Key Changes to Health Insurance which Took Place on Sept. 23 - You may benefit immediately from key provisions of the Affordable Care Act which have just kicked in. Read about them here. For further information, see an animated explanation of the Affordable Care Act (courtesy of the Kaiser Foundation), and for official information and news, go to HealthCare.gov.

Fall Foliage Maps and Photos from the Weather Channel - Leaf Peepers unite! Leaf peeping is always good, inexpensive family fun. Click on your state or region to see where the foliage is brimming with color.

Paper Toys - How to Make 25 Awesome Paper Airplanes and The Toymaker - You can use the grand kids as an excuse to do these projects. However it is both great fun and therapy.

Open Culture: The Best Free Cultural and Educational Media on the Web - One-stop shopping for "the best free cultural & educational media on the web." Formats include audiobooks, ebooks, movies, language lessons and text books. The rich collection includes Google Tech Talk, Nova, the National Film Board of Canada, ScienCentral, the Onion News Network, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the BBC, and more.

Electronic New Jersey: A Digital Archive of New Jersey - Electronic New Jersey was started in 1997, and since then they have worked with partners at the New Jersey State Archives and the New Jersey Historical Society to create interactive and engaging learning materials for teachers and students. The materials here are intended primarily for use by high school and university students, and they include sections on Paul Robeson, the Cold War, and social protests of the 1960s and 1970s. Each section includes a brief historical overview, along with a "Time Capsule" that asks students to choose materials from the digital archive here, and then create their own "mini-exhibit". The other documents included in each section range from oral histories to historic maps, and they really do a nice job of offering an entry point for close examination of each topic.

NOAA: Office of Coast Survey - The Mission of  the Office of Coast Survey, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA), is to ensure "safe, efficient and environmentally sound marine transportation that brings an uninterrupted flow of people and goods into and out of our nation's ports." As part of this work the Office prepares seafloor and harbor maps (which are available on this site), along with providing information about wrecks and obstructions within bodies of water and their surrounding areas. Visitors can use the "Survey & Wrecks" section to learn about such matters, and they may also wish to use the "Education" area. Here they will find lesson plans that teach students about surveying and charting, along with providing short videos, like "The Surveyors: Charting America's Course". Finally, the "Research & Development" area provides information on how their modeling programs work and data portals to information about tides and currents and real-time coastal data maps.

Halloween Recipes From the Foodnetwork  and Halloween Recipes from Disney's Family Fun.

October's Best Recipes from Gourmet.

Sources:
Neat New Stuff I Found This Week Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2010.