Article: Visit the savings bond value calculator of the US Treasury Department at www.treasury.gov/BC/SBCPrice. Enter all of the requested information about your bond, and it will tell you how much the bond is worth today. You can enter multiple bonds and create an inventory of bonds. Enter today's date in the "Value as of" field. To find the value of the bond in past or future months, enter the desired date in this field instead of today's date. In the "Series" field, select the type of bond you have. Paper bonds are either E Bonds, EE Bonds, I Bonds or Savings Notes. This information can be found in the top right corner of the bond. Select the denomination in the "Denomination" field. This can be found in the top left corner of the bond. Enter the bond's serial number. It is located in the bottom right corner of the bond. Enter the issue date. This is located in the top right corner, under the Series. Click "Calculate" to learn the value of the bond as of today. To build an inventory of bonds, continue adding information for multiple bonds in the same fashion. The calculator will keep track of all your bonds, displaying the last one entered at the top of the list. Use your browser's built in saving function to save your inventory. Click "view/print/save list." When the list appears, click "file/save as," name your inventory and save it as an HTML file. Use the inventory to update your bond values quickly and easily. Contact the financial institution ahead of time to verify that they cash paper savings bonds. Also, find out if they have a limit on how much you can cash at one time. Finally, find out what identification they require you to produce. If you are already a customer, the bank may waive the identification requirements if you have been a customer for at least six months. If you go to a bank where you are not a customer, the bank may refuse to cash the bond if you do not have the proper identification, usually a driver's license. Also, they may limit the monetary amount you can cash to $1,000. You can open a TreasuryDirect account with the US Treasury Department and convert your paper bonds into electronic securities with the SMART Exchange program. This gives you greater flexibility in managing your savings bonds. You can redeem your savings bond any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The funds get deposited into a savings or checking account that you link to your TreasuryDirect account. Complete instructions on how to redeem an electronic bond are provided in the next section. Open a Treasury Direct Account at www.treasurydirect.gov/RS/UN-AccountCreate.do. Once your account is open, log in and go to the Manage My Linked Accounts Menu. Select "Manage Direct," then select "Establish a Conversion Linked Account" and then click "Create Account." Enter the account information for the savings or checking account you want to link to your TreasuryDirect account. To enter the information about your paper bonds, go to the Manage My Conversions menu. Click on "Manage Direct," then select "How to Convert My Paper Bonds." Follow the directions to enter the information about your paper bond. The income from your savings bond is subject to federal income tax. Ask for a form 1099-INT from the bank. This form is a statement of all of the interest you earned from the bond. You will need it when you file your federal income tax return. Some banks will provide this immediately, and others will mail you the form at the end of the year. You will need to pay taxes on any interest income you earn from the bonds.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Find out the value of the bond. Go to any bank that accepts and cashes savings bonds. Convert paper bonds to electronic securities. Pay your taxes.

Problem: Article: At this stage, the flower petals stick up perpendicular to the central disc. Cut them at this point for maximum vase life (usually five days, much longer with some varieties): Cut flowers in the early morning or early evening. Use a clean knife or shears. Strip off any leaves that would be below the water line. Place in water immediately. In this case, it's best to wait until the flower is about half open, and the petals are leaning outward. Once cut, there are many ways to preserve them. The simplest is to tie the stems with twine and hang them upside down in a warm room with good ventilation. If you'd like to harvest the seeds yourself, you'll have to battle the neighborhood animals. Once the flowers start to droop and lose their petals, cover the head with cheesecloth or a paper bag. Most sunflowers will produce many more seeds if you attract bees to your garden to pollinate them. You may cut off the seed head once the disk it rests on starts to turn color from green to yellow. Store in a dry, cool location until the disk turns dark brown. The seeds are now ready to eat, raw or roasted. Store seeds in a cloth bag to allow air to circulate. This helps prevent mold.
Summary: Cut decorative flowers when they are open. Cut flowers for drying. Protect seeds from birds and squirrels. Harvest the seed head.

You don't need to tear through several newspapers per day, but having a basic understanding of what's going on in the world will give you a reputation of being smart and knowledgeable, both of which are attractive qualities. This process can be as simple as going on Google News and reading two or three of the biggest stories each day. You don't have to sound like a know-it-all to bring up something interesting and relevant. People will think it's cool that you have time to think about the world -- not just yourself. If you have no idea what's going on in the world, you'll look clueless -- and that's just not cool. Whether you join a club at school or take a screenwriting class in your community, doing something that you love will not only make you more interesting, but it can help you make new friends. Don't be shy about pursuing your interests, even if some of the things you love may not be traditionally considered to be "cool." If you join a club, you can eventually have a leadership position in the organization, which is very cool. The more you can do, the cooler you'll be. Learn how to fix a car, build a table, finish a deck, or even to cook the perfect steak. If you have a skill, you'll not only be useful to others, but people will think it's cool that you took the initiative to do something. Once you've mastered a skill, you can even teach it to someone else. Now that's cool. Though certain interests, like team sports, can be developed better in groups, part of being cool is being able to spend time learning things on your own. Anyone who is comfortable spending time by himself and who even likes spending time by himself is much cooler than a person who is so socially eager that he's desperate to always be hanging out with people. Spend time learning to play the guitar, picking up a new language, or just writing down your thoughts in a journal. This will help you figure out who you are and you'll become cooler in the process. If you're always around, people will take you for granted. But if you're sometimes busy because you're catching up on some alone time, then people will appreciate you more when you're around.
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One-sentence summary --
Keep up on current events. Pursue your interests. Pick up a skill. Develop your interests by yourself.