Maria vs. Venus in Wimbledon Semis

Maria Sharapova moved into the semi-finals of Wimbledon with a 7-6, 6-3 win over compatriot Nadia Petrova. The two Russians battled through a close first set before Maria took charge in the second set. Last year Maria beat Serena Williams in the finals to win Wimbledon.

This year Maria will have to beat Serena's sister Venus, to reach the finals at Wimbledon. Lindsay Davenport, the number one seed, plays in the other semi-finals and will probally win and meet the winner of Maria vs. Venus.

Rockin' at Old RFK

WASHINGTON — RFK Stadium is shaking again. Oh, the interior corridors are still dim and cramped. Exposed wires and pipes run along the ceilings. Going out for a hot dog feels as though you’re squeezing through a basement.
But back in the seats, when the home team gets it going, the 40-something ball yard shimmies like the old days when the Washington Redskins were on the move. Now, it’s the Washington Nationals who are moving D.C. area sports fans — and vice versa.
“When the fans start jumping up and down, what’s great is you can see the stadium actually going up and down,’’ says Chad Cordero, the ace reliever for the Nationals, who have led the National League East since early June

Sharapova into 16 at Wimbledon

Maria Sharapova, the defending Women's champion at Wimbledon made into the round of 16 with her win today, beating Katarina Srebotnik, 6-2 and 6-4.

The No. 2-seeded Sharapova advanced to the fourth round for the third time in as many career appearances at the All England Club. She hit 21 winners, broke serve four times and lost serve just once.

Kilby Inventor of the Microchip

Jack St. Clair Kilby, 81, died Monday, almost 50 years after his idea for what is commonly known as the microchip revolutionized the way that the world computes, calculates and communicates, ushering in the Information Age. Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics for his 1958 invention of the integrated electronic circuit, which made personal computers, satellite navigation systems, cell phones and the $200 billion field of microelectronics possible. He invented the hand-held calculator, which commercialized the microchip, and held more than 60 other patents.
There are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and the way we live in it - Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Jack Kilby," Tom Engibous, chairman of Texas Instruments, where
Kilby worked for years, said in a statement. "If there was ever a seminal invention that transformed not only our industry but our world, it was Jack's invention of the first integrated circuit." Kilby, who failed the college entrance exam for MIT, had not worked at Texas Instruments long enough to merit vacation during the company's annual summer shutdown. So he was alone in the labs, working on borrowed equipment on July 24, 1958, when he struck upon the idea that he jotted down in his notebook: "The following circuit elements could be made on a single slice: resistors, capacitor, distributed capacitor, transistor."
Engineers call that the Monolithic Idea. It cracked a nagging engineering problem. The transistor had been invented 10 years earlier, replacing the vacuum tubes used in the earliest computers. But transistors were built of components strung together with wires. A single bad connection would ruin the circuit, and circuits could only get so small before it was impossible for humans to solder them together. Kilby's idea was to eliminate the wires and use a single block of silicon, or germanium, containing an entire electronic circuit. For more read here...

Expensive Student Coffee

SEATTLE - At a Starbucks across the street from Seattle University School of Law, Kirsten Daniels crams for the bar exam. She's armed with color-coded pens, a don't-mess-with-me crease in her brow and what she calls "my comfort latte."
She just graduated summa cum laude , after three years of legal training that left her $115,000 in debt. Part of that debt, which she will take a decade to repay with interest, was run up at Starbucks, where she buys her lattes.
The habit costs her nearly $3 a day, and it's one that her law school says she and legions like her cannot afford. It borders on apostasy in this caffeine-driven town (home to more coffee shops per capita than any major U.S. city, as well as Starbucks corporate headquarters), but the law school is aggressively challenging the drinking habits of students such as Daniels.
"A latte a day on borrowed money? It's crazy," said Erika Lim, director of career services at the law school.To quantify the craziness, Lim distributes coffee-consumption charts. One shows that a five-day-a-week $3 latte habit on borrowed money can cost $4,154, when repaid over 10 years. For more read here...

Jessica with her Dad

With Father's Day coming up this weekend, what better than a Father with his daughter.




Jessica and Joe Simpson

Maria Wins Wimbledon Tune-up

BIRMINGHAM, England - Maria Sharapova fired a warning to her Wimbledon rivals on Sunday, out-gunningJelan Jankovic 6-2 4-6 6-1 to win the DFS Classic for the second year running.
It was at this sedate setting in England's second city last year that she began a journey that culminated in her fairytale crowning as champion at the grasscourt grand slam.

Washington Nationals Come Back

From THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Nationals came from behind yet again last night. So what else is new? This time it was catcher Brian Schneider's turn to get RFK Stadium rocking and rolling as the team rallied for the 24th time in this astonishing season. Schneider stroked a two-run single in the eighth inning that snapped a tie game and ignited a late-game explosion as the Nationals won their eighth straight 9-3 over the Seattle Mariners before 28,704.

With the win the Nationals (35-26) maintained their grip on first place in the National League East, improved to 10-1 on this current 13-game homestand, have won 11 of their last 12 and are a major league-best 22-9 at home.

"This is kind of what I would say is an amazing streak, but the club doesn't amaze me because they showed early on that they have the desire, the heart and we hung in there in close ball games, but this has been kind of an unbelievable roll that we're on right now and who knows when it's going to end," Nationals manager Frank Robinson said.

Big Fat Headache

Add migraines to the list of reasons why we should avoid eating high-fat meals. The fats we eat in food end up as fats circulating in your bloodstream about three hours after mealtime. Researchers have noted the following changes in the bloodstream that coincide with the triggering of migraine headaches:
-High levels of lipids (fats) in the blood -High levels of free fatty acids (components of fats) in the blood -Increased ability of platelets (a type of blood cell that facilitates normal blood clotting) to cluster together, which in turn is associated with decreased levels of serotonin, the so-called "happy hormone" linked to mood.
All of the above lead to vasodilation, or the expanding of the blood vessels, which is the physiological change that comes right before a migraine headache.
So now that we understand the connection between levels of fat in the blood and migraine, what can we do about it? For starters, we can reduce the levels of blood lipids and free fatty acids in our bloodstream by eating a lower-fat diet. Read more here...

Washington Nationals in First Place

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Those maddening Washington Nationals did it again: another come-from-behind victory, this time punctuated by a three-run, eighth-inning homer from Ryan Church in a 6-3 win Sunday that completed a sweep of the Florida Marlins.

The win, coupled with Atlanta's loss to Pittsburgh, puts a team called Washington in first place this late in the season for the first time since 1933, when the Washington Senators won the American League pennant.

Church's homer off reliever Matt Perisho broke a 3-all tie and gave the Nationals their seventh win in eight games. They trailed in all seven victories, including 2-0 Sunday against Marlins starter A.J. Burnett, who appeared to be cruising toward a shutout before allowing three runs in the seventh.

The Nationals have come from behind for 21 of their 31 victories. How late have their heroics been? Their starting pitchers have just one decision through the first seven games of this homestand. Luis Ayala (5-3) pitched one inning for the victory, even though he allowed a run that tied the game in the top of the eighth. Chad Cordero pitched the ninth for his 15th save.

Real Estate Boom

From MSN Money
The number of areas across the United States with real estate booms grew nearly two-thirds last year to 55, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said, warning that these booms may be followed by busts.
The boom areas represent 15% of the 362 metropolitan areas the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight analyzes, the highest proportion of boom markets in 30 years of price data and more than twice the peak of the late-1980s booms. California had 21 of the 55 boom markets in 2004; Florida had 11 and the Northeast had 18.
Boom towns 2004
Area                                                         Peak 3-yr rise
Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV                             30
Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC           31
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH                           38
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-MD-VA-WV      40
Read more here...