Click here for Bugatti Veyron site: http://www.bugatti.com/en/veyron-16.4.html
Friday, December 12, 2008
Bugatti Veyron (Jacked this from the BBC/Ice Cream Blog)
Click here for Bugatti Veyron site: http://www.bugatti.com/en/veyron-16.4.html
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Bellarmine-Valley Christian winner could get State Bowl bid (San Jose Mercury News)
By Dennis Knight
Mercury News
Posted: 12/02/2008 07:39:07 PM PST
With a chance at a State Bowl bid on the line, Friday night's Central Coast Section Open Division football final between Bellarmine College Prep and Valley Christian takes on even greater importance.
Bellarmine (11-1), which is No. 3 in the Northern California State Bowl Game Division I rankings compiled by Cal-Hi Sports editor Mark Tennis, probably will need some help to earn a bid. The State Bowl format has been expanded to include an Open Division game this season, opening up an extra slot for teams. But the Bells are ranked behind Concord's De La Salle and Grant of Sacramento and need to beat Valley Christian and hope that one of the teams ahead of them loses.
De La Salle (10-1), the favorite for the Open Division berth, is playing in a North Coast Section semifinal Friday against Foothill of Pleasanton, a team De La Salle beat 63-7 during the regular season. Grant (12-0) is playing in a Sac-Joaquin Section final against Burbank, which Grant defeated 35-13 in the regular season.
"Bellarmine will have people arguing for them if they win. But if both teams win, Bellarmine still has that blemish on their record, even though they came back to beat Serra in the playoffs," Tennis said. "Bellarmine can argue that they have a tougher schedule — and their league is certainly tougher and their playoffs are a little stronger — but that loss may have cost them a shot at a State Bowl."
However, if Valley Christian (10-2) defeats the Bells, it looks as if the Warriors would travel to the Home Depot Center in Carson for the Division II championship game.
Valley Christian is ranked No. 1 in NorCal Division II ahead of Casa Roble of Orangevale and St. Mary's-Stockton.
"If Valley Christian wins, it's a slam dunk for them over St. Mary's," Tennis said. "It's not as clear over Casa Roble, but Valley Christian has a much tougher strength of schedule."
Warriors Coach Mike Machado said his team isn't looking past Bellarmine.
"That would be like putting the star on the Christmas tree before you put the lights on," he said. "We're not looking past Friday. If it works out, we'll go from there. This is going to be a good matchup between two teams that know each other very well."
The San Jose State baseball team has signed pitchers Blake McFarland (Leigh High School/Santa Barbara Community College) and David Luna (Piedmont Hills/Ohlone College) and infielder-pitcher Tyler Christian (Leigh).
Fresh from election victory, high-speed rail backers look to Obama and D.C. Democrats for next funding wave (San Jose Mercury News)
Conceptual rendering of the California High-Speed Rail.
Tracy neighborhood shocked by kidnapping, torture allegations (San Jose Mercury News)
Michael Luther Schumacher, suspected of keeping a teenager prisoner for the past year in Tracy, Calif. (San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office)
Kelly Layne Law, accused of holding a teenager captive for the past year in Tracy, Calif. (San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office)
Caren Ramirez is being sought by police in connection with the kidnapping of a teenage boy in Tracy. (San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office)
TRACY — The teenage boy stumbled into the sprawling fitness club wearing only boxer shorts and a heavy chain padlocked to his ankle. Covered in dried blood, bruises, burns, feces and urine, he begged the club's assistant manager to hide him, then curled into a fetal position under the front counter and kept saying, over and over, "They're going to come find me."
Kidnapping and torture weren't supposed to happen in Northern California's second safest city, not on a quiet street where hundreds of children walk to Williams Elementary School, not behind a sports complex where hundreds of adults work out to stay fit.
But a day after the 17-year-old boy managed to jump across a fence and pleaded for help at the In-Shape Sports Club, the purported secrets of 630 Tennis Lane began to leak out. Tuesday, neighbors and residents struggled to accept the news: The boy had been held at the house for at least a year, beaten, chained and apparently burned, according to police.
It was even harder to understand for the neighbors who know Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, the couple who lived at the Tennis Lane home and now are being held on suspicion of torture, kidnapping, false imprisonment and child endangerment. Those neighbors had seen the boy, who has not been named, playing with the couple's four children in the front yard, setting out the trash and even carrying out used Pampers.
"You'd look outside and she'd be watering the lawn and the kids would all be playing," said Rachel Portillo, 47, who lives directly across the street from Lau and Schumacher and has known them since the couple moved in about two years ago.
The teenage boy "seemed to arrive at the house like a friend," Portillo said.
"They said it was a friend's son, they said he'd be going in about a month, then it was three months, then six months, then November. I always wondered 'why isn't he going to school?' "
Tracy police said it was about 3:30 p.m. Monday when the boy stumbled into the sprawling fitness club. "I thought it was a prank costume," said Lea Leonardo, the assistant manager, who came to his aid. "He was so dirty and had the chain around his foot. His feet were swollen, he was terrified and cold. He kept saying 'they're going to come find me.' He kept saying that over and over."
The teen said he was in a foster home, but ran away because he wanted to be with his family, said Chuck Ellis, the club manager.
"He was apparently picked up by these people, who had him over a year," Ellis said.
Leonardo called 911 and police arrived to find the boy wrapped in towels because he was shivering so hard. Officers immediately sealed off 630 Tennis Lane, which is in front of the side parking lot of the sports complex.
They arrested Lau and Schumacher and placed their four children in protective custody. Schumacher is a contractor with Comcast Cable, according to Tracy police. Lau's MySpace page says she is a stay-at-home mom. She also is a Girl Scout leader.
Tuesday evening, Berkeley police arrested a woman named Caren Ramirez, 43, who is believed to be the boy's aunt and had stayed at the Tennis Lane home off and on. According to court records, Ramirez was convicted in 2007 in Sacramento County of one felony count of inflicting corporal injury on a child. Police said they believed she was headed to her brother's house in East Palo Alto but she was still at large late Tuesday.
It is unknown what role if any she played in the torture and apparent imprisonment of the teenage boy.
Portillo's daughter, Marina Alvarez, was friends with Lau and said she was told that Ramirez and the boy were at the house because he had gotten into trouble and caused Ramirez to lose her home. She said the woman was called Carmine, not Caren, by Lau and Schumacher. Alvarez said the boy was called Kyle.
"Supposedly Carmine (Caren) was going to court because of Kyle," she said.
Portillo said Lau and Schumacher often held garage sales and would sit in the driveway. The teenager would be with them, but he seemed shy and withdrawn.
"He never went away," never went anywhere, she said. "He'd come out and cut the lawn but they'd have the blinds open. I think he was being watched."
Portillo said her 11-year-old granddaughter spent the night at Lau and Schumacher's house one night. The girl told her grandmother that the boy they knew as Kyle slept at night "on a piece of carpet in front of the door to the garage."
The neighbor also said Lau would curse the teenage boy.
Finding out the boy had allegedly been kidnapped and tortured, that he escaped with a heavy chain padlocked to his ankle "just blew me away," Alvarez said. Lau "made it seem like he was this troubled kid that needed to be disciplined."
Early news reports of the boy's fate prompted a flurry of calls with help Tuesday, including a call to Bay Area News Group reporter Mike Martinez from a Santa Clara County man who said he wanted to "foster the child for the holidays."
The boy remains in serious condition at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital.
And a town — named just last week as the second safest city in Northern California by CQ Press — was left to wonder why.
"We met him, my grandkids played with him in the front yard," Portillo said. "It angers me and it hurts me. I feel so badly."
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A Giant Night To Remember
About a year ago I went to a Giants vs. Dodgers game at AT&T and I caught a foul ball. Sweet.
On the way to Berkeley, CA (Random Blackberry Pics)
Pictured above: The Oracle Arena "Home of the Golden State Warriors" off of that 880 Northbound.
Pictured above: The Oracle Arena "Home of the Golden State Warriors" off of that 880 Northbound.
Pictured above: Entering Berkeley, CA.
Guess who's bizzzack...
I have been slacking on the blog spot. October is always a weird month. Well I am in Seattle, Washington today, tomorrow I am in Las Vegas, Nevada. Holla!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Wall Street: Fall of the fat cats
Pictured above: Jordan Belfort"'I was a crook,' says Jordan Belfort, once a Wall Street fat cat who made $1 million a week before going to jail."
By Abbie Boudreau, David Fitzpatrick and Scott Zamost - CNN SIU
NEW YORK (CNN) -- In the midst of Wall Street's agonizing slide last week, there was at least one place in Manhattan where the liquor was flowing, the cigar smoke was billowing and the theme of the evening was simple: Work hard. Play hard.
"It's like fiddling. Nero fiddled while Rome burned," said Thomas Graf, vice president and producer of Northmarq Capital. "We're smoking cigars while we're losing our shirts, literally."
He was among hundreds of mid-level Wall Street executives and traders gathered for a party thrown by Cigar Report magazine, published by New York-based Doubledown Media.
And if they seemed a little tone-deaf about how this kind of event could be perceived as millions of dollars were lost, at least on paper, most did not seem especially concerned.
"It is a great time," said Adam Marsh of Empire Capital Partners. "I think for at least a couple of hours in the evening, we can kind of sit back, have a few drinks, forget what's facing us on the Street tomorrow."
Few of the men and women at the party earned millions in Wall Street bonuses on top of their salaries. But nearly all did very well, they say, at the top of the Wall Street bubble. And their bosses, along with those who managed Wall Street hedge funds, did even better.
"These guys were spending more than $250 billion a year," Robert Frank said. "They bought mansions in Greenwich and Palm Beach. They bought art for $100 million a painting." Frank, author of "Richistan," says the enormous amounts of money earned by Wall Street elite made them practically a nation unto themselves.
"They just looked at the guy with the bigger house, the nicer Ferrari, the better artwork," he said. "And it was all competitive spending."
One prominent example is the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld. In 2007 alone, according to the executive compensation firm Equilar, he earned total take-home compensation of more than $45 million in salary and bonuses.
Congressional researchers said he earned nearly $500 million from 2000 through 2007.
Fuld told Congress that the failure of his company centered on inaction on the part of government and a loss of confidence in the financial markets.
"This is a pain that will stay with me for the rest of my life, regardless of what comes out of this committee, regardless of when the record books get written," Fuld told Congress during a recent hearing.
Not every Wall Street executive played by the books.
Jordan Belfort was once chairman of a brokerage firm called Stratton Oakmont. In the early to mid-'90s, he called himself the Wolf of Wall Street.
He was jailed on federal charges of securities fraud and money laundering. He spent 22 months behind bars and was released in 2005.
"I was a crook," Belfort said.
At one time, he says, he was earning more than $1 million a week. Now, he has been ordered to pay back $110 million to his victims, and he said he is working on that.
Even the man who first chronicled Wall Street excess to a national audience can barely believe what has happened.
Oliver Stone, who wrote and directed the film "Wall Street" 21 years ago, says the main character in his story, unprincipled stockbroker Gordon Gekko, has been overtaken by reality.
"I never thought it would go to this level," Stone told CNN's Larry King. "I thought the Gordon Gekkos of the world would die out. But they got worse."
So what exactly did the new Gordon Gekkos do to earn those fabulous sums?
"What they really did was to figure out new and clever ways of investing," Frank said. "Of creating financial products that very few of us could understand."
"On Wall Street, there's no cost. The only cost is the employees, the executives," said Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune magazine. "So if a firm is creating a financial product that it can sell for $5 million, the person who sells it will get $2 million."
But people who earned relatively little on Wall Street are now paying the price as well.
Win Hornig, a 25-year-old Minnesotan who worked at both Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan, is now out of a job. He's launched a Web site called BankerGoneBroke.com to talk about it.
"My life was basically a disaster," Hornig said. "I was working all the time, didn't have a lot to show for it. I came to the conclusion that there was more to life than money."
While it lasted, the good times on Wall Street made money for traders and, of course, for Americans who had invested in the stock market, mainly through their 401(k) contributions. But there is a "new normal" these days.
"The party is over on Wall Street -- until it comes back again," Serwer said. "I've been around long enough to see that we have these cycles. These guys get their cigars and champagne. They have a great time. The whole thing blows up. But then they re-emerge years later. This one is a really, really bad one. But I don't think Wall Street is dead."
(Courtesy of Wall Street Journal)
"Pure Beauty Yo" - Roselyn Sanchez
Nickname: Popi Ros
Height: 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Spouse: Gary Stretch (1998 - 2001) (divorced)
Height: 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Spouse: Gary Stretch (1998 - 2001) (divorced)
(Courtesy of IMDB)
Kanye You F'ing Genius!! - JESSICA CIRIO
Jessica Wanda Judith Cirio (born March 21, 1985 in Lanús, Buenos Aires Province) is an Argentine model and dancer. She has appeared on the Argentine reality show Cámara en Mano as well as pictorial spreads in Revista Hombre.
She is the host of 'Kubik', a TV programme broadcast in La Plata's America 2. She also took part in two popular Argentine-version contests 'Dancing with the stars' and 'Dancing on Ice'. Jesica currently resides in Puerto Madero neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
91-0!!
"ESTERO, Fla. - The Estero High football staff gathered in head coach Rich Dombroski's office late Friday, almost in stunned silence.Earlier that night, Estero lost to Naples High by 13.
Not by 13 points. By 13 touchdowns. That's right: Naples 91, Estero 0."
(Courtesy of the Associated Press)
Click here for full article: http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=862709
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