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10 Things That the House of My Dreams Will Have
Let me begin with the house of my dreams isn’t necessarily a house you would see on Cribs. The image of the house of my dreams is simply the house that I would want to live in, whether it be when I have millions of dollars or not.There are certain things that I have always thought that I would want when I eventually settle down, wherever/whenever that may be. There are more than 10 things, in fact I made a list once and there were probably 150.
But here is a brief list of things that I think will be imperative to my eventual home.
- An indoor tennis court
- An ourdoor tennis court (for social gatherings, and friendly tournaments)
- A pool of some sort
- A room where every wall is covered in glitter
- Lots of windows, but they have to have shade that will deflect 100% of the light. Sometimes I like to be a recluse.
- A hanging portrait of Dorothy Lamour. (Probably this one)
- A tea set (thanks Andrea!)
- An alleyway between my house and the craft house
- A craft house
- A small, intimate theater room with only love seats and couches (no singular recliners) so that people can come over and cuddle each other
- (BONUS) All seasons on DVD of: Roseanne, Golden Girls, and Lost
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Nike Tennis Shoes And How To Buy Them Wholesale
Nike has always been a leader in the upscale tennis shoe market and since the 80’s they have pretty dominated the market by signing big name sports stars like Michael Jordan and more recently LeBron James and Tiger Woods. Nike spends big money on getting these celebrity sports star endorsements to the tune of nearly 500 million dollars a year so it must be working for them. The signature Michael Jordan shoes called Air Jordan continue to be popular even after 20 years on the market and his no longer playing basketball.
Nike Air Jordans can be easily distinguished from other tennis shoes just by their logo alone. The earlier releases featured a winged basketball and could be found near the ankle area on both sides of the shoe as well as the tongue. When Nike introduced the 4th generation of the shoe the logo was changed to a basketball player in air as if he were dunking a basketball. This logo is known as the “jumpman” and appears in numerous places on the shoe.
Air Jordan tennis shoes are innovators in technology in the industry, the whole technology behind designing the shoe to bring in air to the soles gives them the comfort that everyone is looking for. This feature is standard in all of the Air Jordan tennis shoes but the newer ones of course are much better and even feature an adjustment pump which enables the wearer of the shoe to adjust it to suit his own needs.
These are not cheap tennis shoes, I can remember as a kid buying tennis shoes for no more than $20 but Air Jordans sell for as much as 300 bucks or more. This has created a great secondary wholesale market, especially on the internet where prices are even more competitive. In order to get into this market you will have to do some work.
Like other high products such as Gucci and Prada handbags and Rolex watches their exists a large black market of counterfeiters so you must be extra careful to make sure you are dealing with a reputable company. The best way to start is to simply type in the term “wholesale tennis shoe” or in the case above, “wholesale Nike Air Jordan tennis shoes” into the search box of your favorite web browser. This will get you a list of wholesalers to investigate and narrow down.
Next check them out with the Better Business Bureau, both online and where they are located and if they have complaints take them off your lists. Now that you have the list narrowed down, call them up and ask for references of satisfied clients, they should be more than willing to do so. If they pass this test then find out what there pricing, shipping, and return policies are and if they are acceptable you are in business. Don’t judge just on price alone, if they are far cheaper they are probably knock offs.
Friends Link : Sanuk Luichiny
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Impressions from the 2010 Australian Tennis Open
The 2010 Australian Tennis Open was a celebration of exciting all court tennis. With Murray, Federer, Henin and Tsonga amongst the main protagonists the tennis was both thrilling and beautiful. This style of tennis is making a comeback as top players seek to conserve energy by shortening grinding rallies and create a competitive advantage in a game often dominated by ground strokes…read more>>>
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Dubai Day 2 preview
Number six seed Marin Cilic faces Arnaud Clement of France this afternoon in Dubai. The Croat, who is currently ranked number 10 in the world after losing to Andy Murray in the semi-final of the Australian Open last month, will be looking to progress into the second round with ease against the unseeded Frenchman, who is ranked 52 places below Cilic, at number 62 in the world.
Clement’s fellow countryman Florent Serra – another player Andy Murray made short work of in the Australian Open – will be hoping to shock on-form player Nikolay Davydenko of Russia. Davydenko, the number four seed, and world number six, will be looking to continue his impress run of form with a quick progression into the second round.
In the evening round of matches, another Australian Open semi-finalist (and finalist in 2008) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, will take on his countryman Michael Llodra. Number five seed Tsonga will be looking to make up for the crushing disappointment of losing to Oz Open champ Roger Federer at Melbourne Park last month, with a swift move into the second round.
Last up on Centre Court tonight will be unseeded Slovakian Lukas Lacko against number seven seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia. The Slovak will be hoping to upset the world number 15 tonight by knocking him out at the first hurdle.
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Week 12: Open, by Andre Agassi (2009: Knopf, 388 pages
What is it about fathers and athletes? If you’ve watched any of the Winter Olympics lately, then you surely know that Apolo Ohno’s dad was the driving force behind his success. The same with Lindsey Vonn. Every time I turn on the channel, NBC is providing yet another glowing, soaring profile of an athlete (yesterday a Norwegian, a specialist in the Super-G) whose father gave him his first skis, skates, snowboard, whatever.
Why stop at the Winter Olympics? The Williams sisters, Tiger Woods, Steffi Graf, and the subject of our blog, Andre Agassi, all nabbed by their fathers at an early age and crammed into the pressure cooker of competitive athletics. Read any bio of those driven to succeed in athletics, there is some father whose presence (or in the case of Lance Armstrong, very absence) provided the catalyst for nothing less than crushing one’s opponent in a very public fashion.
It was coincidental that I read Open this week, and it’s such an honest and compelling memoir, told with such brio, that one doesn’t even need the Winter Olympics as a backdrop. Actually, you don’t even have to like tennis very much to enjoy this book, and that I can say is probably mostly due to the fact that it was “ghostwritten” by Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer, author of the memoir The Tender Bar. (I put that in quotations because Agassi generously thanks Moehringer and outs him in the Acknowledgments.)
Andre Agassi, like most athletes at that level, is a super-narcissist, trained at an early age to block out all others’ wants or needs in favor of The Big Win. So what can a super-narcissist possibly write that isn’t off-putting? For starters, he’s extremely funny, whether he’s describing trying to keep his hairpiece from falling off in the finals of the 1990 French Open, or having to borrow a shoe from a fan in the stands in the middle of a match in Stuttgart in order to finish the game (“It has to be a Nike, I add – because of my contract … though the man is a size nine, I force the shoe on my foot, like some half-wit Cinderella, and resume play.”) He also has a nice sense of irony, since as he tells as many times over, he hates tennis with a passion, and always has. Tennis is a lonely, aggressive business, “closest to solitary confinement,” and begun solely at the instigation of his tennis-obsessed father.
Mike Agassi built a souped-up ball machine for seven-year-old Andre, and had him out on the court daily and for hours on end. School was frowned upon, seen as a distraction. A former bantamweight boxer who competed in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics for Iran, Mike Agassi is one of those parents you see at your kids’ soccer games screaming on the sidelines, before getting into a fistfight with the ref. The guy is completely insane; young Andre watches as he beats a guy into a pulp after the man made the unfortunate decision to cut Mike off in traffic. “Such moments, and many more, come to mind whenever I think about telling my father that I don’t want to play tennis. Besides loving my father, and wanting to please him, I don’t want to upset him. I don’t dare.”
Agassi claims to hate tennis (and after experiences like that, who wouldn’t?), but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. He actually hates losing, and disappointing people. Groomed to be a pro tennis player, sent away to a prison-like tennis academy as a pre-teen, and with school taken out of the picture by the ninth grade, there really is nothing else he can do. He thinks constantly about quitting or retiring, and his inconsistent play over the years reveals that deep ambivalence. Nevertheless, the guy is clearly athletically gifted beyond belief, and when life intercedes with various conflicts or dramas (like divorce, the illness of a child, or simply the jealousy he feels when girlfriend Brooke Shields licks an actor’s hand in a scene of “Friends”) he doesn’t have any of the psychological tools that a normal person has to deal with them.
Some of the best parts of Open, it must be said, spring from this reader’s voyeuristic tendencies. Brooke Shields doesn’t come off too well; the two are on a collision course from the moment they start dating until their marriage dissolves some two years later, meeting each other pound for pound in the narcissism camp. And yes, Pete Sampras really is that boring. Sampras, who was forever cast as the rival and nemesis of Agassi, is actually somewhat of a friend, but he is a butter knife to Agassi’s cleaver. “I drag Pete to the Eugene O’Neill Theater to see Brooke as Rizzo in Grease,” Agassi writes. It’s the first time Sampras has seen a Broadway show, but Agassi has seen Grease many, many times, and he is all over it, loving the competitive nature of the actors, their physicality, the nightly pressure. “All this is lost on Pete, however,” Agassi observes. “From the opening number he’s yawning, fidgeting, checking his watch. He doesn’t like the theater, and he doesn’t get actors, since he’s never pretended anything in his life.”
Why does Agassi continue, then, if this hatred and “whirl” as he calls it, is so distasteful and crazy-making? Much has been made of Agassi’s admission in this book of his use of methamphetamine, which is such a non-event compared to everything else in his crazy life that I am frankly puzzled why it got so much press. (He used it recreationally, during a period of deep depression, not as a performance-enhancer.) It seemed to me the real turning point of his career was the ill-fated commercial he made for Canon, in which (goaded by the director) he sneers, “Image is everything.” You’d think that someone on his team would have the presence of mind to warn him that this may not be such a good line for someone as flamboyant as Agassi to say, who’d already been the punching bag for every sportswriter on the planet. He begins to hear this line twice a day, then six times a day, and overnight “the slogan becomes synonymous with me. They say I’m just an image, I have no substance, because I haven’t won a slam. They say the slogan is proof that I’m just a pitchman, trading on my fame, caring only about money … Fans at my matches begin taunting me with the slogan.” Agassi is crushed by the “wave of hostility and criticism and sarcasm it sets off.” As the ridiculous throwaway line slogan is used over and over, and “creeps its way into every article about me, I change. I develop an edge, a mean streak … I’m becoming my father.”
The problem is that there was no team behind Agassi. The realization leads him to find, ironically, a real father figure, someone to watch out for him, which he does in his trainer Gil Reyes. That friendship sparks something divine for Agassi, and leads to his expanding his heart and wallet, opening a charter school, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, and eventually finding the love of his life, his now-wife Steffi Graf. Tennis finally becomes the means to the end, not the other way around.
It’s true that I do love sports, and celebrities, and this memoir has the magic mixture for me. I can’t tell if Agassi is really that articulate, insightful and ultimately humble as he seems to be, or if it is all J.R. Moehringer. But after finishing Open, it didn’t matter.
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How To Buy Tennis Shoes
And tennis shoes, which are technically known as sports shoes, shoes are designed for physical activities and sports. Other types of shoes are called evening shoes and tennis shoes differ from them in structure and style. Other names under which one of the tennis shoes are trainers (in English), runners or runner shoes (in Canada and Hiberno-English), beach shoes (in Australian English), sneakers, sneakers, running shoes and others.
Tennis shoes are used, whileplay sports like running, tennis, basketball, just to name a few. However, shoes used in sports such as football, rugby, etc., are not like tennis shoes. Rather, they are known as boots.
This is a very flexible material. The shoes usually also have a rubber sole. The original design of tennis shoes was simple, but since its introduction, the designers have modified the project and made more suitable for certain purposes. as indicated by the length, use a spike heelShoes.
Moreover, the high-end sneakers in various forms for themselves in different ways. May, in case someone still can not find the right form, he / she also custom-made shoes. Even if the measure shoes are more expensive than normal, the results are worth it.
Many brands manufacture tennis shoes. Some of the most popular ones are Nike, Reebok, adidas, Converse, K-Swiss, Lacoste, PUMA, Shaq, Etnies, C1rca, Brooks, Adio, Fallen, British Knights, and manyother.
The choice of them can be a difficult task at times. Some basic considerations can help a person get the right shoes. Here are some of the important points that need to be first to think of shoes.
The style is not so important – most people choose tennis shoes and brand audit, looks alone. You don `t think how important standing in front of most of the time. There may be a bit ‘difficult, until a couple is looking awesomeShoes that matches your personality, but if you were to increase the appeal, were elected on the basis of their functions. The tennis shoes you should buy to protect and sustain a `s feet ideally.
The Box Heel – is an important part of the shoes. People are usually in their needs, if there is, at the heel. A robust heel box is very important to keep the back foot in case of control during running and gambling. A heel box is the part of the coverageHeel.
In general, the field with the heel of shoe leather with some rubber or plastic should be carried out as reinforcements. But not every heel box is the same. To test the heel box when you buy shoes, we can try to crush or bend. This can give an idea of the strength of the book heel. If you can bend over easily over the heel box, support is not very helpful.
Upper – injuries are, in principle, if errors are made in thisParty. The share of tennis shoes, the foot is the subject of higher education. And ‘the shoe upper body, from toes to the heel box. This section helps control the center of the front of the foot. Efforts should be a lot of comfort in this region.
Change – you should not keep wearing worn out shoes, as it can cause problems and injuries. You should have protected, instead of shoes on his feet.
A nice pair of tennis shoes does not need flashy or expensive.As long as the real purpose is best served, should not be seen to go. You can consult your doctor to know their needs.
My Links : Allen Edmonds
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trophy watch: acronym edition
SAP: At the SAP Open in San Jose, Fernando Verdasco beat a top-ten player for the first time in 15 tries with his 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 upset of Andy Roddick. Andy was none too happy about a few line calls that didn’t go his way.
GDF: Top seed Elena Dementieva needed three sets to overcome a nagging Lucie Safarova 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4. This is Dementieva’s second title of 2010; she also won the Sydney tournament before the Australian Open.
PTT: Vera Zvonareva successfully defended her title at the PTT Pattaya Open title in Thailand by taking down hometown fave Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-4, 6-4.
ABN AMRO: Swede Robin Soderling was the last man standing in Rotterdam after Mikhail Youzhny retired while trailing 0-2 in the second set. Youzhny sustained the injury after he stunned top seed Novak Djokovic 7-6 (5), 7-6, (6). Soderling also upset a seed, Nikolay Davydenko, in the semis.
JCF: In Costa do Sauipe, the Joma-wearing Juan Carlos Ferrero steamrolled Lukasz Kubot 6-1, 6-0 at the Brasil Open for his 13th career title.
(images via Getty Images)
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Melbourne, Australia.
I apologize deeply to those who have been waiting for posts. Traveling back to the US and then Russia, where I have been settling in to study for the next 5 months made doing anything very difficult. I am going to try and do weekly posts from Irkutsk so please stay tuned.
Melbourne, Week 3.
With our arrival into Melbourne and the start of the Australian Open only a day away I knew that this could be my one chance to meet a star before all the security guards and credentials got in the way. As we made our way down to baggage claim, I carefully scanned every person we passed, trying to recognize a tennis bag, tennis shoes, something that would give them away. “Hey coach! Do you think that’s Srichaphan?” “No, Ry, I think Srichaphan retired a while ago,” coach replied “Well he could be here commentating for Thailand or something!” (I still swear it was him)
Just as I was about to give up on my star search, I saw her; the long blonde hair, the perfect body (say it with a French accent, it sounds better) and legs that went on for miles. I could almost hear her grunting as she passed by me, my jaw on the floor. No, it wasn’t Maria, but definitely the next best thing. It was Elena Dementieva, who had just defeated an injured Serena Williams in the finals of the Sydney Medibank International. Although how injured could Serena really have been I mean she won the freaking Australian Open 2 weeks later. Anyway, it was Elena Dementieva, my second favorite screaming-Russian-tennis-princess and she was in the same building as me. Somewhat fresh out of Russia I felt it more than appropriate to approach her. “I just want to say that you played an amazing match against Serena last night, and good luck in all your matches I will be cheering for you!” (It sounded better when I said it in Russian) Used to this kind of thing I’m sure, she very graciously thanked me and continued to baggage claim to claim her belongings, which I thought about stealing for a split second, I mean who wouldn’t want a racquet a pro plays with. I decided against it however, wanting to eventually leave the country and to be able to watch tennis while in Melbourne.
Unfortunately Elena had to face Justine Henin in the 2nd round, and we all know who Justine ended up losing to: Yep, my home-girl Serena. But, even in Elena losing, she and Justine played what was one of, according to the commentators of ESPN 2, the best matches of the year – something I never understand at the Australian Open because the year has only just begun and all. It was a great match nonetheless.
Not only in Melbourne for the tennis, throughout the week we made stops at various other destinations: The first day was a free-day. I went to the tennis center and watched the Hit for Haiti fundraiser. I got there 3 hours early and sat at the gates to get a good seat, pretty die-hard, I know. Federer (who thought to hold the event before the tournament began), Clijsters, Roddick, Hewitt (who nobody in Australia likes by the way), Serena, Stosur, and Nadal all made appearances. We went to a war memorial, botanical gardens; coach LOVES the botanical gardens, he loved them so much I think it made all of us love them too. We met some of the best up-and-coming Australian juniors and got to chat with them about life in Australia. Melbourne is also the food and restaurant capital of Australia, so of course we enjoyed all different types of fantastic cuisine. We went to China Town, which I guess they have like in every giant metropolis, the local markets, where I do NOT recommend you buy shoes – they have a 2 day life expectancy. Eric Butorac, former Gustavus Alumni turned tennis pro was also there to play. He met with us in the mornings of the first 2 days of the tournament to answer questions and share some stories. He and partner Rajeev Ram made a surprising run all the way to the quarter-finals where they played an amazing match, taking the Bryan Brothers and number one team in the world to a tie-break in the third set. The group got to cheer them to victory in their other 2 matches but “unfortunately” had to fly to Sydney, missing the third.
More from Sydney and the final week to come.
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Citizen Jasmine
This is Jasmine. Jasmine is the Quickly Bubble Tea girl on 16th. At Quickly they have almost 200 different milk teas, bubble teas, rose teas, juices, snows and slushes. I had a honeydew rose tea, which tasted just like roses smell. Jasmine has been working at Quickly for about 8 months and is going through a pharmacy tech program. She is a Sac native and played tennis in high school, where she would slam down on you at the net if you weren’t careful. She likes Lady Gaga and whatever they play on 107.9, as well as some country and classical music when she studies. She says people always think she’s older than she really is. Jasmine is 20.
Favorite Accomplishments: I will be finishing a career program and that’s a goal I set for myself that I stuck to.
Regrets: Not doing better in high school.
What are you passions/obsessions? I love to play tennis when I can find a friend that has time to play.
What are the most popular drinks at Quickly? The jasmine, taro, and bubble milk teas.
What’s your favorite? I like the green apple slush. It’s tart.
Sound off! I hate it when I’m friends with someone and they don’t care how I feel and when we stop being friends they take all my other friends. (That does suck!)
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/popeast_2090_32260343
http://www.quicklysacramento.com/index.html
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Mario Power Tennis (Wii)
Mario Power Tennis (Wii) Review
Bought this game for my son’s 7th Birthday & he’s not stopped playing it!!!!It tires him out (which for all parents is a bonus) and has so much fun when he plays it.
Great tool for improving hand eye co-ordination, excellent very pleased.
Feature
Overview
Mario Power Tennis is the second in the series of New Play Control! titles and will see the much loved Mario Power Tennis from GameCube adapted to offer this great game with all-new controls on Wii. This new game will still allow you to choose from a range of characters from the Mario franchise, and you can then either play regular tennis or tennis-themed minigames. You will play through the Tournament Mode in both Singles and Doubles matches allowing you to unlock a variety of new characters, extra minigames and courts as well as a more challenging Star Tournament.
The new controls allows you to, perform different strokes by flicking the Wii Remote in the corresponding direction, utilising the motion sensitive controls for Wii. A player can now charge up his power shot gauge by waiting and hitting the ball back at the last possible moment. The game will now offer different levels of control types which increase in difficulty appealing to varied levels of gamers: Easy, Medium, Technical, and Difficult.
- New Play Controls allows you to utilise different strokes, by flicking the Wii Remote
- Your player will now charge up his power shot gauge by waiting hitting the ball back at the latest possible moment
- The game offers 4 levels of control – Easy, Medium, Technical and Difficult
Specifications
The New Play Control! range returns with a special update of the GameCube’s hit tennis game. Starring the whole of the Mushroom Kingdom pantheon, there’s much more to this sports sim than it first appears.
Not only can you play as Bowser but you can also pick-up Mario Kart style items
Mario uses his power shot to bring on a rather unorthodox piece of tennis equipment
It may not look like it, but at heart this is a surprisingly deep sports sim
Boss battles aren’t a normal part of most tennis games, but they are in this one!At the heart of the game though is a traditional tennis sim with controls that have just that little bit more depth than Wii Sports, for a slightly more realistic feel. To start with though all you do is use the remote to hit the ball and, if you want, the Nunchuk’s analogue stick to move around the court.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to other options though, with everything from the crazy power shots to special gimmick courts filled with obstacles and situations from previous Mario games. With 18 different characters to choose from and an excellent four-player mode this is one of the Wii’s best new/old sports games.
Key Features
- Ace shot: Each character has its own unique power shots for both attack and defence, from wielding a mallet to hit the ball to using an extending arm to return an incoming ball.
- Mario sports: Special game modes including Ring Shot where you score extra points by hitting the ball through hoops or Item Battle where you use Mario Kart style power-ups.
- Wimbledon uncommon: Optional gimmick courts bring bizarre obstacles and rules to the game as you play in haunted houses and gunge filled courts.
- Games within games: Huge selection of mini-games to test your skills, from painting a mural on a wall to playing noughts and crosses for hidden Star Shines.
- Celebrity sports: Play as everyone from Mario and Bowser to Donkey Kong and Waluigi — each with their own unique abilities and different styles of play.
About the Developer: Camelot Software Planning
One of Japan’s most experienced sports developers, Camelot have been responsible for kick-starting the Everybody’s Golf, Mario Golf and Mario Tennis series. They’re also known for their role-playing games, including the original Shining Force games and the Golden Sun series on GBA.Feb 05, 2010 23:15:13