just4moms.netExciting News Every Mom Should Know…

We’re not sure if this is really cool or really stupid.

When new Jersey/Brooklyn Nets guard DeShawn Stevenson saw MTV reality show star Rob Dyrdek put an ATM in his house (see video below), he know – right then and there – that he had to do the same thing, says TMZ.

We’re told he paid $3,500 for the machine and lets his rich NBA friends use it for last-minute cash withdrawals before they go out.

But the service ain’t free — DeShawn says he charges his pals a steep $4.50 ATM fee.

DeShawn says the machine holds $20,000 and he refills it 4-6 times a year.

He adds, “I like doing things that aren’t normal and it’s cool to have.”

Here’s the episode of Rob Dyrdek’s “Fantasy Factory” that inspired Stevenson:

May 19, 2012:  

There was mayhem in global financial markets last week with stock prices crashing, currencies spinning out of control and bank deposit holders in Spain and Greece stampeding to withdraw their money and run. given this backdrop, Sensex and Nifty need to be lauded for losing less than one per cent during the period.

Greece’s failure to form a coalition government and the announcement of fresh elections in June perpetrated last week’s turbulence. Fears of Greece exiting the European Union caused Euro to plunge against dollar. The resulting dollar strength made other currencies plummet including the Indian rupee that declined to a life-time low of 54.9.

The rating agencies also got into the act, stoking the panic. Moody’s made a sweeping downgrade of 16 Spanish banks, including Banco Santander. Fitch downgraded Greece government debt deeper into junk category and Moody’s went on to downgrade a bunch of Indian private banks and LIC too. Thankfully, Indian investors were blasé and shrugged off this move.

There is no clear trend available in FII activity. they were net buyers in some sessions and net sellers in others. for the month of may, they have net purchased stocks worth $54 million. their tally for this calendar stays at $8.5 billion. This implies that FIIs are not responsible for the current bout of weakness.

Short-covering in derivative segment appears to have triggered Friday’s rebound, since derivative turnover spiked above Rs 1.5 lakh crore in that session. put call ratio remains below one implying that market is getting over-sold. SBI’s earnings and Facebook’s debut elevated the mood slightly close to the weekend.

It is not likely that things will improve suddenly. The course of the rupee, the unfolding drama in Europe and the policy reactions by the Government all will impact stock price moves next week.

Momentum indicators in the daily chart have not deteriorated much last week and continue to move sideways at lower levels. Weekly oscillators are now beginning to move into oversold zone. The psychological support at 16,000 appears to be cushioning the Sensex at present. The Sensex formed a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern on Friday. but it is too soon to assume that a bottom is in place.

Sensex (16,152.7)

Sensex declined to intra-week low of 15,809, but rebounded strongly from there to close above the 16,000 mark. as explained last week, it is now fairly obvious that the third leg of the down-move from 21,108 peak is currently in progress. This leg has the targets of 14,831 and 12,550. A weak third leg is quite possible that can end around the low made last December at 15,135. This is the scenario that we have to hope for now.

But if a collapse akin to that in October 2008 occurs than we have to brace ourselves for decline to the second target.

If we drill down to the minor waves, we get medium-term targets at 16,016 and 15,080. 1:1 extrapolation of the wave from 18,523 gives us the target at 16,016.

The index is attempting to stabilise itself around this level currently and a halt around these levels is possible.

For the week ahead, the Friday’s bounce can extend to 16,428, 16,701 or 16,812.

Inability to move beyond the first hurdle will drag the Sensex lower towards 16,021, 15,770 or 15,481. Close above 16,800 is needed to indicate that the short-term trend is reversing upward.

Nifty (4,891.4)

Nifty recorded intra-week low at 4,789 before rebounding to end just 37 points lower. The third leg of the down-move from 6,338 gives us the long-term targets of 4,512 and 3,822. Since the first target occurs close to the previous low at 4,531, investors can look forward to the index bottoming around this area.

Third leg of the down-move from 5,630 peak gives us the next targets at 4,884 and 4,600.

Nifty has already achieved the first target and is attempting to reverse higher from here.

Short-term traders holding short positions should watch out for a sudden reversal from this level. immediate resistances for the index are at 4,904, 4,975 and 5,092.

Traders should close their short positions if the index moves above 5,092. Reversal below 5,092 will imply that the index can move lower to 4,758, 4,635 or 4,494 in the upcoming sessions.

Global Cues

Global equity market recorded sharp losses last week. as panic spread, CBOE volatility spiked towards 25, a 4-month high. Latin American indices including Brazil’s Bovespa took a sharp hit. The Dow moved decisively below the 12,750 mark implying that the short-term trend has turned lower. immediate support that now needs to be watched is at 12,000. Breach of this level will usher in a medium-term downtrend in the index.

The long-term uptrend in Dow will, however, not be threatened unless the index goes on to close below 10,500.

Asian benchmarks such as Jakarta Composite Index and KLSE Composite Index also firmly reversed lower.

lokeshwarri_sk@thehindu.co.in

28 MAY 2012 HELLO! is proud to announce the launch of an exciting new series of daily online news bulletins called HELLO! Today. The new video will deliver readers a mini roundup of the latest stories in an easy-to-digest bitesize format. Each day we will offer highlights and breaking news from the worlds of celebrities and royalty.

Website editor Ian Cowley says: "We are delighted to launch HELLO! Today and hope that readers will really enjoy the digested short and snappy format. It’s your one stop for all your favourite HELLO! news." keep an eye out for HELLO! Today, brought to you by our fabulous presenters Alexandra Light, Alexandra Wilby, Dawn Emery and Michelle Johnson.

Please leave your comments below and let us know what you think of HELLO! Today, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

I Corinthians 15:1-11

Several weeks ago, I watched a movie about an African-American young man who was a star football player in college, and was about to go pro when he was diagnosed with leukemia and died a few months later.  there is a scene from his childhood in the movie where his grandfather, who raised him, is instructing him about who he is and quotes from I Corinthians 15:10, “by the grace of God, I am what I am, and God’s grace toward me has not been in vain.  on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

With this statement, I believe that the Apostle Paul has discovered what was at the heart of Jesus’ identity and what gave him the capability of resisting all worldly pressures so that he could be as faithful as he was to the will of God—a faithfulness that ultimately led him to the cross.  From childhood on, Jesus so identified with the name of God Yahweh, I am who I am, that nothing could dissuade him from doing the will of God, even in the face of death.  for those of us, who like the Apostle Paul, consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus, it seems to me that in order to be faithful to this call, we also are to be what we have been created to be in the image of God—in essence, to be I am who or what I am by the grace of God.

Perhaps you may not think that there is much importance in a name, but in the Jewish tradition, a name often reflects the very nature of who or what a person is.  therefore, when Jesus indicated to his disciples that he was one with God, he essentially was telling them that he had come for the purpose of revealing to them and all the world the very nature of the great I Am.  in so doing, Jesus could resist all of the temptations and pressures of being what everyone else, the world, and even the evil one wanted him to be.  as a result, Jesus left in his wake a lot of disappointed and even offended people, but that did not stop him from being and doing all that he was meant to reveal about what is involved in being faithful to the identity, and therefore the will of God.

Whether the stories are fact or fiction, already at the age of 12, Jesus is portrayed as abandoning his parents in order to debate with the religious leaders at the temple because he knows that he must be about God’s business.  later on, when his mother and his brothers pressured him to stop what he was doing out of fear for his life, Jesus rebuffed them by telling them that his mother and his brothers are those who do the will of God, or in other words, who are able to be what they have been created to be.  When his disciples, and especially Peter, tried to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem, he rebuked them as if they were Satan trying to stop him from being what he was commissioned by God to be and do.

Early on in his ministry, Jesus’ hometown folks were all excited about the possibility that Jesus might be the promised messiah until he indicated to them that he had come to save all people, not just the children of Israel and Judah.  At that point, they even tried to kill him, because they were so offended at Jesus’ inclusivity.  Consistently throughout his life, Jesus disregarded the most sacred religious laws of his day, and at one point basically told the religious leaders to go to hell for their oppressive, corrupt, and violent ways, all because he was being what he understood his purpose to be in this world—a reflection of the love, justice, peace, and freedom of God.

This self-understanding also led Jesus to threaten the men in his society.  Every time that Jesus treated a woman as a real person, Jesus was violating one of the most significant mores of his day.  whenever Jesus would bless the children or indicate that they were the greatest in God’s realm, we can almost see the hair bristle on the back of the necks of every man in the crowd.  of course, when Jesus dined with the tax collectors who were some of the most despised members of the community, everyone who had any patriotic loyalty would be offended.

The ultimate test of Jesus’ being who he was created and called to be came when he refused to be the messiah that most of the people expected him to be.  He did not come to Jerusalem to defeat the Romans.  He did not have in mind the restoration of the reign of David.  He did not even raise a finger to save his own life like any brave man would have done.  The people were so disappointed and offended that six days after they hailed Jesus as their king, they were calling for his execution, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!”  Thus, Jesus was crucified basically because he refused to be what everyone else in his life wanted him to be.

And on the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead and said, “yes!  You did it!  You were everything that I am, and now it will be up to your disciples to be faithful to the same calling—to be in the world, but not of the world; to set their minds and hearts on divine things, not human things; to consider everyone from a divine point of view as my children; to love everyone, even their enemies, as I have loved them; and to be ambassadors of reconciliation just as you were as you prayed for everyone to be forgiven as you breathed your last breath.” 

Today, we celebrate this resurrection of Jesus, and in doing so, we can claim with the Apostle Paul, “by the grace of God, I am who and what I am—a creature of God, a child of God, a temple of God’s Spirit, and a reflection of God’s love.  as a result of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, I do not have to live in fear of my own death, or in fear of any form of worldly rejection or persecution.  instead, I can be who God has created me to be, what Jesus has called me to be, and whatever their Spirit has inspired me to be—the most faithful of witnesses to the love, justice, peace, and freedom of God that I can be by the grace of God.  in this promise and with this hope, may the love and peace of God that goes beyond all of our human understanding, keep our hearts and our minds ever faithful unto Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom we profess to be the risen Christ.  Amen.

Ever since the Chicago Bulls went down 3-1 in their first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers, analysts have been quick to say that the Bulls are just exposing that they were not built for and not ready for a long championship run. They point to Rip Hamilton and Luol Deng not coming through in the final few minutes and say this is proof. 

What basketball fans fail to realize is that the reason that this team is failing is not a product of how they were built, it’s the fact that the two players they rely on most are gone. 

On the offensive side of the court, Derrick Rose is the catalyst. Even when he is not playing well, he provides so much for this basketball team. In this series, the Bulls have had trouble getting offensive rebounds at the same rate that they usually do.

There’s no reason that the loss of a point guard should affect that, however, the offensive rebounding game is built around Rose’s drives to the basket.

Even when Rose misses, the opposition has committed a big man to defending Rose, so there is one less player on the floor to rebound, and the Bulls frontcourt can capitalize on that

In the same way, the Bulls defense is built around Joakim Noah. The Bulls have many above-average perimeter defenders, such as Deng and Ronnie Brewer, but the defense is built around the frontcourt presence of Noah.

When perimeter defenders defend against the drive, they funnel their man towards Noah to trap. While Omer Asik is a very good player, he is not Noah when it comes to stopping the drive. 

Many would point to the fact that the Bulls are dependent on two players as a negative. however, this is not true. every team in the league relies on one player heavily, including the title contenders.

If the San Antonio Spurs lost Tony Parker, would they be a title contender? If the Miami Heat lost LeBron James, would they be a title contender? If the Oklahoma City Thunder lost Kevin Durant, would they be a title contender?

The obvious answer to all of those questions is no. 

A comparison to these Bulls would be the Cleveland Cavaliers during the LeBron James era.

When LeBron left, the team absolutely fell apart. this was not because the team around LeBron was weak, it was because the team around LeBron was built to play around LeBron. when they had to perform without, they couldn’t produce. 

Hamilton, Deng and Carlos Boozer are players who have the ability to play effectively off of Rose, and can fill in the holes around him. however, they are not players who are meant to or have the ability to play as the star on a team. 

This Bulls team is created to perform and thrive in the playoffs around Rose and Noah. with the loss of their driving forces on both offense and defense, it’s not surprising that this team has struggled to produce.

However, with these players on the team, this team would clearly be a title contender and perhaps even the favorite to win the title. 

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to love third-party social media tools. I’m an sucker early adopter for most of them and I like to see what’s happening in the social media metric world.  but when it comes time to get down and dirty with Facebook metrics, I turn to the spreadsheet everyone loves to hate: Facebook Insights.

Social media tools are popping up everywhere, and if your Inbox is anything like mine, you’re getting solicitations from “the most amazing social measurement tool ever” each and every day.  Using third-party tools can be useful, but when it comes to Facebook, there is more than enough data within its native Insights platform to get any business off and running on the right foot.   The following are five Insights your business can’t afford to ignore:

Daily Negative Feedback User

This tab is located near the end of the entire Facebook Insights spreadsheet, after the demographics tabs and before the check-in information.  Don’t just look at the column in the “Key Metrics” tab, because it doesn’t paint the entire picture.   The Daily Negative Feedback User tab is just as important as how many people “like” your page.  It shows you how many so-called fans have decided to hide your status update in their feed, hide all of your status updates for good, reported you as spam, or decided to “unlike” you altogether. 

Looking at this metric on a daily basis, versus looking at a week or a month at a time, allows you to tie those actions to your specific Facebook posts for the day.  It will tell you exactly what kind of content turns off your fan base.   Remember, when people decide to hide your page for good, they’ll never see your status updates and you’ve essentially lost them, despite the fact they still show up as a “like” in your total fan numbers. 

28 Days Viral Impressions 

This measurement, which shows you the total number of times users saw your posts via stories published by their friends tells you a few things. first of all, let me tell you that one again: this data tells you how your message is spreading to the friends of your fans.  The friends of your existing fans are your next generation of fans, so you want this number to be growing.  Chances are that if their friends like you, they will like you, and even better they will trust you, too.

In addition, when this metric is growing, it means your visibility is growing.  More people are being exposed to you, and that exposure is the first part of the social media ROI cycle.  The higher the number, the more your fans are interacting with content and helping their friends find you, too.

28 Days Organic Reach

Truth be told, Facebook Insights has more ways to measure reach than Larry King has had wives.  It’s bordering on the ridiculous because everyone seems to define “reach” in a different way.  Using the 28 Days Organic Reach measurement, found in the Key Metrics tab, is an easy way to see how your business is performing naturally.

At the Facebook Marketer’s Conference in new York earlier this year, we learned that only 16% of your fans are actually seeing your updates.  Looking at the organic reach is great because it tells you how many people visited your page or saw your page or one of your posts in their News Feeds or Tickers.  this metric measures people who are fans of your page, as well as those who are not.  this gives you an idea of your actual, natural reach.  Watch this number to determine if you are improving your EdgeRank.

Daily like Sources

At first glance, this seems like an obvious inclusion, and it is.  while it is important to know where your audience is coming from, the metric you need to watch closely is the one with the title “mobile.”  Mobile is one of the fastest-growing ways for people to consume social content all over the world.  If you’re not creating a user experience that works well for your mobile audience, you’re way behind in the game.  You can see this without downloading the spreadsheet on the admin page of your Facebook site, but this is one you should be watching long-term.

Weekly Reach by Country

One of my biggest social media pet peeves is when a business decides to post something to their fans of a specific country or city without geo-targeting a post.  Why does this peeve me so?  Because it isn’t relevant to me.  Nor is it relevant to anyone else outside of the one geographic area.  Looking at the “weekly reach” will tell you where your fans are.  this is a great opportunity to provide exclusive content to fans in certain locations, or test drive a promotion without involving legions and legions of fans.  this is also a great way to tap into your hidden market.  I can’t tell you how many brands I’ve worked with that have been blindsided when they learned that their second-highest fan count resided in Brazil – despite the fact the brand has no official presence there.

While you can easily see a snapshot of these numbers as an admin of the page, charting it over time is how you start to see patterns emerge.  these patterns will help you decided what’s working where and with whom.

These five areas of measurement are not the be-all-end-all way to measuring social ROI.  They’re not a magic wand that will suddenly part the clouds and make everything more clear. They are, however, often overlooked by organizations.  Your community manager (and you DO have a community manager, right?) can help your departments understand what metrics make the most sense to monitor for their respective areas of interest.  If he or she can’t, then you need to invest in a better community manager, but I’ll save that for another post.

Seven-time Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher hasn’t won the title since 2004, but is still one of the most talked-about drivers.

He came out of retirement in 2010 driving for Mercedes. still, he is one of the most celebrated drivers in the sport.

He has the most race wins—a total of 91 in his Formula 1 career. He holds the record for the most season wins. Schumacher won 13 out of 18 Grand Prix in 2004. That is 72 percent of the races.

He takes the cake the “most consecutive drivers’ championships” category. Schumacher won the championship five times in a row, starting in 2000 and finishing in 2004. all of these were won in a Ferrari.

Schumacher is one of those people who you either love or hate. He wants to win at all costs. over the years of his professional career, he has been a part of several accidents, including the death of F1 legend Ayrton Senna. Schumacher was often accused of dangerous driving, but was rarely punished.

In 2010, he was the 22nd-most-searched person on Google, with nearly 17 million results.

April 28, 2012 4:30:44 PM

I wish I had a plot. I do not mean a plot of ground; I wish I had a plot for a novel or a play. I know for sure that I have plenty of characters, but so does a dictionary. A dictionary is not really good reading or entertainment. 

However, like any good Southerner, I have observed and interacted with many “characters” in my lifetime. I seem to remember that someone has said that in most places people tend to hide or to shield those who “march to a different drummer,” but in the South we put them on the front porch and pay homage to them. 

I think we do cherish our characters. They do not have to be dysfunctional, like a Tennessee Williams cast, but they can certainly be colorful 

I would like to have a plot that would carry my characters to a Broadway stage. if I could write a Broadway play, I know several people I would put in it. 

I would have a mother and her daughter, who is about 8 to 10 years old. They enter and exit the scene frequently. The mother has all the lines and pays little or no attention to the daughter, who just follows her around. But the child’s only method of locomotion is turning cartwheels. in and out she goes, always in cartwheels. no one thinks it odd or bothers to comment. I actually knew a child like that once; she was my granddaughter. Although she has grown beyond that stage now, I’d like to see that character on stage. 

I would surely put my bridge foursome there, upstage and to the side. Their bridge game would go on regardless of the plot unfolding around them. They — or we — don’t play silently or seriously. And sometimes, not even sanely, skipping from subject to subject and mixing up antecedents until one has to guess what, or whom, is being discussed. 

I fear rules are not ironclad. Once when I was playing a hand and my partner, as dummy, was laying down her cards and commenting on what she had, our opponents decided to show each other their cards. “Hey!” I cried. “You can’t do that!” 

Would you believe I was the one who was promptly upbraided and have never been allowed to forget that I lost my cool? 

We are pretty bad about dropping cards when arthritic fingers cannot hold on to them. Some days we spend a lot of time searching the floor. Sometimes the missing card ends up across the room, where it gets dropped while the player looks for her purse. Recently one of the “girls” fell out of her chair trying to pick a card up from the floor. she knocked over a lamp, which nearly hit me in the head. just as I caught it, our hostess cried, “Oh, look out for my lamp!” My threatened head? not to worry. 

And, yes, sometimes, but rarely, someone will trump her partner’s ace. 

One of our fearsome foursome does not like the surface of her card table, so she leaves her pretty cut-work tablecloth on it while we play. The trouble is that the tablecloth will slip off when we play, so the hostess then thumbtacks it to the table. The table does not wish to accept the thumbtacks. I tell you, it is somewhat unsettling to come in the door and find your hostess attacking the thumbtacks on the bridge table with blows from a huge hammer! 

I know other characters, too. there is a man who knows everything. if you ever need to know anything, just mention it in his presence. Whatever the subject, he expounds on it with pompous authority. 

There was a woman who lived in Columbus during my youth. I called her “the painted lady.” she painted her cheeks with mercurochrome instead of using rouge. Mercurochrome has been removed from the market because it contains mercury. Come to think of it, that may be what was the matter with the woman. 

We also had a savant in Columbus who knew everyone’s car tag number and whether or not they had paid their taxes. he telephoned a number of prominent people over the years to inform them their taxes were delinquent. 

I’ll bet there is not a single one of you who cannot match my list of characters or surpass it. My trouble is that no one will give me a plot. 

Betty Boyls Stone is a freelance writer, who grew up in Columbus.

Betty Boyls Stone is a freelance writer, who grew up in Columbus.

printer friendly version | back to top

With the 45th pick in the draft, the Chicago Bears selected Alshon Jeffery from South Carolina.

Unlike yesterday when many Bears fans were left scratching their heads with the pick of Shea McClellin, this pick had people jumping up and down.

Jeffery measured in at just under 6’3″ at the NFL combine and weighed in at 216 lbs. at South Carolina, he caught 183 passes for over 3,000 yards and 23 touchdowns. He did not run the 40-yard dash, so there is no official time.

The Bears were originally scheduled to select 50th but traded up with the St. Louis Rams to select Jeffery at No. 45. along with the 50th pick, they also sent the 150th pick to St. Louis.

By drafting Jeffery and pairing him with Brandon Marshall, the Bears now have two big and fast targets for Jay Cutler. it will also allow everyone else on the depth chart to slide down one more spot.

Earl Bennett will now get to remain in the slot and work the middle of the field, where he is most effective. If Johnny Knox is able to return healthy this season, it gives the Bears four legit wide receivers—and that isn’t even counting Devin Hester.

When you add in running back Matt Forte and his backup Michael Bush, it gives the Bears a very impressive offense on paper. How it all comes together on the field will be the biggest question heading into the season.

New offensive coordinator Mike Tice now has the weapons that both Ron Turner and Mike Martz always wished they had when they were calling the plays. Now if only he had a franchise left tackle protecting Cutler’s blind side…

What do you think, Bears fans? are the Bears now on par with the elite offenses in the NFL? Sound off below.

Make sure to follow me on Twitter @dachicagofan, and check out my weekly Bears podcast every Monday on my site The MG Experience.

April 27, 2012 11:50 pm By Ed Bouchette / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Steelers went out of their comfort zone in two very big ways, bucking their history and challenging their own sense of rejecting players of questionable character when they drafted Ohio State Mike Adams on the second round Friday night.

It's the first time since 1968 that they drafted two offensive linemen on the first two rounds, taking Adams one day after they drafted Stanford guard David DeCastro with the first pick.

and they dug deep into their research to draft a player who tested positive for marijuana use at the Indianapolis combine and then lied to everyone about it.

Adams, who is 6-7, 322 pounds, apparently was mortified when he learned he had tested positive. A native of Farrell, Pa., and a lifelong Steelers fan he said, according to his agent, Monroeville native Eric Metz, “I blew it. I blew my chance of being a Steeler.''

Metz said he told him, “If you were my son, I'd tell you to get in the car, drive up there, see them face to face like a man and tell them you screwed up. He got in his car and drove over there. it was important to him, he wanted to be a Steeler.''

When he arrived, he met with Colbert, coach Mike Tomlin and president Art Rooney.

“We told him he was off our draft board,'' Colbert said.

but the fact that Adams made that drive, which the Steelers appreciated, led to circumstances that culminated in them drafting him Friday night.

The Steelers laid out some stipulations for Adams to get back on their draft board, which included counseling. Colbert said he met them all, and the put gave him a first-round grade on their board.

Colbert admitted he was a risk, but said all draft picks are risks, and that Adams showed them he is serious about making up for his mistake.

first Published 2012-04-28 00:48:53