For us here in New Zealand Christmas is tomorrow.  For our friends in the US and Europe they have to wait another day.

Many of our customers are in other parts of the world where they have their own special holidays.  Irrespective of where you are or what your beliefs we are all bound in time and that means the calendar year of 2009 is almost at an end.

I know that it has been a tough year for many, and we all have to experience those from time to time as part of our life experience.

I believe that 2010 will be a good year for Xtend-Life customers as we introduce some new innovations that will help keep you feeling and looking good.

All the best to everyone, whether they are a customer or only a reader of the blog...you are all important.

Warren

To all those good folk who have posted questions and I have been a long time answering I do apologise.  Over the last couple of weeks I had to go to Mexico and then to Las Vegas for an industry conference.  I expected to have better internet connections but ran into computer problems.

I am trying to catch up and will do so over the next couple of days.  I have to fly out to Asia in the morning and then to India later it the week.

I have been training up some new staff to take some of the work load off me so I can be more regular with this blog.  We will also be starting a new Xtend-Life blog in addition to my own personal one.  More about this soon.

We will also be launching our new updated website later this week.  More soon.

Recently we invested in some new equipment and expanded part of our factory.

I thought that you might like to see a short photographic essay by Chris Hellyar our IT manager.  You will find his comments at the bottom of each photo as you move through them.

http://static.xtend-life.com/MoveSlide/

We will do another one after they have been commissioned and the new walls and ventilation has been installed.

When I am out of the country it is always with some concern when I answer a call on my cell phone early in the morning.  I am in Thailand at the moment and early yesterday when I was asleep my cell phone rang and I learnt that my only sister had just died.

I share this with you as there are some lessons to be learnt.  Diane was only two years older than me but, was not particularly health conscious…in fact, not health conscious at all.

She was a wonderful person but had always had faith in her Doctors.  Her heart health over recent years had begun to deteriorate…ironically since she was talked into going on statin drugs and other medication!  I did my best to have her consider other options and use our products but her Doctor was not positive about them and insisted on her taking only her medication and as such she never tried them…not even our Omega 3 DHA fish oil.

From her perspective I can understand this…after all I was her brother and I don’t wear a white coat and have a bunch of degrees hanging on the wall.  I have learnt years ago that if someone really doesn’t want to know about ways they can change their health that the information cannot be forced on them…they have to ask and be receptive…sadly, that principle also has to extend to family.

Earlier this week Diane went to hospital to have a new heart valve.  This should have been a pretty straightforward procedure but the valve was slightly out of shape and as such the operation took a lot longer than anticipated.  As a result air got in her system and up into the brain.

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I just had to share this with you.

A couple of days ago I was at the airport in Christchurch, New Zealand waiting for a flight to Auckland and then on to Shanghai.

Well, when I arrived at the airport in CHCH I realised that I had forgotten my tooth brush.  So, I went to the bookshop in the terminal building to buy one.  They had a double toothbrush set for NZ$3.50 so I bought it.  Only problem was that I couldn't find any New Zealand currency, although I knew that I had some in amongst a variety of currency that I carry. 

Anyway, I am sorting through this wad of cash which had 16 currencies whilst the attendant patiently waited.  I could have used my EFPOS card or a credit card but I was determined to find some NZ cash because it was such a small amount.

In the meantime a woman came in to buy a newspaper and had overheard my discussion because it was quite funny.  She insisted that the attendant takes the $3.50 out of her change.

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Just a short note from Warren.  Warren is travelling on business and inspecting new manufacturing equipment.  Unfortunately, due to a hectic schedule and technical difficulties Warren will not be able to post any comments for the next 10 days.  He is finding this very frustrating because not only is he unable to make any new posts, he cannot respond to any comments readers have posted.  After the next 10 days the blog will get back to normal.  Warren apologizes for the delay.  Thank you.  Kane Matthews

As another year draws to a close I would like to say on behalf of the team at Xtend-Life located in New Zealand, Thailand and the UK a BIG THANK YOU to all our loyal customers now spread throughout mcuh of the world.

Personally I would like to thank all the readers of my blog for their contributions. This interaction I have found most valuable and I sincerely hope that readers have benefited from it as well.

We are all aware that 2009 will be a tough year for many of us. But, most of us have experienced tough times at some stage in our lives and understand that when they pass we are the wiser for living through that period. I have certainly found that to be the case on more than one occasion.

Remember that although in tough times we have to compromise in many areas we should not do so with our health as it can create a downward spiral which can be hard to recover from.

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Not too many things make me mad but when people scam others it really gets me going.

Over the last few days I have been getting a lot of email which appear to be coming from my personal email address at xtend-life.com.  These emails have a variety of subject lines but they all come from a Canadian online pharmacy drug store.  At least that what it seems.

Because I get upset when someone hijacks my email address for sending spam I decided to look into it further.

This email is worse than just spam...it is also a scam.

How do I know?  Well first I had a look at their contact details to see if they had a phone number or physical address...and as expected there was none.

So, I thought I would proceed with a dummy order and see if it went to a secure page for processing.  As expected when the order was placed in the shopping cart it went to a check out page asking for credit card details.  This was not a secure page.  It did not even have the 's' after http which designates a secure page.

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