The Perspective — NFL Conference Championship Predictions – SF/NYG and BALT/NE

The Perspective — NFL Conference Championship Predictions – SF/NYG and BALT/NE

I could have used some more ....

Finished 2-2 last week. I certainly could have used some more cowbell.

That puts me at 5-3 after two NFL playoff rounds. With 3 picks left.

I’m going to try to keep bias out of this and run the table.

Straight up…

San Francisco – 24
New York Giants – 21

David Akers is the Hero.

New England – 35
Baltimore – 24

Duh. Tom Brady & Gronkowski are the Bread and Butter here.

Some professional sports writers picks and cumulative prediction records as well.

Bill Simmons – Grantland

Peter King – Sports Illustrated

The Yahoo Talking Heads – Silver, Carpenter

SB*Nation –

Best of luck in your picks and I hope the games are fun to watch!!

The Perspective — Playoff Predictions – SF/NO ** DNVR/NE ** BLT/TX ** NYG/GB

The Perspective — Playoff Predictions – SF/NO  **  DNVR/NE  **  BLT/TX   **  NYG/GB 

I'm a Peacock, You GOTTA LET ME FLY!!

WILDCARD PICKS FROM LAST WEEK’S GAMES…

Cincinnati versus Houston – Sat 4:30pm
Houston – 24 Cincy – 13  ** CORRECTOMUNDO!

Detroit versus New Orleans – Sat 8pm
New Orleans – 41 Detroit – 30  ** HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES!

Atlanta vs. NY Giants – Sun 1pm
Atl – 34 NYG – 17 ** A SWING AND A MISS!

Pittsburgh vs. Denver – Sun 4:30pm
Denver – 20 Pittsburgh – 17 ** DOUBLE BONUS POINTS FOR THE UPSET SPECIAL!!  

3-1 LAST WEEK  W/ THE BRONCO’S PICK, MAKES ME FEEL ALL WARM AND INTELLIGENTLY.

ON THAT NOTE…

PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS — WEEK 2

New Orleans at San Francisco, Saturday @ 4:30pm

Drew Brees vs.  ___________  (An actual team?)

This game is going to be all about how far SF defense bends dealing with the force that is Drew Brees and his band of merry WR’s.  If SF jumps on opportunities (say turnovers and sacks) without allowing Brees to go all, you know, Drew Brees, then things could go well.

I think an important advantage in this matchup is Home field.  The 49ers have it and its worth 3 points.  But I also feel like Moore, Meachem & Colston have the chops to overcome Akers and Home Field.

FINAL PREDICTION – New Orleans – 27   San Francisco – 21

Denver at New England, Saturday @ 8pm

I’m going to try to stay away from the obvious names and the obvious predictions that every talking head is making… Tebow is a miracle & Patroits are going to destroy the Broncos.

I think this matchup comes down to 2 variables.

#1.  Denver defense getting consistent pressure on Tom Brady.  If they hurry & hit him all day, they can control the NE offense, to a degree.  No one can actually control that offense, just make it run inefficiently.   Denver’s defense must also stick to NE’s TE’s (thats what she said?) like glue.  History supports this logic.

#2.  Does Tebow have enough intestinal fortitude to overcome the legend and big moment heroics of Thomas Brady?  I’m seeing a Tebow score to take a late lead but leaving 1:12 on the clock, of which Brady uses :62 seconds to march downfield for the winning score.  Does that sound about right?  I hope not, because I’m going in the opposite direction.

FINAL PREDICTION – Denver – 31  New England – 30  ** Yeah it looks and feels a bit crazy, as I stare at it now, but I’m sticking with it.  John Fox is going to be dialed in!

Houston at Baltimore, Sunday @ 1pm

Houston can run all day!  Baltimore used to be able to shut down offenses completely.  This has CHAOS written all over it.  Everything you thought you knew about this game could easily get turned on its head.

Logical Thoughts;  TJ Yates is underwhelming, Arian Foster runs for 100 yds & 1 td, Texans defense performs admirably.   Joe Flacco underwhelms and disappears at clutch moments, like 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter.  Ray Rice runs for 100+ yds and 1 TD and catches 5 passes for 50 yards and 1 TD.  The Baltimore defense makes a play.

Reality;  This game is going to be ugly.  Both QB’s are indeed going to underwhelm, and the defenses will be predicated on stopping the run and bringing pressure on those QB’s.  I see INT’s, Fumbles and boatloads of incompletions…  One offensive player from each side will do their best to drag their respective team onto their back…  Let’s go with Arian Foster & Billy Cundiff.

FINAL PREDICTION – Baltimore – 23   Houston – 16  

NY Giants at Green Bay, Sunday @ 4:30pm

Eli, Eli, Eli.   His arm may fall off this game.  Can Eli attempt 60 passes while completing 45?  Doubtful.  Maybe 35!  I think he has to throw to keep up with the Green & Yellow Juggernaut.

Meanwhile, the NYG are going to counter with a ferocious defensive blitz attack on Rodgers.  The downside to this Russian Roulette of blitzing is, long passes to open WR’s for TD’s.

For all the hype, I think this game is a statement for the defending champion Packers.

FINAL PREDICTION – Green Bay – 48   NYG – 34

Here are some other ‘Opinions’;

ESPN Sports Nation – Ravens v. Texans - 

ESPN Sports Nation – NO Saints v. SF 49ers

ESPN Sports Nation – NE Patriots v. Broncos

ESPN Sports Nation – NYG v. GB Packers

Sports Illustrated – Peter King’s Picks 

Yahoo Sports Guru’s – Silver, Carpenter, Cole

SB*Nation – Playoff Picks

Bill Simmons – 4-0 in Week 1 of the NFL Playoffs.  Let’s see what he’s got in Week 2.

Calorie Drinking & Protein Consumption; Lose weight, stay active: 6 small changes can help keep the weight off

picture via www.healthylivingnows.com

By ConsumerReportsHealth.org

Trying to reverse the 1-to-2-pounds-a-year weight gain that is the fate of the average middle-aged American? Overwhelmed at the thought of changing your lifestyle enough to reach a healthful weight?

Fortunately, there is an alternative approach to the drastic diet and exercise revisions that Americans find so difficult to embark on and sustain. The idea is to start with smaller, easier changes that will, at the very least, halt the weight-creep and give encouraging results.

“We find that people who make small changes will often lose a few pounds,” said James O. Hill, Ph.D., director of the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado at Denver. “Those who start with small changes often end up able to make more and bigger changes and lose more weight.”

Here are a half-dozen small changes you can make right now:

1. Stop drinking calories
In the late 1970s the average American consumed about 70 calories a day in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages. By 2000 we were guzzling an average of 190 calories. Numerous studies have left little doubt about the connection between increased consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and the soaring rates of weight gain and obesity that occurred during that same time period……

2. Eat more protein
Remember when experts thought the high-protein, low-carb Atkins diet didn’t work and was dangerous? It’s been more than seven years since the first studies started overturning that idea. Low-carb, high-protein diets have proved surprisingly effective, especially in the short term. And it turns out that people who eat a higher proportion of their calories from protein end up consuming fewer calories overall…..

3. Eat more fiber
Fiber is the good guy of food. It may help protect against colon cancer and heart disease, and it is your weight-control friend. It slows digestion, helping you to feel fuller longer, and displaces other caloric foods. Best of all, it comes in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are loaded with beneficial vitamins and minerals…..

4. Lead yourself not into temptation
Can’t eat just one Dorito or chocolate kiss? That is no accident, as former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, M.D., documented in his book, “The End of Overeating” (Rodale, 2009). The food industry works hard to create high-calorie foods with the most addictive possible combination of intense flavor and “mouthfeel.”….

5. Add 2,000 steps a day
That’s 20 to 25 minutes of walking, covers about a mile, and will burn about 100 calories a day—enough, Hill said, to prevent gradual weight gain in most people.

“It doesn’t matter how you get there,” Hill said. “It can be all at once or spread out. Once you do get there, do more.”

6. Cut your screen time
“When we’re sitting, we are burning almost as few calories as we do when we’re sleeping,” said Marc T. Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. “Sitting too much is hazardous to your health in a different way than exercising too little.”…

For the additional details and full story, click here.

Down Syndrome Football player scores TD in heartwarming story

I confess to being a groupie of a couple of sportswriters. I can’t get enough of their witty, snarky, sharp & poignant writing. I eagerly await each article and covet it, similar to a hungry dog and a piece of meat. These writers include Bill Simmons (aka, the Sports Guy) and Matthew Berry (aka, TMR) both work for ESPN and both are tremendous at their craft.

It seemed a wide chasm between anything else I could find and read that even came close to the enjoyment that I received from the aforementioned writers, but alas, my search has found a writer. Although his writing skills are not the reason I trumpet his articles here and now, it is more the content of the stories with his writing the expensive frame to the masterpiece. I receive so much inner joy from reading his uplifting stories and articles that my heart gets so warm, I have to be careful to avoid heartburn. Zing. Ok. I. Digress.

Below find another gem from Mr. Cameron Smith over at Yahoo and his section called Prep Rally which I find to be a wonderful story of Human Spirit providing hope, compassion and character when often times these things are overlooked for the pursuit of money, a win, entertainment, etc. (i.e. – Braylon Edwards, Michael Vick (although he served his time), Plaxico Burress, Roger Clemens, Barry bonds… and the list goes on and on…)

Below find the same lovable guy Ike Ditzenberger and his amazing teammates & competitors doing a similar good deed during a JV game. Karma is a wonderful thing people.

Oil Coated Pelicans and Beaches look to Mid-August for BP relief wells to be operational

BP, MMS, Haliburton, Transocean, Government Failure

Just another hollow promise, stalling a complete shut down of the Deepwater Horizon, until the relief wells can be completed thereby keeping the flow of oil into our Gulf spewing like rhetoric from Glenn Becks orafice or the incessant buzzing from the World Cup Vuvuzelas! Keep in mind, when the relief wells are operational, BP can continue to collect oil and more importantly, immense profits. We need to make sure they are diligent in funds and efforts to clean the Gulf, as this is a detrimental blow that just keeps coming.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS – Tests show BP is on target for mid-August completion of a relief well in the Gulf of Mexico, the best hope of stopping the oil that’s been gushing since April, the company said Friday.

The crew drilling the first of two wells ran a procedure this week to confirm it is on the correct path, spokesman Bill Salvin said.

“The layman’s translation is, ‘We are where we thought we were,’” he said.

Several such tests are needed to determine the relief well’s location relative to the well that blew out April 20 when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded. Once the new well intersects the blown-out one, BP plans to pump heavy drilling mud in to stop the oil flow and plug it with cement.

Salvin said the relief well should be done by mid-August, but that didn’t seem to help the company’s stock price, which plunged following the company’s announcement that the price tag for the response has risen to $2.35 billion.

For the full story, click here <—–

Akron-area home values keep sliding

Report finds 24.8 percent of Summit, Portage owners have negative equity

Published on Thursday, May 07, 2009

This article from http://Ohio.com is a bit of a micro-view segue from the previous blog article. Zillow has plenty of research and commentary to show how Akron Residential is slowly rotting from the inside, despite all the wonderful efforts of local business people. The local government needs to hopefully read this blog and many of the available resources out there screaming about the area needing help… anyhow… I digress… enjoy the articles’ worth content.

Beacon Journal staff report

Nearly a quarter of all homeowners in Summit and Portage counties owe more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth as values fell from a year ago, according to the latest research by the online real estate firm Zillow.

Home values in the Akron metropolitan statistical area — defined as Summit and Portage counties — fell 7 percent in the first three months this year compared to a year ago, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. The Zillow Real Estate Market Reports look at 161 metropolitan areas and cover the value changes in all homes, not just homes that have recently sold.

The average home price in the greater Akron area for the first quarter this year was $115,682, down 14.9 percent since the Akron market peaked in 2006, Zillow announced in a release Wednesday.

The results for Summit and Portage counties showed:

• 24.8 percent of all Akron-area homeowners now have negative equity, meaning they owe more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth. The local area still fared better than the nation overall, according to Zillow.

• Homes in the Akron area lost $815.3 million in value during the first quarter of 2009, and have lost $3.2 billion in the past 12 months.

• 28.8 percent of transactions in the past 12 months were foreclosures.

• 8 percent of homes sold were ”short sales,” meaning the proceeds fell short of the balance owed on the mortgage.

Nationally, home values fell in the first quarter, declining 14.2 percent from the first three months of 2008 to an average of $182,378.

Declining home values left 28.9 percent of all American homeowners with negative equity by the end of the first quarter, Zillow said.

”Slowing declines in select markets are a bright spot or, at least, what passes for one given current market conditions,” Stan Humphries, Zillow vice president of data and analytics, said in a prepared statement. ”Unfortunately, given the magnitude of the current rates of decline, we’re still many months away from a bottom even as depreciation slows.”

More than one in five homeowners underwater: Zillow

Ok, first things first. I am not a fan of Zillow. Zillow is consistently criticized for taking a biased approach for valuations. It is reticent to sticking your toe into the Atlantic Ocean off Daytona Beach, FL to get the temperature in the Atlantic Ocean off New England… Sometimes the market moves to fast to take its correct temperature.

Ok, now with that preface out of the way, the article reads like this.

Home values in the United States extended their fall in the first quarter, with more than one in five homeowners now owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday.

U.S. home values posted a year-over-year decline of 14.2 percent to a Zillow Home Value Index of $182,378, resulting in a total 21.8 percent drop since the market peaked in 2006, according to Zillow’s first-quarter Real Estate Market Reports, which encompass 161 metropolitan areas and cover the value changes in all homes, not just homes that have recently sold.

U.S. homes lost $704 billion in value during the first quarter and have depreciated $3.8 trillion in the past 12 months, according to analysis of the reports.

Declining home values left 21.9 percent of all American homeowners with negative equity by the end of the first quarter, Zillow said.

By comparison, 17.6 percent of all homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their property was worth in the fourth quarter of 2008, and 14.3 percent were underwater in the third quarter of last year, the reports showed.

Nine consecutive quarters of declines have left eight regions — including the Modesto, California, Stockton, California, and Fort Myers, Florida regions — with median value declines of more than 50 percent since those markets peaked.

In 85 of the 161 markets covered in the report, the annualized change over the past five years is negative or flat, the reports showed.

For the full article and continued depressing carnage... Click Here <—-

The Making of a Landlord

I saw the story’s title and was instantly drawn to it. A wonderful, realistic read. I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

“The Landlord of the Shadows”

written By Christopher Palmeri s a senior correspondent in BusinessWeek’s Los Angeles bureau.

I was chased by a wild dog.

I saw a home so stripped someone had even taken the front door. I attended a foreclosed-home auction that featured cheerleaders yelling in my ear. Finally, in March, I closed on a home I’m now renting out as an investment property.

I paid $125,000; it had sold for $345,000 four years ago.
In my one-year search, I came to expect surprises and to realize that even a good credit score doesn’t get you far.

One thing I learned: Avoid foreclosure auctions. The homes need lots of work, and most buyers don’t have time to do proper inspections. Ditto for “short sales,” where an owner tries to sell a home for less than what he owes the bank. There are too many decision-makers involved. I made an offer on a short sale. Nine months later it’s still on the market.

I began my search in my Los Angeles neighborhood, but even with a big down payment, prices hadn’t fallen enough to produce positive cash flow for a rental property. So I searched Realtor.com for homes in suburbs a train ride away that seemed likely to have job growth. I found a two-bedroom, one-bath Spanish-style bungalow listed for $129,000 in Ontario, Calif. I offered $123,000; we settled on $125,000.

I figured getting a loan would be easy. I have good credit, no debt, cash in the bank, and a job. I was pre-approved for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bank of the West wanted to charge me five points — a $5,000 fee to borrow $100,000. Says a bank spokesman: “Higher points for an investment property reflect the higher risk on that mortgage.” A rep at a major national bank said it wasn’t “competitive at loans under $100,000.” LendingTree.com promised to find me five offers in 48 hours. Two days later it said it couldn’t help.

Ultimately, an independent broker, Los Angeles’ Legend Mortgage, found me a loan with an institution I had never heard of, Burlingame (Calif.)-based Provident Funding Associates. I had to put down more than planned: 25%. And I’m paying 6.2% and one point in fees, more than the 5%, without points, I would have paid if the house were to be owner-occupied.

Provident put me through the wringer. Bank statements, tax returns, notarized interspousal escrow instructions. At one point, I was scraping and painting a house I didn’t own because the lender wanted damage repaired. I was out about $1,000 for inspections and other work before I was even sure I was going to get the loan.

The bank that owned the property wasn’t much fun, either. With such properties, banks offer a tight window for you to cancel your purchase based on inspections — seven days, in my case. And the bank wanted me to pay $100 a day if I didn’t close on the agreed day. This led to stress — and requests for waivers — on my end. On the bright side, bank-owned properties commonly sell “as is,” but with mine the bank paid more than $5,000 for a new sewer line, termite abatement, and other repairs.

Then it was time to rent it. I checked similar properties on Craigslist, then underpriced the rent at $1,100 a month to get a tenant fast. I had 16 interested parties in a few days. Some of the stories were heartbreaking — families living in cramped apartments and on food stamps just wanting a house for their kids. I showed it to two people and took an application from one, verifying employment and paying $30 to MySmartMove.com to check his credit.

In the end, my total cash investment was $47,000. Payments — taxes, insurance, everything — will be $750 a month (plus any repairs). If my tenant pays me for a year, I’ll get a 9% return, not including tax advantages or price appreciation.

If being a landlord is a hassle, the hope of a 9% return will ease the pain.

We wish you the best of luck Mr. Palmieri, the best of luck!

Bartz: Who Do You Take Me For–Jerry Yang?

Bartz: Who Do You Take Me For–Jerry Yang?

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