Things To Do In SW Florida

School starts up again soon, and parents will trade fighting over video games and cell phones to fighting over schoolwork, video games and cell phones. It’s not an ideal world we have created for ourselves, but it does not have to be this way.

Finding a way to cut down on screen time is arguably a health intervention for young brains. The U.S. surgeon general last year called for social media platforms to include health warnings for children, and smartphone use has been found to intrude on sleep.

With three teenage boys in my home — well, one is 11, but he is furiously trying to keep up with his brothers — there are lessons I’ve learned in keeping their screen time down to a minimum. These tactics are not always successful, and it takes constant vigilance. But when I see one kid doing origami while waiting, or the other working on his art projects, and the other competing in not one, not two, but three different sports, it feels worth it. Exhausting, but also worth it.

Get to know your router

It’s not uncommon for people to get a router, set up the Wi-Fi and never look at it again. But parents should see the router as an untapped resource when it comes to limiting screen time. Newer routers have built-in features that allow the identification and labeling of individual devices that are logged in — even the ones that come from your internet provider. For example, Spectrum, which I have used in the past, offers the ability to examine each device, match it in the router settings to the device’s IP address, and turn the wireless connection off and on at will. read more

Downtown Kissimmee’s commercial real estate market is on fire. The city received three proposals from developers eager to transform a blighted Kmart and Big Lots site on W. Vine Street into a vibrant, urban neighborhood.

The three developers — Skyview Companies, Wendover Housing Partners and Capstrata/Hedrick Brothers — all proposed a mixed-use district on the 22-acre site with commercial uses fronting on Vine and a large pond on the north end of the site. The similarities end there. The two groups that shared their master plans with GrowthSpotter offered divergent views on how much density is feasible in today’s market, though all are high on the opportunity.

The Kmart redevelopment is just the latest in a series of promising efforts by city leaders to draw private investment in downtown Kissimmee. Most prominent has been the hot competition to bring a hotel to the urban center, which led the city to choose two developers building separate projects after years of market indifference. read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — The business of hurtling humans into space is getting routine on the Space Coast with the fourth flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon queued up for this week. The crew going for that ride arrived in Florida on Saturday.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, the quartet for SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, flew into the former space shuttle landing site at KSC after noon under the searing sun as temperatures on the tarmac climbed into the 90s.

“Sorry for the heat, but it’s Florida in the summertime,” said veteran Fincke, who kept cracking jokes and even made bunny ears behind Platonov’s head during a photo as the crewmates talked to media.

They’re slated to lift off as early as 12:09 p.m. Thursday from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A atop a Falcon 9 rocket riding in the Crew Dragon Endeavour.

“We’ve been training together for over a year now and we are ready to fly,” said Cardman, who is making her first spaceflight. “As a first-time flyer, this is the first moment when it’s really starting to feel real.” read more

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — After five years of working long nights as a truck driver, Julius Mosley wanted a change. He found driving unfulfilling, and his teenage son needed him to spend more time at home.

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So Mosley took a job as a customer service representative at a telecommunications company near his home. The employee benefits included being able to take job-related classes for free. He decided he wanted to study leadership so he could learn about managing teams and helping people become the best versions of themselves.

His company, Spectrum, paid for a 10-week front-line manager certificate program that Mosley went on to complete. Then it covered the tuition cost for a bachelor’s degree in leadership and organization studies that he’s currently pursuing. The company also promoted him to a management position while he took college courses online. read more

Margaret Giles, Morningstar

Many of the best investing moves are made on autopilot. Just look at the track record of automatic payroll deductions and savings increases.

Other investing decisions, like a transition into retirement, require a more hands-on approach.

Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, recommends taking a preemptive approach as you get closer to retirement. The key is to visualize what you want your retirement to look like while you have enough time to make any adjustments you might need to get you there.

Here are five steps to take now if you plan to retire in the next five years:

1. Consider the role of work in retirement

Decide whether some kind of work is realistically part of your retirement plan. That income stream can make your retirement spending simpler, but it shouldn’t be the linchpin of your whole plan. That’s because you may not be able to work even if you want to.

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For some employees, education benefits such as tuition assistance prove life-changing read more