gifted and Talented Program's social studies class of Emily Savopoulos have prepared booths that celebrate subjects from Aztec floating gardens to dance to Carnival, which is held annually in Rio de Janeiro. More serious topics include the Colombian drug cartel and children of poverty.