Soccer online

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence
then, is not an act but a habit.
-Aristotle-

I remember watching my boys growing
up. They would go to their Scout meetings
and bring home a pole that they had

cut from a sapling. They made it into a pole
by stripping the bark and carving different
designs into it. They would talk about
how they used it for hiking and on campouts.

Today things have changed a lot. The Scouts
still make their trekking poles, but more hikers
are now going high-tech.

Todays poles have much of the same
benefits the scouts used them for.

Hikers also use two of them for
hiking. Which double the benefits.

1.This includes pack weight distribution
to the arms, thus increasing indurance.

2.Makes keeping your balance easier
as you cross rivers and streams as
well as rough terrain.

3.Lowers stress on the joints, knees, hips
and lower back.

4.Gives a more upright, hiking posture.
This in turn will make breathing
more efficient.

5.Helps you go up those steep inclines.
Also helps you keep your balance on the
declines.

6.Dispite some drawbacks concerning
them, the advantages far outweigh
the drawbacks.

7.Trekking poles today are high tech
in design and with adjustable telescopic
features make them ideal for summer and
winter. Most are made from materials
such as aluminum or titanium.

8.Trekking poles have adjustable wrist straps
and can have plastic or cork handgrips.

9.How to use your trekking poles
is done by keeping your forearm parallel to
to the ground on flat tarrain. If you’re

assending the poles will need adjusting. You
will need to make them shorter, so you will not
over reach. The opposite is also true as well.
When going down a hill you will need to lengthen
the poles.

10.Its very easy to use trekking poles. Just walk
naturally one arm forward with the opposite
leg. The poles will soon become apart of you
as you walk.

As you become used to using the poles you’ll
find how easy it has become to hike and how much
faster and farther you can travel.

Check out your local Scout Shop for a good quality
set of poles. You’ll also be financially helping out
the Scout troops in your area.]]>

The remaining 44 FIFA World Cup 2006 potential referees have recently gone through a final test during a five-day session held near Frankfurt. The selection process will be complete and the results announced at the end of March. While FIFA has yet to decide on the final total number of referees to be used in this year’s World Cup event, the expected number is thought to be no less than 30. “We’ve done everything we can to ensure the referees correspond to the standards expected of this wonderful World Cup in Germany,” said Angel Maria Villa Llona, who serves as an FIFA Executive Committee member who is responsible for match officials.

The 44 referee soccer World Cup candidates have remained under close observation for an entire year. The FIFA watch has been focused on each domestic league appearance, as well as each international event. “Their performances over the last 12 months are definitely a more important factor than the tests we’ve performed here,” Llona expressed. The observation included a check on the candidate’s skills relating to the English language, the knowledge and understanding of the soccer World Cup rules, psychology and fitness. Referee candidates were required to defeat a time of 6.2 seconds over 40 meters during each of the six consecutive trials. In addition, the potential referees underwent an additional test of strength and exercise with their participation in a 150 meter dash and a 50 meter walk.

Australian candidate Mark Shield explains, “The refs have never been scrutinized for so long and so minutely.” According to experts, the current candidates will be selected to oversee the soccer World Cup championship based solely on their performance. Those who are selected will be given a whistle at the tournament and will continue on to be recognized as game officials.]]>

So read through this list of fun rose goodies.

Spice up your relationship and turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary day you will both remember. Select your favorite and have fun!

* Send your partner a dozen roses of their favorite color along with a check for a hundred kisses.

* Order a dozen roses, eleven red and one white. In your personal message write something like: “In every bunch there’s one that stands out – and you are that one”.

* Want your partners’ eyes to glow? Order a bouquet of different colored roses and place each one in a different place in your home. Where you place the dozen roses, also place a small card (decorate it nicely if you like) where it will state the meaning of each colored rose and how that meaning fits in with your lives.

* When you pick up your partner have a single rose waiting on the passenger seat for him/her. He/she will be pleasantly surprised but the real surprise is yet to come… Have two dozen roses waiting at home.

* Give a bunch of long stem roses for no reason. That will sure surprise.

* Dress your bed with a white satin cover and scatter red rose petals all over. Light candles, put some soft music, have fun!

* Order 11 roses and in the bouquet put an artificial one that looks real. On your card write something like: “I will love you till the last rose withers.”

* Get a journal (buy the same color journal to go with the color of roses you are going to send) and fill it with romantic quotes and love poems. Tie a ribbon around the book and give to your partner along with your dozen rose gift.

* Another variation to buying a journal and filling it with quotes is to write all the memorable moments you have shared and how you felt during those times. Like the first time you met, etc. Telling the other person how you feel always makes that person feel special. Of course accompany this with a beautiful bouquet of roses, or even one long stem rose.

* Send your partner a dozen roses - Surprise number one. When they’re wilted, turn the rose petals into potpourri, put in a nice decorative box and this is surprise number two. Your partner will be delighted with your thoughtfulness.

* For this valentine’s day I received a dozen roses. So the last thing I was expecting was to receive another bunch a week and a half later. What my boyfriend had done (and it was a great surprise) was to lay the petals of the old roses in the shape of a huge heart in our living room which would be the first thing I would see when I came home from work. In the middle of the heart he had placed a vase with different colored roses. I loved it!

* Leave a trail of roses leading from the front door to the dinning room where you have laid the table with fine dining wear and candles ready to enjoy a romantic dinner. Leave another trail of roses leading from the dining room to the bedroom. Scatter some red rose petals on your bed.

* Write a long love letter telling your partner why you love him/her. List in it all their good qualities. Write down all the things he/she does that makes you feel special. Write down how you see your future together and anything else you can think of. A better idea would be to write all this stuff in a journal so it can keep longer. Accompany with a dozen of their favorite colored roses.

* Write a love letter to your partner and put it into an attractive glass bottle. Fill the tub and scent it with your favorite aromatic bath oil(s). Scatter in a few rose petals and put the bottle in the tub. Let your partner discover it for themselves when they get into the tub.

* Give your partner 11 roses and tape the last one to the mirror of your bathroom. Tell him/her to go to the bathroom where they will see the last rose along with your message that says ‘these are the 12 most beautiful things in the world.’

* Buy a bunch of different colored artificial roses. On each rose write what each color represents. These roses will last forever and your partner when they look at them will always be pleasantly reminded of the first time they receive them.

* Place a rose on the windshield of your partner’s car which they will see and be delighted by before they leave for work. This will make them think beautiful thoughts about you all day. Then when they get home, present them with the rest of the 11 roses.

* Lay a white sheet on the floor of your bedroom/living room or wherever else. Scatter rose petals on it, place candles around the sheet, put on soft music and have your partner lay there and give them a massage.

* If you have a spare key to your partners car and know where they park during the day, while they are at work, put a bunch of roses in the car seat along with a note. They will be pleasantly surprised that you were there during the day.

* Present your partner with 10 red roses and 2 white roses. Write in the card something along the lines of “You will never be alone”

* Two weeks before valentine’s day, send your partner a rose for every day leading up to the big day. For the day arrange to do something you don’t usually do as a special treat to celebrate.

* Make a list of the qualities you love about your partner. Write each one individually on a small card and hang off each rose.]]>

1: PREVENT INJURY BY…

–> Starting slowly and building up a little at a time.

–> Warming up before and cooling down after each exercise session.

–> Paying close attention to the signals your body sends you.

BE COMFORTABLE WHEN WORKING OUT BY…

–> Wearing comfortable clothes that fit the activity, your body, and the climate.

–> Drinking plenty of water. If you feel thirsty, you’re not drinking enough.

–> Choosing activities you truly enjoy doing. Mix it up to keep yourself from getting bored.

–> Working out with a friend. Make it a social event too.

–> Not competing with others. Just keep trying to improve yourself.

CREATE A ROUTINE BY…

–> Making your daily life more active. Walk or bike instead of driving. Take the stairs rather than the elevator.

–> Scheduling time in your busy calendar for exercise.

–> Making a note of your progress.

–> Seting goals and keeping track of your progress.

–> Rewarding yourself!]]>

Dive flags which are usually vinyl, are mounted in a variety of ways, whether it be on the boat your diving from or the standard fiberglass staff where the flag is stiffened with a wire so that it stands out from the staff at all times. When diving without a boat the flag is usually held afloat by securely attached float. There are a variety of other attachments that secure a dive flag to an inner tube and other buoyant items.

Whatever way you choose to mount your dive flag, you must be sure it clearly visible to other boaters. Laws requiring how far boats must keep from dive flags vary from state to state and internationally but distances usually range from 50 to 150 feet. Divers are often required to surface within 25 feet of the flag, and not doing so could be fatal to the diver. If your diving area is larger then the distance allowed by law, multiple dive flags should be used that are separated then no more then 100 feet apart to ensure boaters can see and obey the laws. Internationally, the alpha flag, a swallow-tailed blue and white flag, is used when diving from a vessel. The dive flag is not only one of your cheapest purchases in scuba diving but also one of your most important.]]>

A little known fact is that some coffee beans improve their flavor with age. It is the green unroasted beans which are aged; the typical length of time is 3 years, though there are some houses which sell beans aged to 7 years. Aged beans have a fuller flavor and are less acidic.

Growing conditions, soil types and weather patterns during the growing season all contribute to the flavor of the bean, creating the differences in flavor from points of origin, such as Kenya or Brazil. However, roasting adds its own flavor, sometimes to the point that it is difficult to tell where the beans originated from, even by experienced cuppers.

The lighter the roast the more the natural flavor of the bean remains. This is why beans from regions such as Kenya or Java are normally roasted lightly, retaining their regional characteristics and dominate flavors. There is a method of roasting in Malaysia which adds butter during the roasting producing a variety called Ipoh White Coffee.

Beans roasted to darker browns begin to taste more like the method of roasting than the original flavors. Dark roasts such as French or Vienna Roasts tend to completely eclipse the original flavor. Roasting to whatever degree, while adding stronger flavor does not effect the amount of caffeine of the bean.

Fry pan roasting was popular in the 19th century, since the beans were normally shipped and purchased still in their green state. You simply poured the green coffee beans in a frying pan and roasted them in the kitchen. This process took a great deal of skill to do in a consistent manner. Fry pan roasting became much less popular when vacuum sealing pre-roasted coffee was perfected. However, in order to vacuum seal roasted beans, you had to wait for them to stop emitting CO2, as roasted beans do for several days after the roasting process. What this meant was that vacuum sealed coffee was always just a little stale as the flavors begin to turn bitter and deteriorate in just about a week after roasting.

Home roasting is once again becoming popular with the creation of computerized drum roasters which help simplify the process. There are some people who have found methods of effectively roasting beans using their hot air pop corn makers.

The region the bean is from as discussed before is a primary factor to the type of flavor you can expect from the brew, though it is very true that ‘new’ or unexpected tastes come from every region.

Arabia and Africa grow their coffee beans in high altitudes in the rich black soils of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Tanzania. The flavors of these beans are distinct and of legendary status.

The Americas coffees are grown in near rainforest conditions in areas such as Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Coffees of the Americas tend to be very well balanced and aromatic.

The Pacifics includes coffees from Sumatra, Java, New Guinea and Sulawesi, which are as various in flavor as the islands they come from.

Then there are the exotics such as certified Jamaica Blue Mountain and certified Hawaiian Kona. These are rare indeed and can go for as much as $60.00 per pound.]]>

In an earlier article I outlined the ways in which you can intensify your training. Here we’ll focus on the role that pre-exhaustion has to play in intensifying the training effect.

When an exercise employs two or more muscles it will be impossible to achieve failure for the primary muscle as the weakest muscle will give out first. This is perhaps best explained by giving an example. When targeting the chest, most exercises involve use of the triceps which is a relatively small and weak muscle. When performing the incline bench press for example, the triceps will fail before the pectorals have the opportunity to work to failure thus limiting the value of the exercise.

How do you get around this? By first performing an exercise that isolates and tires the pectorals before immediately moving on to the main exercise. For maximum benefits there should be no rest between the pre-exhaust exercise and the main compound exercise.

Beginners don’t need to worry about pre-exhaust routines but when they advance to intermediate level they can be introduced once a week for each body part.

Examples of pre-exhaust routines commonly performed by bodybuilders are listed below:

Biceps - barbell curls and close-grip, palms-up pulldowns.

Triceps - pressdowns and dips.

Pectorals - flyes and bench presses.

Lats - dumbbell pullovers and barbell rows.

Deltoids - dumbbell laterals and presses behind neck.

Traps - shrugs and upright rows.

Thighs - leg extensions and squats.]]>

In an earlier article I outlined the ways in which you can intensify your training. Here we’ll focus on the role that training to failure has to play in intensifying the training effect.

Anything less than maximum effort will reduce the effectiveness of your muscle building workout. The only way to force an optimal reaction in any muscle is to train it to failure - in other words, no matter how much effort you put in you are simply incapable of completing one more rep of a given exercise.

Too many people seem to finish a set when they reach a certain number of reps, but the body will only show significant change if you ask it to do something extra. Only by passing through the break-over point of momentary muscle failure will you stimulate the muscle to grow.

Anyone starting out on their bodybuilding career should not attempt this method of training as it could lead to serious injury. Spend several months perfecting exercise form and conditioning the body to lift heavier weights before gradually introducing training to failure.]]>

To provide more resources in the growing interest in having fun with hobbies, the web world has yet gave birth to a website that deals with anything about hobbies: hobbiesataglance.com.

This everything about hobbies website has clickable sections regarding hobby supplies, hobby lobby, tower hobbies, collectibles and model trains. It is an online resource center promising hobbie enjoyment, satisfying your hobby needs and assistance in finding hobbies that suit you.

On its hobbies updates and information part, it presents tips on how to find a perfect hobby or hobbies. For those looking for supplies, retailers or suppliers of hobbies materials are also found in this section of the site. If one is looking to buy some hand-made crafts or planning to grow some dough, many for-sale crafts and income-producing hobbies also shared the limelight in this website’s hobbies updates and information segment. On one’s prime years, a wide selection of suitable hobbies for those who already retired is also availed in this portion. Links, directories and forums that discuss and lead to other several crafts or activities that can be done leisurely are also provided here.

This online hobbies spot also unveils a plethora of hobbies supplies resources. Most of the links found here lead to suppliers of excellent materials, indigenous and synthetic, that make the dream hobbies of a lot of people come true. Painting materials, flowers and plants resources, jewelry making supplies and picture framing materials are all available here. Other more unique hobbies like enjoying the nature through non-conventional methods are also supported in this section of the site through providing stuff like portable microscopes. For those more inclined to mechanical or technical hobbies, web pages and other sites on modeling supplies and aircraft materials can also be accessed on this portion of hobbiesataglance.com.

Hobby lobby is another clickable link of this website leads to innumerable stores and shops and their locations with hobbies how-to’s, supplies, workshops and seminars. Craft store catalogs, online coupons and aircraft models may also be seen on this page of updates regarding hobbies. Creative centers, hobby lobby founder, workers and investors are also given ample chance to shine on this fragment of the site. Hobby lobby stores in various States are here too for those looking for their hobby shop within their vicinity.

Those who are into tower hobbies are even given a special spot or link on this hobbies website. Building wireless towers that provide Internet access to a massive number of net users is one major feat. Links on other hobbies sites that deal with tower building, tower materials, and other tower crafts are also placed in this page of the site.

Collectibles like antiques, figurines, stamps, novelty items and other collection-worthy items may also be found here. Resources on where they can be found or bought are piled on this site. Model trains also found their way on one of the links of this all about hobbies web site.

So if you’re just one of those can’t-live-without-my-hobby kind of person, this website is made totally for you.]]>

The next day I contacted L E and we spoke for about 15 minutes on the phone. He was still as nutty as ever. He works out deals with Burger King, and McDonalds to get better pricing for buying bulk breakfast sandwiches. That’s my boy. 
We reunited October 20 at his brother’s house in Union, New Jersey. It was great to see him. My artistic friend. The sculptor.

I was so excited to see what he was working on. He told me all about it when we spoke the a few nights ago. I still can’t believe what I witnessed. L E has been working on a model of Yankee Stadium. Some people work on model airplanes or cars or trains. L E is the first person I know of that is building a model stadium.
 
He has poured his soul, his heart and his body into this incredible project for four years. Sacrificing income and living any kind of normal life. Hey that is what this artist chose to do. His seven foot wide, 11 foot long and four foot high replica must be seen to be believed. The scale he uses is one inch represents 12 feet. 

His objective is to have Yankee Stadium, the current Yankee Stadium, refurbished, remodeled, and redone with a retractable roof. He had the roof already erected. This newest Yankee Stadium would have a walkway around an upper level that people could walk around. Each few feet of walking would provide a different sight of the field. There would also be train tracks that ran right up to the ballpark. Quite convenient for those that use mass transit to get to the game. The Major Deegan Highway would have easy access to leave the stadium. This would allow for easy departure once the game was over. Additional parking would be adjacent to the Stadium. Two parking areas would be attached to the ballpark. 
Now get this. In the background, next to the stadium would be tennis courts. You would be able to play some tennis and then go to the game.
 
Here is the icing on the cake. We all know that a new Yankee Stadium is in the works. We all know how astronomical the pricing will be to erect a new house that George builds. We all know how important luxury suits are to a team owner. They bring in lots of revenue. L E’s resurrected stadium, with retractable roof will have over 200 luxury corporate boxes. Check this out. There will also be family suits under the walkway only for families. These suits will be sold at a reduced cost so more families can get to the Stadium as a family.  

This entire project will cost less than the proposed new Yankee stadium.  

So Yankee brass, save some money, keep the tradition and create a new type of ballpark with all the amenities. Every one wins. The traditionalists keep the old ballpark and the owner moves Yankee Stadium into the 21st century.  
I have seen the conditions that L E has worked in to create his dream. Mr Lear has been working in a small area with little room to maneuver. Poor air circulation in winter and summer. His dream can come true. I love the idea. This replica is an incredible piece of work. All the way to the finest detail.  

My guess is that Yankee dignitaries like Yogi Berra, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Thurman Munson, Craig Nettles, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey and today’s Yankees like A-ROD, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera would love to see this dream become reality.

Feel Free to pass this article on to anyone you think would enjoy reading it.]]>