Kayla E asked:


I need to know what percent of the United States live a longer, healthier life playing sports as a child [around 6th grade]. Also if you play sports as a child [6th grade] what can it do for your future. I am doing a class project and really need no lies or guesses so if you could PLEASE give me a web page where you found it please write it for me and I will pick you as best answer.

RAY

Susan Ashby asked:


If you like sports, shopping or having a good time in bars and nightclubs, then you will love visiting Manchester in the United Kingdom.

Whether it’s business or leisure that brings you to Manchester, you’ll find plenty of things that will keep you entertained and fascinated. To illustrate this point, the following is a quick tour of the most popular Manchester districts, starting at the city outskirts and moving inward.

Altrincham and Sale lay at Manchester’s south west end. Both are hugely popular and fashionable shopping destinations. Aside from shopping, Sale also gives visitors a taste of Manchester’s highly-touted sporting lifestyle through the hometown Sale Sharks Rugby Union Club. The nearby Sale Water Park is also worth a visit.

Bolton and Bury, two traditional Lancashire towns with distinctly unique personalities, sit at the northern side of the city. Bolton is young and vibrant and its residents have made entertainment and shopping a way of life. The district’s most popular attractions are the Bolton Octagon Theater, the Last Drop Village and the Pennine moors. On the other hand, Bury has an old world feel owing to its many historical attractions such as the East Lancashire Railway. Bury is also popular for its vast open air market, considered to be the best on this side of England.

Castlefield and Deansgate host exceptional shopping, dining and entertainment venues such as Castlefield Basin, King Street and St. Ann’s Square. The Ox is a great choice for lunch or dinner while the Dukes 92 waterfront bar is ideal for drinks.

Manchester’s local Chinatown houses one of the biggest Chinese populations in the country and some of the best Chinese restaurants. Visit during the Chinese New Year and witness one of the city’s most impressive annual celebrations.

When it comes to shopping, the Manchester city centre is in a class of its own. Reputed to be one of the best shopping areas in the United Kingdom, it features such showcase stores as the largest Marks & Spencer outlet in Europe and the hugely popular Exchange Square. You may also want to visit Albert Square for great Victorian gothic architecture and the G-Mex Center and Bridgewater Hall for their rock concerts and classical performances.

There are more fine restaurants in Didsbury, south of the city centre, such as the renowned Lime Tree and the Metropolitan. Didsbury, along with nearby Chorlton and Withington, is one of the city’s most popular and fashionable residential areas, home to an upscale class of professionals and entrepreneurs who have gravitated to the area because of its excellent eating, drinking and shopping options. Chorlton is the more bohemian of the three while Withington hosts the local café society. The latter also features more of a student population and a lively main street lined with popular shops and bars such as Solomon Grundy.

Manchester’s massive student population is situated mostly south of the city centre in Fallowfield, Rusholme and Whalley Range and accounts for the distinct character and cultural diversity of the area. There are many hip bars and pubs in Fallowfield, especially near the numerous University Halls of Residence. Rusholme hosts a large Asian community as well as top flight restaurants like Sangam. Whalley Range is beginning to catch up with the other two with its increasing number of impressive new bars and restaurants.

The *** community will feel right at home in the *** Village on Canal Street, just west of Piccadilly. The *** Village has a wide array of bars, restaurants and clubs, including Essential, the city’s first multi-million pound super club.

The fashionable Northern Quarter houses some of the most stylish shops in Manchester as well as trendy music bars like Fat City Records and Dry Bar. The fine old Victorian buildings in the Northern Quarter contain media offices and alternative shopping centres like Affleck’s Palace and the Coliseum, which is famous for its jewellery stores.

The city’s sporting side is best seen at Old Trafford and Salford, home of such famous sports institutions as Manchester United and the Lancashire County Cricket Club. The area’s recent redevelopment is most evident when you look at the resplendent Trafford Centre, the shopping complex that cost £600 million and features the only Selfridges & Co store outside London. The Lowry and Quays in Salford are also worth a visit.

Manchester’s three main universities are on Oxford Road, a major thoroughfare leading into the heart of Manchester. Revolution bar leads the roster of trendy student-directed bars in the area. The Manchester Museum and the Cornerhouse arthouse cinema and gallery are also on Oxford Road.

The Rochdale, Oldham and Ashton area is popular among foreign tourists because of the rolling foothills of the Pennines and the northern Peak District as well as the attraction of the Portland Basin Museum and Rochdale Pioneer Museum.

Article by Susan Ashby of Manchester Singles. To read more articles like this or for dating in Manchester visit http://www.manchester-singles.co.uk



DONNY

heres_johnny asked:


i feel like robert barone after hearing about raymond get denied the sports illustrated column…

or like hearing that the straight -A-goody-two-shoes of the class get a D in a project

or like watching the snoty-brown-nose-perfect-body-validictorian-girl-that-won’t-go-out-with-me take a sweet tumble down some steps at graduation….

okay. call me a hater but as a colts fan…is there really anything sweeter then watching the patriots lose????

HENRY

Jeff Schuman asked:


There are several sporting goods corporations around the country, but Big 5 sports is becoming one of the elite with further development. It began as a small sporting goods store in the western part of the U.S., but has since grown into a leading retail store. It has now grown to 327 stores in 10 different states and is continuously building.

Big 5 sports offers a full-line product in all of the traditional sports you can think of. With the ability to find athletic shoes, apparel and sporting equipment, Big 5 sports makes for a one stop shopping experience. The great thing about this sporting goods store is that it has a large enough area to provide much more than just sporting equipment. With an average store format of 11,000 square feet, there is a large selection of products and floor models.

Fitness equipment has become an essential item in sporting goods stores today, and Big 5 Sports is no different. From workout benches to dumbbells to treadmills, the variety is there for you to try out and select the perfect machine to fit your needs. The amount of models in the store to test out depends on the size of that particular store. However, you can order in multiple items and choose from a large selection on their website.

If you are an outdoor kind of person, the selection of products to choose from is large. You can find that specific fishing rod that you are looking for, the necessary bait to catch the fish, along with the appropriate outerwear. When the season changes, so does Big 5 sports to give you the gear you need. During winter you can find all of the top brands for skiing and snowboarding to make sure you are ready to hit the slopes.

Big 5 sports is not quite up to the level that other large sporting good stores are at such as Sports Authority, but the corporation is growing every year. It has consistently added 15 to 20 stores a year over the past few years with every intention to continue this progress. With the ability to find shoes, apparel and sports equipment for every sport in every season, this is truly a one stop shop to fulfill all of your needs. With time and development, Big 5 sports will soon be one of the top sporting good retail stores in the country.



ELIAS

choppes asked:


Oregon has more people (3.6 million to 3.5 million)
Oregon is bigger (98,000 Square Miles vs. 69,000 Square Miles)
Oregon has been a state longer (1859 vs 1907)
Oregon football has been around longer (1894 vs. 1896)
Oregon football has better facilities (ranked by Sports Illustrated, 2004)
Oregon has a bigger economy (128 Billion vs. 107 billion)
Oregon citizens earn more money (Oregon 23rd at $21,000 Oklahoma 43rd at $16,900
Oregon students score higher on aptitude tests (NEA factbook)
Oregon spends more per pupil than Oklahoma (NEA factbook)
Oregon spends more overall on education than Oklahoma (NEA factbook)
Oregon citizens live longer and are healthier than Oklahomans (JAMA journal)

So my question is, why did Oregon play a team from such a poor, small state? I’m neutral as I live in Florida.
Tulsa Time must be retarded. Well, he is an Okie…

I’m from Florida, not Oregon and I don’t care much for the Pac-10. But I dislike Okies even more.

Wow…you are a hick huh Tulsa boy?

RONNY

Francis Goldwyn asked:


Selling evokes images of the aggressively successful sales manager in Glengarry Glen Ross, Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman, flashy used car salesmen, or door to door salesmen in loud plaid jackets. The use of the words “selling,” “sales,” or “sell” creates deep anxiety for most people. We do not appreciate how much “selling” we do in a given day. In reality, we are all “selling” all the time. At work, we “sell” our ideas, and we “sell” the value of teamwork, new projects, products, investments and most of all the value we bring to our company.

Yet, I hear someone saying, “That’s not selling; that’s negotiating, or influencing or getting consensus, but it is not selling! Yuck!” Why is this? I suggest this is because, when we use the word sales, we feel we are talking about an end that is obtained by some form of clever trickery, not about honestly meeting a need with an effective product or service.

Over the course of a number of years I have developed a great respect for my friend and professional colleague, Kathleen Reilly, president and owner of Consultative Resources Corporation. Kate and her company specialize in very high level sales training with a particular focus on consultative skills. Over the years Kate and I have engaged in a long dialogue about many of the skills she teaches. I would like to share some insights I have learned from Kate.

Kate teaches sales people ways to connect with people who might have a use for their products or services. However, having taught thousands of professional sales people over the years, Kate has found that people are so focused on “selling” that they don’t give themselves the chance to determine if there is a real “need.” To Kate, the word need is a special term.

Needs encompass the full spectrum of personal and professional reasons why individuals do what they do and makes the choices they make. Kate teaches how to learn and really understand those needs. It is only with this understanding that a sales person can determine if their product or service truly and honestly meets those needs. Kate also teaches that there are deeper needs, needs that are usually not shared at first, (sometimes because the client can’t even articulate them) but are often more important than those that are stated. Now I hear you saying, that’s fine, but how does one get people to share those deeper needs? You do that through listening.

Over the years I have come to realize that listening is a full contact sport, no gloves, no pads. That’s right, it’s hard, it’s demanding, and very few people, in my experience, really know how to do it. It is not a soft skill, but a hard discipline. Listening has rules and if you violate them, you go right to the penalty box. I have come to call this: The Three Surprises.

Surprise Number One: Nobody listens until they have been heard. This is not some Taoist saying from an ancient manuscript. It is real and stands in the way of most communication like a brick wall. Remember, full contact, no gloves, no pads.

Surprise Number Two: I can tell you what I heard you say, not what you said. You can tell me what you said, not what I heard. Most people listen from their respective corners of the ring. To really listen they need to engage in hard give and take. Most conversations require at least three rounds. Important conversations take longer.

Surprise Number Three: what is not said is usually very important. The more important the issue, the more likely it will not be said. No opponent is going to tell you they have a wicked left hook or that their right knee needs surgery. But if you are in the ring with them, you sure want to know this information. Let me illustrate these surprises with a story.

Quorum was approached about helping a client develop a line of business. I took this opportunity to try an experiment. It was designed to help my colleagues establish a basis for an open exchange of information with a potential client and allow them the ability to demonstrate their knowledge and credibility. I went to two people in the office and asked them if they would help develop this new business.

I told them they were not going to call anyone for business. Instead they were to continue research I had begun on the line of business and to spend the next week reading and collecting as much information as possible. I suggested they organize the research along four dimensions; product, people, problems and players.

I now asked them to contact six senior executives actively involved in the particular business and ask for a meeting. But there was an important condition: at no time during this meeting were they to engage in selling. I told them that when they called for the appointment they were to explicitly state that they were not calling to sell or solicit business. I told them they were to ask for ten minutes of their time in order to share some observations and conclusions they had reached based on research they have been doing about the business and get the views of individuals who are intimately involved in the market. They were then to repeat that they were not calling to pitch or solicit business in any way. Lastly, the two of them were to go on all appointments together as a team. So, the two began to call and make appointments.

As they left for their first appointment, I reminded them that when they walk in to the appointment, they must immediately repeat the promise and purpose of the meeting. They must also have a copy of their research with them. With this final instruction, they went to their meetings.

They came back from their meetings separately and the first to come back was very excited. Slowly reviewing exactly what happened, she timidly confessed to always feeling real anxiety whenever going on a sales call. And when she walked into the room and shook hands with the executive, she clearly felt a tension in the room. However, when she repeated the promise and the purpose of the meeting, she felt tension actually evaporate.

Though the initial request was for ten minutes, the executive ended up spending an hour and a half and towards the end of the conversation asked “Who are you guys, high level consultants? I deal with headhunters all the time, they never know this much about my business or ask such good questions.” Then the executive volunteered the names and phone numbers of five other people to speak to and gave permission for his name to be used.

At the end of our debriefing, she speculated that her colleague would probably have a completely different view of the meeting as “he is a real salesman.” When he arrived, also excited and enthused, he, too, confessed feeling real anxiety walking to the meeting, he too felt the tension in the room when they entered and felt it vanish when they reconfirmed the purpose of the meeting. He too was amazed with what the executive said about their research and other “headhunters.” And he was surprised at the willing offer of people to call.

Are you confused now? Let’s review the experience of my colleagues, with the Three Surprises in mind. They found the project a challenge for a number of reasons. First, it required they do something new (always difficult) and they found it hard to keep their focus on what I said to them (because it was new). Until they were certain that I understood their feelings and concerns, they were not going to be able to hear what I was asking them to do. Surprise Number One.

When we debriefed the meeting collectively, what became apparent was that each had heard the conversation slightly differently or missed important points or comments. That is, they could each state what they had heard with certainty, but could not say what the executive had said with certainty. Surprise Number Two.

Lastly, during the de-briefing, both of my colleagues commented repeatedly about how amazed they were at the reaction the executive had to their research and the questions. What they did not say was that their anxiety on the way to the meeting was because they were afraid of looking ignorant or foolish and that they usually feel this way when they go to a meeting or on a sales call. Surprise Number Three.

On the basis of this experiment, Quorum changed all its processes and procedures with respect to developing business, understanding assignments, cultivating candidates, and serving clients. We took the “sales out of search.” We changed conversation to consultation and made listening the basis of understanding. We provide service only when we can clearly confirm a need for service. When clients willingly engage with us in the middle of the ring, the results can transform their business.



BRENDAN

gfcbarracker asked:


I have searched her name, nothing other than her thong bikini pictures from microkitten come up. She is gorgeous, needs to get in Sports Illustrated.
I looked for Illena Magnussen, no hits on Yahoo. Evelyn looks to be African-American. Is this the model you are referring to?
Still no hits on Illena Magnussen. All you all need to try again. Nobody by this name exists.

TIMOTHY

Al Terry asked:


A sports ticket broker can be a handy person to have around, especially when you are a die-hard sports fan. Any sports fanatic will tell you that watching a game live is the only way to experience live sporting action. There’s nothing that can compare to watching a spectacular touchdown or a phenomenal save being made right in front of your eyes. And being surrounded by hundreds of like-minded and loud fans certainly doesn’t hurt either!

So where exactly does a sports ticket broker come in? As with any kind of broker, it only makes sense to have one if you are going to be using their services regularly or if you are very serious about watching your live games.

Pros And Cons

It is perfectly common for people to buy their sporting tickets on their own, but when it comes to popular sporting tickets, remember that you are not going to be the only person standing in line. Some people have waited for days to get certain tickets and even then, they may not have the best seats. And if you show up at the last minute, chances are that those tickets will be all sold out.

This is where the sports ticket broker comes in. A sports ticket broker can take all the hassle out of buying tickets, even if they are being bought at the last minute. More often than not, a sports ticket broker will have pretty sweet seats as well and will deliver your tickets to you on time. While they will often charge hefty rates, sometimes it can be worth the extra cash, especially if you get those impossible tickets for a spectacular game.

Do Your Homework

So how does one choose a good sports ticket broker? With the advent of the internet, there has been a flood of sports ticket brokers, each promising the same kind of great deals for fabulous sporting events. Before handing over any money, you should keep a few things in mind. First, do a little research. Just because you are opting for a sports ticket broker doesn’t mean you have to take the first one that comes along. Check to see which ones offer the kind of tickets you want at competitive rates.

Next and perhaps most importantly, make sure that the sports ticket broker is not just an email id. Do not do any business unless they have a physical, verifiable address as well as good customer support systems via the phone. Check to see if the broker is a member of the Better Business Bureau- this is always a good sign that the broker is trustworthy as the BBB has some rather stringent standards that merchants must follow. Try to go for a sports ticket broker that has an established reputation and is not someone who just opened shop yesterday. Longevity in the business speaks volumes for a sports ticket broker’s reputation.

A sports ticket broker can be a blessing if you are looking for hard-to-find tickets or especially great seats. For a little extra cash, a sports ticket broker can turn ticket buying nightmares into a sweet dream come true.



WILLIE