Sunday, May 13, 2012

Phoenix Coyotes Tickets Still Cheap | Available Hours Before Game 1

We're a little over two hours from puck drop in Game 1 of the Western Conference Final between the Kings and Coyotes at Glendale's Jobing.com Arena, and while the bandwagon has certainly filled up in the desert (the Diamondbacks are even on board!), tickets are still pretty darn cheap for the first game of the series.

You can currently grab a Game 1 seat on the secondary ticket marketplace for just $34, according to Coyotes blog Five For Howling and their ticket partner, TiqIQ. The average ticket price is $96 on the 274 remaining tickets (as of this writing) via TiqIQ. Compare that to the rest of the teams remaining in the playoffs:
  • Coyotes vs. Kings Game 4 tickets at Staples Center in Los Angeles next Sunday are available starting at $136 as of this writing. The average ticket price on the 1,386 tickets remaining is $384, via TiqIQ. Numbers for Thursday's Game 3 in L.A. aren't available.
  • Devils vs. Rangers Game 1 tickets at Madison Square Garden on Monday are available starting at $184 as of this writing. The average price on the 1,676 tickets remaining via TiqIQ is $509.
  • Devils vs. Rangers Game 3 tickets at Prudential Center on Saturday are available starting at $225 as of this writing. The average price on the 2,562 tickets remaining for that one is $603.

I'm not sure this is an indictment on Coyotes fans, necessarily. The game will be sold out and, in fact, the game is almost officially sold out through the team's official ticket provider, Ticketmaster. But it's certainly fodder for those who still fail to believe hockey can work in the desert.

Source : http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2012/5/13/3018304/phoenix-coyotes-tickets-game-1-kings-nhl-playoffs-2012

'The Bachelorette' Emily Maynard tells daughter Ricki, 'I'm going to work'


Emily Maynard knows it better than anyone: She's not only a bachelorette, she's a mom.

The Southern beauty who captured Brad Womack's heart last year in his second turn on "The Bachelor," but ultimately split with him, now gets to do the choosing as "The Bachelorette" starts its eighth season Monday (May 14) on ABC. As she downsizes the field of 25 men pursuing her, she has someone else in mind ... Ricki, her six-year-old daughter by her late NASCAR-driver fiance, Ricky Hendrick.

"She is loving it, just everything that's going on," Maynard tells Zap2it about Ricki's reaction to Mom's reality-show round this time. "She doesn't really know about 'The Bachelor' or 'The Bachelorette.' I tell her, 'I'm going to work,' but she's getting a lot of attention. Everywhere we go, I've tried to bring her back something from the dates or whatever."

Charlotte, N.C., is very aware of what Maynard has been up to, though. Her home base has been hosting the production, and she notes, "It seems like with every date I've been on, there's been an audience -- which is good, because I'm so happy to have the support, but it's also a lot of pressure."

Now well into taping "The Bachelorette," Maynard remains surprised she's the new season's star of the show. "I had always said, 'Absolutely not, I will never do it,'" she recalls of her initial conversations with the producers. "I was just a girl coming off a breakup, and the last thing I wanted to think about was going through all of this again.

"Even going on a date in Charlotte seemed way too much for me at the time. We had talked about it, but it was never anything I thought I would be doing. They were so accommodating for Ricki, though; they moved the entire show to Charlotte, which had never been done before, and Ricki also will be traveling with us."

Still, Maynard says her decision ultimately came down to her making "a list of pros and cons. I also prayed about it, and every reason I didn't want to do it was from being afraid of what other people would say or think. I don't ever want to live like that. I don't want anybody to have to live their life like that ... missing out on great opportunities just because they're fearful of what might happen."

Source : http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-bachelorette-emily-maynard-tells-daughter-ricki-im-going-to-work.html

Woman loses leg to necrotizing bacteria after zip line accident


Woman loses leg to necrotizing bacteria after zip line accident - A 24-year-old Georgia woman remains in critical condition after contracting necrotizing, flesh-eating bacteria during a zip line accident, ABC News reports.

person on a zipline
photo : flickr
Aimee Copeland cut her leg when the homemade zip line she was using to cross the Little Tallapoosa River broke on May 1.

It is theorized that Copeland contracted the bacteria, called Aeromonas hydrophila, from the water, creating a condition known as necrotizing fasciitis. The bacteria have claimed her left leg and part of her abdomen.

"The bacteria produce enzymes that can dissolve muscle deep down," Dr. William Schaffner, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told ABC News. "And because it's so deep, it can be a sneaky infection that's not immediately appreciated by the patient."

Copeland had gone to the emergency room after the fall, where she received 22 staples to the gash in her leg, but returned the next day complaining of pain, for which she was given painkillers. She returned again on May 3, when she was prescribed antibiotics. That wasn't enough. She returned for the final time on May 4, when she was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis. That night, her left leg was amputated to the hip.

Even after the surgery, Copeland's condition has continued to decline. Her pulse stopped briefly yesterday, but doctors were able to resuscitate her. Her condition was reportedly stable by this morning, but she is not out of the woods. Copeland's father told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that doctors are still considering amputating the tips of her fingers and the toes on her right foot due to poor blood circulation.

Copeland's father told Fox News that blood donations are essential for surviving necrotizing fasciitis. "I want to create awareness about giving blood for this particular disease," he said.

A Facebook page called "Believe and pray for a miracle to happen for Aimee Copeland" has attracted more than 18,000 followers. A fund has also been set up to take donations to help pay for her treatment and rehabilitation.

ABC's "Good Morning America" has re-posted this recent interview with Schaffner about identifying the first symptoms of flesh-eating bacteria and the damage it can cause:

Source : http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/woman-loses-leg-to-necrotizing-bacteria-after-zip-line-accident

A Mothers' Day Gift


A Mothers' Day Gift
A Mothers' Day Gift - In a state of shared disbelief, this nation learned that the leader of the free world had publicly announced his full support for the signature civil rights issue of our time: full recognition of the freedom to marry for all Americans, gay and straight alike. As the son of a same-sex couple from Iowa, and one of the first children born to an openly lesbian parent in the Midwest, it is with a sense of awestruck bewilderment that I realize I am now represented by a sitting U.S. president who publicly supports the marriage shared by my two moms, Jackie and Terry.

Nevertheless, critics on both the left and the right have been quick to point out that nothing has actually changed in a political sense: The so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) remains law, the president's statement does not change the outcome of Tuesday's vote in North Carolina, and President Obama still refuses to issue the much-heralded nondiscrimination executive order.

But it's difficult for me to believe that nothing has actually changed. Many people had the sense, especially given Mr. Obama's seeming support for same-sex marriage in the '90s, that the president may have been playing politics with his stance on marriage equality in an attempt to appease socially moderate Democrats. Today, though, the game, if there was one at all, is over. Regardless of the authenticity or posturing of his oft-discussed "evolution," the fact remains that for the first time in history, this country's moral leader supports full equality under the law for same-sex couples.

The legacy of America's shining city -- that last, great bastion of freedom -- lives on.

I've never before known a time in my life when the man in the Oval Office openly supported the union my moms share. Though it may not seem like much to somebody for whom the legitimacy of his or her relationship has been taken for granted, the change feels real to me, particularly given the now-stark juxtaposition between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney.

Indeed, it was on the first day of September 2004, as I watched the Republican National Convention for my eighth grade Media Workshop class, that I furiously scribbled down on paper Mr. Romney's remark that "because every child deserves a mother and a father, we step forward by recognizing that marriage is between a man and a woman." I took particular note of his word choice, "deserves," his implicit assertion that my two-mom family was somehow inferior to his own mom-and-dad upbringing. Though this was not the time I first became aware that some people opposed my family structure, this was the first time I had ever witnessed the use of children like me as political, rhetorical weapons wielded against my parents.

It was a defining moment and is one that, nearly a decade later, lingers in my memory with startling clarity. Is there more work to do? Yes. Is President Obama's reelection assured? No. Perhaps it's a foolish sentiment buoyed by an impending Mother's Day -- or, in my case, Mothers' Day -- but I can't shake the feeling that it just got a little better.

It is with a happy heart and rekindled optimism that I wish President Obama the best of luck with his reelection campaign in the fall, and the First Lady a happy Mother's Day. I am looking forward to helping the president advance, secure, and protect full equality under the law for families like mine all across the country.

Hope and change, indeed.

(And Happy Mothers' Day!)

Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zach-wahls/a-mothers-day-gift_b_1512152.html

Mother's Day Very Last-Minute Gift Ideas | Mother's Day Free ecards


Mother's Day Very Last-Minute Gift Ideas | Mother's Day Free ecards - In addition to free e-cards, have other last-minute gift ideas for Mother's Day. Many of the Mother's Day gift ideas are either free or very inexpensive. Mother's Day in 2012 falls on Sunday May 13, 2012. Here a couple cleaver

free e-cards
You can have the e-cards sent to your recipient's email address or even post to their Facebook timeline. You can even add an Amazon.com gift card to any e-card as well for a special touch. They have a free trial available to

The company's web offerings include a website dedicated to free ecards, personalized photo cards and printable mothers day cards. Got-free-ecards.com has hundreds of free printable birthday cards and ecards designs for various occasions.

You can have the e-cards sent to your recipient's email address or even post to their Facebook timeline. You can even add an Amazon.com gift card to any e-card as well for a special touch. They have a free trial available to.

Source : http://trydomain.org/?p=7899

Friday, May 11, 2012

Minnesota Vikings Stadium | Ladies And Gentlemen, It's Over

This afternoon, Thursday, May 10, 2012, the Minnesota Senate gave final approval to the bill that would build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings.

You want to talk about sentences I was afraid that I would never get the opportunity to write. . .that one there qualifies.

Just a few weeks ago, when one of the Minnesota House committees appeared to have killed the Vikings' stadium legislation, I was more than a little bit convinced that 2012 was going to be the final season of Minnesota Vikings football. But thanks to the many ardent supporters that the bill had in the legislature. . .and a swift kick in the butt from the National Football League. . .here we sit, confident in the fact that the Minnesota Vikings will, indeed, be the Minnesota Vikings for the next 30 years. I'm a few months shy of my 36th birthday. . .thanks to what happened today, if the stadium opens in 2016 as scheduled, our favorite football team will be staying right where they are until I'm just about ready to turn 70.

I don't even have the words to verbalize exactly how elated I am over that. I have all sorts of emotions flowing about this situation at this point in time, and those emotions are magnified by the fact that, honestly, our humble little corner of the internet here played a significant role in this entire process. We covered this story top-to-bottom, we rallied people to call their Senators and Representatives in St. Paul, and we made sure this entire process stayed squarely in the public focus.

In the end, we won. We won. The Minnesota Vikings won and, even more importantly, Minnesota Vikings fans won.

Now, rather than vote counting and anger towards the process, we can talk about the most important aspects of a new Minnesota Vikings stadium. . .stuff like what it's going to look like. . .what it's going to be called. . .

And how many different levels of ass it's going to kick when we're all there in September of 2016, taking in the fruits of this labor for the very first time.

Over the course of the next day or two, I'm sure that there will be posts from all of us, including the requisite "spiking of the football" posts. . .because, quite frankly, there are people that deserve to have the football spiked on them. But for now. . .for me, anyway. . .it's time to sit back and bask a little bit.

It's over. Our team is staying in Minnesota where they belong. And we helped make it happen. It doesn't get a hell of a lot better than this, folks.

Source : http://www.dailynorseman.com/2012/5/10/3012432/minnesota-vikings-stadium-bill-passes-senate

Flesh Eating Bacteria | Aimee Copeland Is Fighting For Her Life

Flesh Eating Bacteria | Aimee Copeland
Flesh Eating Bacteria | Aimee Copeland
Aimee Copeland is currently fighting for her life after the young woman contracted a flesh eating Bacteria, known officially as necrotizing fasciitis, while zip lining with friends in Carrollton, Georgia.

The 24-year-old master’s student at the University of West Georgia was using a homemade zip line, while on a kayaking adventure with friends, when the line broke and left Copeland with a gash on her left calf.  The wound introduced a life-threatening infection which claimed her leg as well as a piece of her abdomen after surgeons were forced to amputate in order to prevent the bacterial infection from spreading.

Her father, Andy Copeland, told ABC affiliate WSBTV:

It’s a miracle she made it past Friday night.”

Necrotizing soft tissue infections are rare, but are an extremely severe type of bacterial infection capable of destroying skin, muscle, and underlying tissue.  Streptococcus pyogenes (strep throat) is typically a deadly form of necrotizing soft tissue infection, it’s sometimes referred to as flesh-eating bacteria.

Copeland’s zip lining wound left her susceptible to infection and as the bacteria entered her body through the gash in her leg, it began to grow while releasing harmful toxins.  The toxins released killed tissue while inhibiting the flow of blood to her leg.  As her tissue dies, the bacteria will enter her blood stream and rapidly circulate throughout her body.

Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, T.N., was quoted having said:

“The bacteria produce enzymes that can dissolve muscle deep down. And because it’s so deep, it can be a sneaky infection that’s not immediately appreciated by the patient. The symptom that should ring alarm bells is serious, unremitting pain. An otherwise healthy individual with a seemingly superficial injury who has severe pain should have a much more thorough evaluation. The two main treatment options are antibiotics to kill the bacteria and surgery. You have to look at the wound and think, ‘This is as far as the infection has gone; now I have to cut even further.’”

One week after the incident, Copeland’s temperature spiked and her pulse disappeared.  She was resuscitated shortly after with CPR.  Her father Andy was quoted by WSBTV having said:

“I don’t want people with long faces right now because we already had a miracle Friday night when she survived. [...] I just believe we have to stay positive right now to honor Aimee.”

The National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation has indicated that frequently washing ones hands and avoiding those with sore throats can help diminish the risk of contracting flesh-eating bacteria.