Judge Rickhoff's Blog

Recently, I assisted in the formation of a blog to be used locally as a community service. It's the blog of Judge Tom Rickhoff, and contains lots of good information for seniors - including an expanding links list. Organizations like AARP and the Bexar County Gold Pages are listed, along with more legal-specific sites like the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys.

The blog will also grow to include articles from probate professionals on various aspects of elder/senior issues; mental health concerns; guardianship matters, and the like.

Since both the links and the articles should be helpful to an audience larger than Bexar County, and wider than that of probate professionals, I'm sharing it here.

Free TV Guide

For those of you who watch your TV (and yes, I'm one of them), television guides are great - but who wants to pay for them? If you read your news online, then there's no insert from the Sunday paper for reference. And, those TV Guide magazines cost money. However, there are free television guides for your local area, and your particular provider (dish, cable, antenna, whatever) at various sites. My personal favorite: iwon.com. Not that it's perfect, I just can't find a better one online.

Drinking Water

Research has shown that drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day can burn off almost 35,000 calories a year, or about 10 pounds. It helps if the water is cold; then, the body has to expend some energy to heat the liquid to the body's 98 degrees. If you don't drink enough water, one doctor reports, your body fluids are out of balance, you experience fluid retention, unexplained weight gain and loss of thirst.

How much should you drink? If you are not overweight, then drink the standard 64 ounces a day. If you are overweight, then some say you should drink an additional 8 ounces for each 25 pounds you want to lose. Others report that you should drink 1/2 ounce for each pound you weigh: if you weigh 100 pounds, then you drink 50 ounces; if you weigh 200, then you drink 100. You get the idea.