If you are planning a vacation, you may be looking for fun in the sun. One of the places you could consider might be Hawaii.

If you like less-crowded vacation spots, you should definitely consider Kauai, Hawaii’s least-traveled large island. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. The snorkeling is great. There are colorful fish everywhere you put your mask in the water.

2. The surf is high in many spots, but the island’s south side offers sheltered beaches, good for kids.

3. You can kayak the rivers and ocean beaches, and you can zipline through the treetops in the rain forest, courtesy of island outfitters.

4. The coast of northwest Kauai caught the eyes of several Hollywood directors, who used it in movies from South Pacific to Jurassic Park to King Kong and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It will catch your eye too! Take a boat, kayak, or helicopter to see it.

5. You can use frequent flyer miles to get there.

6. Since it is a U.S. destination, U.S. liability laws apply for diving outfitters. So you are more likely to have a safe diving experience with safe equipment than in non-U.S. destinations.

7. Kauai is a great place for those seeking the road less traveled, away from the crowds.

8. Endangered monk seals take naps on public beaches. Endangered sea turtles can be found in the waters out a little ways from the beach. Enjoy!

9. You can find out all about Niihau, the neighboring island forbidden to outsiders for nearly 100 years, 17 miles away.

10. Worried about funding a vacation? Using U.S. currency at a U.S. tropical destination may be quite a benefit for you.

So, planning your next vacation, scope out Kauai.

You may be wondering how you can make the Internet safe for your kids. You’d like to protect them from the objectionable sites and emails that would be so easy for them to find.

I bet you would like to find a program you could buy that you could install on your computer to block objectionable content, but permit research.

Here’s the bad news: filtering programs can’t do the job by themselves. NentNanny and other applications like it search for certain words in the Web site your child is clicking on. Simple words like “belly” can be targets for blocking, causing frustration, while research on “breast cancer” may be impossible.

But programs that look for words fail completely if the site has no objectionable words–only objectionable photos. My teenage son figured this out. He used Google Images to look for objectionable sites. He found them despite the fact that our filter, NetNanny, was turned on.

In fact, the filter program could never block these sites because it searches for words. It can’t evaluate pictures.

So, what can you as a parent do?

*The computer should be where you can monitor what the kidsa re doing. They should be where YOU are.

*Only the adults should know the login password. The kids will have to have permission to get on.

*Ensure that the kid logs off when the computer session is over, or turns the computer off. This makes the password required for the next session.

*Use filtering software. It may help.

*Kids should be told what you expect from them, and the consequences of disobedience.

*If a child is just using a word processor or some other local program, disconnect the Internet cable.

*Make younger kids use your email address. Then you can be sure to delete that filth that lands in the inbox from time to time. Or, as the kids get older, give them their own but instruct them to give out their address only to trusted friends.

Following these precautions will help you keep your kids safe, and will teach your teenagers good habits for avoiding temptations.

In Star Trek, the logical mind of Mr. Spock contrasts with the emotional minds of everyone else. But this is fiction. In reality, each of us needs to be both logical and emotional.

Logical thinking may not come naturally. Nevertheless, it’s a skill we each need to develop, just to identify logic traps.

Here’s what you can do about it: teach logic to your child. Why?

1. Your child will be able to understand cause and effect, and make better life choices. For instance, a child who understands logical consequences will be more able to counter the voices of “friends” who urge him to misuse his money and his time.

2. Problem-solving will be something your child can do as he grows older. Faced with any problem, such as dealing with a plugged-up sink or a broken-down car, your child will be able to list options and pick one.

3. Your child will be able to see through advertising. For example, he will be able to find circular reasoning in an advertising slogan such as “Happy people buy Grandma’s Granola.” The advertiser really is saying, “Buy Grandma’s Granola, and you will be happy.” Is your child able to identify circular logic such as this?

4. What about persuasion in the media? Let’s say a reporter asks five people whether they think illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay. All of them say yes. Then the reporter concludes that everyone wants illegal immigrants to be able to stay. Does your child see the problem here? The error is in the size of the sample group–too small. The reporter needs a much broader sample.

5. Your child will be able to evaluate what someone says by looking at who said it. For instance, if your dentist tells you how to take care of your teeth, you should follow his advice-he’s an expert. But if he tells you how to fix your car, you might not consider him an expert on that!

6. Your child will be able to understand how computers think. Computers think in nitty-gritty ways: if statement A is true, then do action B. Otherwise, do action C. Our brains tend to skip around in comparison. But learning to program a computer to follow a logical sequence helps the child learn to think logically, too. In the Information Age, this is a very useful skill to develop, now or later. The more your child knows about computers, the more he will be master of that device that is mastering our lives.

Real estate investing is far from easy, many people would say.

Buying a property and hoping to re-sell it quickly at a gain isn’t a workable scenario in the current business climate.

If you’re looking for long-term appreciation, you need to purchase a property at a price that allows room to pay management fees. Or you can manage the property. Here’s what’s hard to predict: the tenants.

Commercial real estate is risky too, depending on the local market. So you are thinking about residential real estate. Managing it yourself may mean you are doing a lot of maintenance. And how do you find the right tenant? How do you create a lease? What you want is a stable situation with a tenant who stays a long time and keeps up the property. How do you get there?

You may decide to try a the truly hands-off alternative: a real estate investment trust (REIT). THis is a publicly traded fund that owns property (usually commercial) and/or mortgages. The value of these funds doesn’t trend with the stock market, so that can diversify your portfolio.

Like mutual funds, REIT funds must levy fees. The fees may cut into your profits, as owner. Instead, perhaps you would like to own a property outright.

Here’s a proposition to consider: an assisted investment where you are given a choice of new single-family houses for rental from low-cost local markets. You can also take advantage of negotiated contracts with reliable property managers, insurers, and loans at 5 to 10 percent down.

Using such a system, You can set up an investment with known costs, and then let the tenants pay off the mortgage for you. It’s a great way to start a college fund for your young child. All you will have to do is sell the house in 15 years and extract the equity.