The Producers Guild of America held their annual award show Saturday, January 24, honoring the best producers in Hollywood. Those on the red carpet reflect on the oddest requests they have recieved on a project.
Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.
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Sure, having the perfect personality match helps a relationship.
So does the right age difference.
But if you want to have a long-lasting, intimate partnership, you and your boo need to be able to "repair" after conflicts that inevitably come up.
"In every good relationship," says psychologist John Gottman, couples have "repairing skills, and they repair early."
It's the number one commonality in successful relationships, he says.
Gottman's certainty comes from 42 years of studying relationships, both as a professor at the University of Washington and cofounder of the Gottman Institute with his wife Julie. John has authored or co-authored 41 books, and together they've demonstrated that human relationships behave in predictable, replicable, and scientifically verifiable ways.
To err is human, Gottman says, but to repair is divine.
"The thing that all really good marriages and love relationships have in common is that they communicate to their partner a model that when you're upset, I listen," he says. "The world stops, and I listen. And we repair things. We don't let things go. We don't leave one another in pain. We talk about it, and we repair."
That's where gentleness comes in.
"In really good relationships, people are very gentle with the way they come on about a conflict," Gottman says. "They don't bare their fangs and leap in there; they're very considered."
For example, he says: "Instead of pointing their finger and saying, 'You asshole!,' they say, 'Hey babe, it's not a big deal, but I need to talk about it and I need to hear from you.' In bad relationships, it's, 'You're defective, and you need therapy.'"
In this way, the most effective repairs rely on making emotional connections rather than scoring intellectual victories. An effective repair doesn't come from analyzing a problem and being right about it, Gottman says. Instead of turning it into a debate and telling them that they're wrong, you report how you feel.
Gottman says a successful repair might be: "When you walked out of the room, that really hurt my feelings, because I felt like what I was saying was unimportant to you. And I really need you to stay in the room when we talk about an issue."
Resolving conflict gracefully is a skill in itself.
"To get better at conflict, you have to learn how to talk to each other emotionally — listen to each others' conversation," Gottman says. "That's the skill of intimate conversation, and that's the key to sex and romance, too. If they don't have those conversations, over time their relationship will deteriorate. They'll be living in an ice palace."
So if you want to prevent your relationship from freezing over, it's necessary to get comfortable with the perceived heat of conflict.
Miscommunicating, misaligning, and otherwise disagreeing are all natural parts of relating to another human, Gottman says.
It goes against the popularly held belief that people who are "in love" don't hurt each other's feelings and can know what the other person desires without ever talking about it.
Even the most intimate human relationship — that between infant and mother — experiences misalignment.
Mothers and infants don't naturally fall into a beautiful, perfect rhythm of knowing what the other needs and wants. Developmental psychologists have found that mothers and three-month-olds are uncoordinated 70% of the time, and that it's up to the mother — and sometimes the baby — to repair the relationship.
As other psychologists have told us, tension and conflict play a major part in a relationship's maturation.
Gottman says that conflict, or telling the other person how you really feel, is especially difficult for Americans. The American view is that disagreements and conflict are "bad," he says.
That outlook is many generations in the making, stretching all the way back to before the colonies broke away from England. Because of that history, America has an "honor culture," he says, so opposition is seen as disrespectful.
"Anglo-Saxon cultures tend to be honor cultures, where any kind of opposition is viewed as a moral affront," he says. "You don't tolerate disagreement. You think that disagreement is dysfunctional, and agreement is functional. When someone says you're wrong, you take it as a moral affront."
Not every culture is like that.
"In Italy," Gottman says, "if somebody tells you that you're full of shit, you say, 'That's probably true, but so are you.'"
To get better at conflict, we need to shift our cultural perception of it.
Instead of seeing conflict as a sign that you and your partner are incompatible, you can see it as a natural, constructive part of knowing somebody really well.
SEE ALSO: Psychologists Say You Need These 3 Compatibilities To Have A Successful Marriage
DON'T MISS: The Key To A Happy Relationship When You Work Insane Hours
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A new facial spa treatment in Thailand uses snails because of perceived benefits.
A snail's 14,000 microscopic teeth produce a slight, reportedly "not unpleasant" scratching when it crawls on the surface of your face. Dermatologist Dr. Dissapong Panithaporn says that snail slime can have a limited, positive effect on the skin.
Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.
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If you want breaking news, sharp analysis, and insightful commentary from around the world -- while on the go -- you want the Business Insider iPhone app. With a few taps, you’ll have all the news via our fast, free, and convenient platform.
BI's app contains all your favorite sections (Finance, Tech, Entertainment, Strategy, Sports, and more) and includes hundreds of exclusive stories and videos published every day.
New in this edition is the #1 most requested upgrade: the ability to save articles to read offline. In addition, the app is optimized for the iPhone 6 and uses the native iOS 8 share menu to make it easier for you to share or save articles directly to your favorite supported apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pocket, and Evernote.
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Ricardo Brown didn't have to wonder what Comcast thought of him.
Someone at the company changed his name to a not-very-nice word and then mailed him his monthly bill.
His wife, Lisa, was shocked and irate when she saw the insulting bill. She contacted Comcast to try and have the name corrected, visiting her local Comcast office and even phoning regional executives.
We can't imagine what those Comcast employees thought when they looked at the name on the bill and heard Lisa tell them that she didn't marry an A-hole, but a guy named Ricardo.
But they apparently didn't believe her enough to change the name back. So she reached out to consumer advocate blogger Christopher Elliott, who posted an image of the offending bill on his blog.
Elliott contacted Comcast and got a response. A company spokesperson "apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change.”
The company also contacted Brown and promised it would look for and fire the responsible employee.
Brown suspects a customer service rep did it after she called the company to cancel the cable portion of her service. She was told she would be charged a $60 fee to cancel but instead of proceeding with her request, she was passed off to a "retention specialist" who tried to talk her into signing a new two-year contract for cable.
She says she was never rude as she rebuffed the offer and insisted that Comcast cancel the service as requested.
Along with the apology, Comcast offered to refund her the $60. But when Brown thought about it, she decided she wanted a full refund from the company for treating her this way. In the end, an embarrassed Comcast did try to do right by her, offering to refund her for the last two years and to give her two years of service at no charge, Elliott reported.
Here's Comcast's statement about the incident:
We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change. We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again.
SEE ALSO: Man Billed $1,200 For Reading Email On A Plane
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Disclosure: I was in a fraternity in college. Further disclosure: It was one of the best decisions I made in my four years on campus.
My second semester at Cornell University — where about a quarter of the campus is Greek — I joined my fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, living in the house or off-campus with brothers during the next three years. The fraternity became a core part of my social life in college, and I'm still very close friends with many of my brothers.
The common reaction to my fraternity membership from people who weren't in a house is to dismiss Greek life as a childish indulgence or even destructive.
Anti-Greek sentiment has only increased in the wake of various fraternity controversies this academic year. Greek systems have been suspended for at least four schools — Clemson University, West Virginia University, University of Virginia, and San Diego State University — and Wesleyan University made the bold move to co-educate its campus fraternities.
There's no doubt that danger lurks in certain fraternities across the US.
At least one hazing death every year for the past 43 years is a very scary statistic, as is the often cited study from 2007 showing that fraternity members are three times more likely to commit rape than other college students. These trends need to be addressed.
However, Greek life also has some amazing benefits that go beyond just parties and easy access to booze. It is crucial to note, though, that this may not be the right social outlet for every student.
That said, here are some reasons why I'm still proud I joined a frat.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon — branded in 2013 as America's deadliest fraternity— made headlines in March when the national organization announced it was abolishing pledging, and with it, hopefully, hazing.
Recently, fraternities at the University of Virginia worked with the school's administration to develop new protocols to increase safety at Greek events, including mandating sober brothers at frat parties and restricting the type of alcohol served.
Fraternities are also stepping up to fight other problems with frats, with eight national organizations banding together last year to announce a program designed to educate members about sexual assault, hazing, and binge drinking.
The program — called the Fraternal Health and Safety Initiative— uses proven prevention techniques, such as bystander intervention training.
Bystander intervention trains students to identify and intervene in potentially harmful situations. For example, bystander training teaches students to interject themselves if they see a clearly incapacitated friend being led off into a sexual situation they would likely have no control over.
In my chapter, we went through "Wingman 101," a university-sponsored training program designed to help male students learn to prevent sexual assault.
Many, if not all, of the fraternities on my campus went through this, learning techniques such as bystander intervention. While we may have heard some of the topics discussed before, I think the program was particularly effective because the conversations were led by other male students, rather than an administrator or authority figure.
These changes arguably make a frat house the safest place on campus to drink, especially compared with other student parties where alcohol and security are not as strictly regulated.
In a Bloomberg View editorial last year calling for banning fraternities, the authors wrote that frat brothers tend to have lower grades than their non-affiliated brothers. This isn't true at many schools, though.
As this helpful guide from Total Frat Move shows, frat boys actually have higher GPAs than non-affiliated students at a majority of schools across the country. According to the North American Interfraternity Conference, where TFM originally got its data, male Greek students overall have a higher GPA nationally than the entire male student population.
Greeks may have more of an incentive to keep their grades up.
Most schools have minimum GPA requirements for students to participate in rush and join a house, as well as minimum average GPA for the chapter overall. At the University of Georgia, for example, a fraternity needs to maintain a 2.90 average GPA to keep social privileges. Perhaps not coincidentally, UGA fraternities members have had a higher GPA than the campus' non-affiliated male students for the past 20 years.
Many fraternities — such as mine — also organize group study hours in the library and inform the brotherhood of interesting speakers on campus.
Another academic advantage for Greeks is a higher retention rate. A study from a group of Harvard University and Syracuse University professors found that joining a Greek organization "had a dramatically positive effect on persistence to graduation."
According to the study, 90% of fraternity and sorority members were still enrolled during their senior year, compared to only 70% of non-Greek students.
Additionally, Greek students have a much higher graduation rates compared to their peers, according to USA Today. Greeks' graduation rates are 20% higher than non-Greek students'.
A study released last year from professors at Middle Tennessee State University and Niagara University also affirmed that Greeks have a higher graduation rate than non-affiliated students. Not only are the numbers higher, according to the report, but Greeks are also more eager to complete their degrees.
"The increased likelihoods of graduating on time may stem from Greek members having an added incentive to stay enrolled and keep a minimum GPA, so that they can continue to belong to the organization," the study found, according to Pacific Standard magazine.
A study from Gallup last year found that fraternity and sorority members are significantly more engaged in their workplace and overall happier than students who were not part of a Greek organization.
According to Gallup Education Director Brandon H. Busteed, "the overall results suggest that the Greek experience could be beneficial for the vast majority of those involved in it."
The survey also found that fraternity and sorority members are more likely to be thriving in all of Gallup's five elements of well-being — purpose, social, financial, community, and physical.
On my fraternity listserve, it was not unusual to get emails sent out to the house from alumni whose companies had openings. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. The current student hears about a potential job opportunity and the older graduate can recommend someone they know.
Now an alumnus myself, I still get mass emails from my brothers informing us about jobs, or asking if anyone knows somebody at a company they're applying to.
A common argument against Greek life — one that appeared in the Bloomberg editorial — is that fraternities and sororities are homogeneous, a claim that may have been true in the past but is actively changing now.
Probably the best example of this is the Greek community at the University of Alabama, whose racial segregation was uncovered by student newspaper the Crimson White last year. After a series of revealing reports from the paper and student protests, several black women were offered — and accepted — membership into previously all-white UA sororities.
This year, close to 200 minority women accepted bids at UA's historically white sororities, including each of the 21 black women who registered for rush.
For another perspective, check out this great guest post in BroBible from a self-styled "Gay Bro," who notes, "A lot has changed in the past 10 years."
While there are no firm statistics on the diversity of Greek houses nationally, it appears fraternities are starting to value having a group of brothers who don't all look the same.
Speaking from my own four years in a fraternity, the makeup of my house shifted during my tenure, with openly gay brothers in the house and seemingly increased racial diversity.
Joining a Greek organization can help fight loneliness and depression
For many students, the first year college can be difficult because you're separated from your family and close friends for the first time. To combat this, experts suggest socializing to avoid depression.
Especially on a large college campus, where Greek life tends to be most popular, fraternities can offer a home away from home for students who might otherwise feel lost in the crowd.
College can be a tricky time for anyone, myself included, and a fraternity is often a built-in support system for students who are struggling. I know it made my college years a lot easier knowing there was a place on campus where I would always be welcome — and a group of guys who would always have my back.
SEE ALSO: Why Fraternities Will Never Disappear From American College Life
SEE ALSO: People Who Were In Frats And Sororities Are Better At Their Jobs
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It is likely that you have seen a photo taken by Brandon Stanton. He is the person behind "Humans Of New York," a massively popular photo project that puts Stanton and his camera on the streets of New York City, snapping photos of the people he sees and asking them questions about their lives, their memories, their goals, and their fears.
Now a photo Stanton took of Vidal Chastanet, a 13-year-old from Brownsville, Brooklyn, an area with the highest crime rate in the city, is going viral, and it helped Stanton raise nearly $1 million for Mott Hall Bridges Academy, where Chastanet is in sixth grade.
Stanton, who hardly ever meddles in the lives of those he photographs, was compelled to go to the school to meet Principal Nadia Lopez.
The "Good News" section of Ellen DeGeneres' blog had the story:
Nadia was in the middle of raising money to send her students on a trip to Harvard, a college she wanted them to have in the forefront of their minds. Soon thereafter, Brandon found himself joining the cause, helping to raise over $700,000 for the trip in just four days.
Thanks to the amount of money raised (you can check out the donation page here), the sixth-grade class will be able to visit Harvard for the next 10 years.
"If you're from Brownsville, they don't expect you to be much in life," Chastanet says. "They don't expect you to have a quality education; they don't expect you to know what you're doing. They expect you to fail. They don't want you to become anything that you want to be … I realized that if I want to be anything in life, as Ms. Lopez said, I have to learn how to be better. It doesn't matter about the past and present; you must focus on the future. Your future is what you set it to be in your mind."
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Throughout history, trees have withstood the test of time, quite literally. People are born and people die, civilizations rise and fall, but many trees, trees that you see every day, stay where they are, growing and staying firm.
Photographer Beth Moon is fascinated by trees, especially those that have been around the longest and grown the largest. This fascination led her to travel the globe to photograph the world's most impressive and historic trees.
She is interested in documenting such trees in order to preserve their memory and pay homage to their significance.
Standing as the earth’s largest and oldest living monuments, these symbolic trees will take on a greater significance, Moon says in her artist statement, especially when our focus is directed at finding better ways to live with the environment and celebrating the wonders of nature that have survived throughout the centuries.
Her photos have recently been compiled in a book, "Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time," available through Abbeville Press. She shared some of her photos and stories with us.
The results of a recent study have bad news for those with a fear of flying — turbulence will increase in coming years, making for more shaky flights.
Produced by Matthew Stuart
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By every objective measure, Ivanka Trump seems to have it all.
The 33-year-old heiress is the daughter of business mogul Donald Trump. She is the executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the The Trump Organization and the founder of the Ivanka Trump fashion brand. She's married to influential investor Jared Kushner and has two young children.
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Trump shared her definition of success: "happiness."
"I don't think you are truly successful unless you are a happy person and are happy with your life," she said. "I know many people who are professionally successful but miserable. I'm happy when I'm achieving my professional goals and when I'm with my husband and children."
When asked what it takes to achieve success today, Trump listed the following:
"It's very hard to be great at what you do if you aren't deeply passionate," she said. "I know plenty of brilliant people who never went the distance because others were more passionate, worked harder, and had a laser focus."
"If you're in a relationship, it has to be the right person. If I had a husband who didn't approve of my decision to have a professional life, that would stymie me in a real way," said Trump.
"Pessimists are toxic," Trump said. "I love optimists — and by that I don't mean people who are unable to see challenges. Optimists are solution-oriented."
SEE ALSO: Ivanka Trump Describes What It's Really Like To Be A Woman Who Works
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Even though it’s one of the most classic cuts, most of us know next to nothing about standing rib roast AKA prime rib.
The New York Times recently wrote about a resurgence in the cut and how more and more restaurants are putting it back on menus. Perhaps it was time to learn a thing or two.
So we spoke with experts in the industry from both Old Homestead Steakhouse and BLT Steak. These are the 10 things you need to know about prime rib.
Prime rib is technically a roast, not a steak. That is, unless you slice the ribs into steaks before cooking, in which case it becomes a rib eye steak.
To buy prime rib from the butcher, ask for the dry-aged prime rib and specify that you want the meat to be “prime” (not "choice") and have a lot of marbling. The more marbling, the more flavorful it will be.
A full prime rib is cut from the 6th through 12th ribs of the cow, so seven ribs in total.
In addition to full prime rib, you can get a loin-end rib roast, which is also known as "first cut." It's a smaller cut with less fat and is a leaner, more expensive purchase. There's also the chuck-end rib roast or "second cut" which is cheaper, bigger, and has more layers of fat.
Also, ask the butcher to leave the fat cap on the prime rib. It’s a layer of fat on top of the meat that protects it while cooking and adds tremendous flavor.
Cook your prime rib on the bones without the meat touching the pan. BLT Steak's Corporate Executive Chef Cliff Crooks says to keep the preparation simple with salt and pepper on the outside and roast it slow and evenly at 325 degrees for 30 minutes before testing the internal temperature. Once done, let it sit for 20 minutes to retain its juices.
To see if your prime rib is done, test with a meat thermometer. Rare will be 115 degrees, medium-rare is 120 degrees, and medium is 130 degrees.
Prime rib is called a “standing” roast because of the way you cook it.
Both the teams at Old Homestead Steakhouse and BLT Steak say to order your prime rib medium-rare. “It retains all of the juices, making it more rich and flavorful,” Old Homestead Steakhouse co-owner Greg Sherry explained. Get it with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and never, ever order it well-done.
Prime rib isn’t at most steakhouses because it’s too expensive. Restaurants around the country have quietly eliminated prime rib from their menus because of rising wholesale beef prices. Because restaurants prepare the entire seven-rib roast, anything not served is lost revenue.
However, many classic steakhouses like Old Homestead Steakhouse still serve prime rib.
Now go forth and eat prime rib like a pro.
SEE ALSO: Everything You Need To Know About Beef Cuts In One Chart
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Netscape cofounder Jim Clark has just purchased a gorgeous townhouse on New York's Upper East Side, the New York Post reports.
The billionaire reportedly paid $37 million for the 11,100-square-foot townhouse. The home previously belonged to the late Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, heiress to the Listerine fortune and wife of banking legend Paul Mellon.
Clark has been on a bit of a buying spree lately. According to the Post, the Netscape billionaire was the mystery buyer of Ron Howard's Armonk, N.Y. home, which he paid $37.5 million for last July.
Clark's new Upper East side home is truly a sight to behold.
Video of a wild bull elephant was captured by wildlife photographer Chris Bray while on a safari expedition in Kenya.
Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.
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There is a reason why many notable, successful people like to work out, and it is more than public image. Being in top physical condition feels great, and helps keep you focused at work. That's where the Fitness Course Bundle comes in. It provides all the necessary instruction, at 91% off the normal price.
Physical fitness is a broad subject, but the five video courses in this bundle cover various end goals. For instance, if overall well-being is your aim, practicing yoga and maintaining a detox diet might suit you best. Alternatively, you can bulk up with the right kettlebell techniques, while gaining respiratory fitness can be genuine fun with some parkour skills.
These topics are all covered, along with more specific dieting advice and exercises to help you drop a size. Here’s a look:
Gain Explosive Power and Strength with Kettlebells
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Essential Parkour Techniques
3.5 week course on the essential movements of parkour
The Under 20 Workout, 6 Week Fat Blaster Challenge
40+ step-by-step instructional workout videos
30 Day Yoga Challenge and Detox Diet Transformation System
Yoga, meditation and cleansing dietary practices
The 21-Day PreDiet Weight Loss Program
Learn to identify self-defeating cycles that sabotage your weight loss
To pick up the bundle at the 91% discount, check out the link below.
Get 91% off the Fierce Fitness Course Bundle ($29)
SEE ALSO: New iPhone? Grab This Awesome Battery Case For The 6 Or 6+ [33% And 26% Off]
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Photographer Michelle Frankfurter had traveled to Mexico, the US-Mexico border, and Central America for years, working first as a photojournalist and then as a human-rights worker. During her travels, she heard about a particular route that hopeful migrants take to reach the United States. In 2009, she set out to follow it.
Following the path described in Sonia Nazario's award-winning book "Enrique's Journey," Frankfurter headed to southern Mexico and followed the path north. In six journeys, she rode the treacherous El Tren de la Muerte (The Train of Death), came into contact with the drug cartels, and befriended numerous migrant families, many of whom never made it to the US.
Frankfurter has shared some of her photos with us here, but you can check out the rest at her website or in her book "Destino," available now.
Business Insider is looking for paid interns to join our editorial team this summer!
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Our interns are an integral part of our team. Many of our current writers and editors started as interns.
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When Steve Jobs died, the New York Times ran a quote about what he did for society: "You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful."
You can see it in the Jobsian products that now surround us: the MacBook, iPhone, and iPad.
They may not be the most technically powerful devices in their class — any Android nerd will gladly bash the iPhone 6's resolution— but they have the cleanest lines, the most exquisite user experience.
It's with elegant, accessible design that Jobs, through Apple, pushed computer technology further into the mainstream, and built the most valuable brand on Earth, one that pulled in a historic $18 billion profit in the fourth quarter of 2014.
But Jobs' world-changing design sense didn't come through attending Harvard, Stanford, or the Rhode Island School of Design.
Jobs gained his view of the world in his early 20s. He went looking for the meaning of life as one might imagine a 1970s California kid would: LSD, meditation, and a journey through India.
Daniel Kottke, a college friend of Jobs and early Apple employee, recently expanded on the psychedelic journeys that he and Jobs took together.
Jobs and Kottke became friends when they discovered that they both had read "Be Here Now," a free-form inquiry into consciousness by Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert. The book is an account of Dass' encounters with South Asian metaphysics, mediated through meditation and psychedelics.
The book was "profound," Jobs said. "It transformed me and many of my friends."
Jobs and Kottke went on metaphysical adventures together, going for hikes and camping on the beach.
"We weren't really talking much," Kottke said. "We were more of in a meditative space. We would take psychedelics and whole new vistas opened up."
Jobs would never be the same.
"I came of age at a magical time," Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson.
"Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life," Jobs said. "LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could."
Along with Zen meditation, Jobs thought that his experiments with LSD helped him better understand his mental states.
It also shaped his insanely simple aesthetic.
The limited number of studies about LSD and creativity show a trend that resembles Jobs' own. In one 1989 study, artists whose painting was "intrinsically representational" transformed into a "more expressionistic or nonobjective" style when under the influence of the drug.
While we highly doubt that Apple endorses tripping on acid, the company does teach a similar process of Picasso-inspired simplification by way of abstraction.
Maybe that's why, decades later, some people in Silicon Valley are still meditating and taking LSD.
Author of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and venture investor Tim Ferriss told CNN Money that many of the entrepreneurs he knows are down to trip.
"The billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogens on a regular basis," Ferriss said. "[They're] trying to be very disruptive and look at the problems in the world ... and ask completely new questions."
And maybe take an ugly world and make it beautiful.
SEE ALSO: 9 Books Steve Jobs Thought Everybody Should Read
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Life in the city can wear on anyone, especially when you throw in cold nights, fleets of snow and biting wind.
And while you can't always easily escape the winter weather, you can at least leave behind the endless hustle of the city for a couple of days.
Whether it's skiing, gaming or relaxation that you want, we've put together a list of New York City getaways within driving distance from the city. We only included luxurious properties that are within a 5-hour drive of NYC.
Located in the Adirondacks, this Lake Placid resort offers winter activities and sports followed by luxurious relaxation. With 86 trails spanning 22 miles, Whiteface Lodge is a great place to take advantage of the snow and hit the slopes on nearby Whiteface Mountain. It's also a fun location for Winter Olympics enthusiasts, with the Olympic Museum and a team of coaches to assist you in ice-climbing, bobsledding, tubing and other winter sports.
Amenities include a spa, pool and hot tubs, movie theater, game room, bowling alley and fitness center.
Drive from NYC: 4.5 hours
Killington Grand Resort is another option for those who want to embrace the winter weather, with activities such as skiing, tubing, show shoeing, scenic gondola rides, and snowcat-drawn sleigh rides. The Vermont ski town has 212 trails and 92 miles of trails between it and its sister resort Pico Mountain, which is a five mile shuttle ride away.
After coming back from the slopes, visitors can relax at the Killington Grand Spa or explore local and resort dining options.
Drive from NYC: 4.5 hours
This resort near the Catskills features an extensive relaxing spa, with 16 treatment rooms, an outdoor heated mineral pool and a solarium. Mohonk Mountain House also offers meditation classes, fitness classes and winter theme programs for guests. For other athletic options, Mohonk has a 9,375 -square-foot ice skating rink and offers ice climbing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, tubing, broomball, curling and disc golf on snowshoes for a winter spin.
Drive from NYC: 1.5 - 2 hours
Despite the winter cold and snow, you can still enjoy the beach at Gurney's Montauk Resort and Seawater Spa, formerly known as Gurney's Inn. Book a room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk, and take a swim in Gurney's new sand-filtered, heated, seawater indoor swimming pool. The spa also includes salon services, seawater Roman baths, Finnish rock saunas, Russian steam rooms, Swiss showers and a fitness center.
Drive from NYC: 2.5 hours
Guests at The Mayflower Grace, located in Washington, Connecticut, can enjoy the 20,000-square-foot New England spa, which includes a thermal sanctuary, dome ceiling whirlpool, indoor pool and eight spa treatment rooms. When they aren't relaxing, visitors can take fitness classes as the resort or venture out into the snow for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing or hiking.
Local activities include antiquing in Woodbury, a wine trail to see local wineries or visiting the small towns around the resort.
Drive from NYC: 1.75 hours
Atlantic City is a good option if you're looking for an exciting gaming experience indoors. The Borgata Hotel offers 3,400 slot machines, 180 game tables and a Racebook room with 100 seats. For nightlife, guests can also hit up nightclubs and bars in the area with DJs and live music. To unwind, The Borgata has two spas, five pools, two fitness centers and a variety of dining options.
Drive from NYC: 2.5 hours
Foxwoods' casino in Ledyard, Connecticut, spans 350,000 square feet, with 5,773 slot machines, 342 game tables, 95 poker tables, high stakes Bingo and Racebook. The resort is made up of four hotels with a total of 2,230 rooms. Amenities include two theaters, two spas, a luxury bowling alley and plenty of nightlife and dining options. A 300,000-square-foot outlet mall is also set to open at the resort in March 2015, for any visitors who want more nearby retail options.
Drive from NYC: 2.5 hours
SEE ALSO: The 20 Best Hotels In America
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YouTube star Freddy Fair asked elders around the world one piece of advice they would give to the young people.
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Although fewer young people are getting married today than ever before, research suggests that getting and staying married is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
As the New York Times recently concluded, "being married makes people happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who remain single — particularly during the most stressful periods, like midlife crises."
A 2014 University of Pennsylvania study found that Americans who cohabitate or get married at age 18 have a 60% divorce rage.
But people who waited until 23 to make either of those commitments had a divorce rate around 30%.
"All of the literature explained that the reason people who married younger were more likely to divorce was because they were not mature enough to pick appropriate partners," the Atlantic reports.
The honeymoon phase with its "high levels of passionate love" and "intense feelings of attraction and ecstasy, as well as an idealization of one's partner," doesn't last forever.
According to a 2005 study by the University of Pavia in Italy, it lasts about a year.
Once you start living together, you realize that you have different priorities and tolerances — like, for instance, what does or doesn't consitute a mess.
"People have to come to terms with the reality that 'we really are different people,'" says couples therapist Ellyn Bader. "'You are different from who I thought you were or wanted you to be. We have different ideas, different feelings, different interests.'"
It's a stressful — and necessary — evolution.
