By local and wire sources
Hospital offering classes for professionals, public
Kona Community Hospital will be offering “Basic Life Support for Health Care Providers” on Jan. 14 and 28. The four-hour class is held from 8 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the hospital’s conference room 3. Health care providers include physicians, nurses, nursing assistants, emergency medical technicians and others.
The hospital will also have one “Heartsaver First Aid Class,” an eight-hour first aid and CPR class for community members. It is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Jan. 18 in conference room 3. It covers CPR for infants, children and adults, automated external defibrillators training, choking techniques and first aid.
All of these classes are open to the community.
For more information, call 322-4560.
Jet ski business changes ownership
Owner Mark Chesler plans to unveil a revamped Kona Jet Ski Rentals at Kailua Pier.
The previous owner was “absentee” and a Maui resident. Under his leadership, the 12-year-old business, which was called Aloha Jet Ski, was “majorly neglected.” Of the available six rental jet skis, only two were used and the remaining were in disrepair. The boat used for taxiing customers and floating platform in the bay were also dilapidated, Chesler said.
Kona Jet Ski Rentals is closed temporarily for improvements and scheduled to reopen Friday. A nearly 20-year Kona resident, Chesler claimed he has invested nearly $500,000 toward revitalizing this business, which aims to attract tourists and residents.
To rent a jet ski, it’s $69 for 30 minutes and $99 for one hour. Kamaaina and ride along rates are also available, Chesler said.
Among the new and improved features are seven jet skis, one for staff and six for customers; a taxi boat; a truck; and a floating platform, complete with potted plants, shade, patio furniture, a barbecue and storage for the jet skis, Chesler said.
For more information, call 329-2SKI (754).
Older job-seekers turn to cosmetic ‘upgrades’
CHICAGO — Charlotte Doyle hit the gym two hours a day, embraced the latest fashions and made sure not a strand of gray peeked through her thick blond hair.
But at age 61, she got pink-slipped from her job in pharmaceutical sales. So, in 2009, shortly after she was laid off after 29 years, Doyle decided to take an unorthodox step in a cutthroat job climate and get her teeth straightened.
“I need to do everything I can to be competitive,” said the Homewood, Ill., resident, flashing a gleaming mouth of metal. “I desperately want to work.”
While most older job-seekers know the importance of keeping their skills current, some are applying that same advice to their faces. From orthodontics to eyelifts — and everything in between — they are turning to such enhancements to gain an edge in the workplace.
Looks matter. In a quarter-century of research, Nancy Etcoff, a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School, has found that attractive people are more likely to be hired and promoted, earn higher salaries and be perceived as more intelligent and creative than their less fetching peers.
Not that plastic surgery, cosmetic dentistry or other elective treatments have escaped the recession. In 2009, doctors performed 12.5 million cosmetic procedures, a figure that has steadily decreased during the previous two years, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The only gains were in the minimally invasive categories — such as injectables like Botox and dermal fillers — that are less expensive and have scant recovery time.
It’s another tool, though perhaps an extreme one, for aging baby boomers, many of whom are counting on working past conventional retirement age as a hedge against longer life spans and shrinking nest eggs.
By local and wire sources