Fantasy Baseball for Dummies

No, I'm not going to give you fantasy baseball in a nutshell. Why? Because each game differs. In some you set a lineup for the week using the players you drafted before the season even started. In others, you get the chance to select an entirely new lineup each and every day (within the allotted salary cap). There are millions of stats and projections to consider, with each website possibly offering entirely different information.

The secret that most people do not know it this: there is a lot of luck involved in fantasy baseball.

You can spend hours pouring over all of the information provided online, submit your lineup, feel like you are golden, and still lose.

Though luck plays a major role, here are some easy planning tips that may help you set your lineup:

1. Make sure that your players are actually playing. I've been stupid enough to make this mistake several times. Just because one of your players is not injury prone does not mean that he will not be given the night off. There are several daily lineup sources online. Pick one and check it just before your lineup officially goes in.

2. Beware of bargain pitchers. There will be days in which excellent, low dollar pitchers will be available. Go with your gut. If you do not feel good about them, spend the money to get a good pitcher. Pitchers account for the majority of points in most leagues. Do not overlook this fact.

3. Who's hot? Determining this can be tricky. Some websites will tell you what the batting average is for each player against the pitcher that he is facing that night. It can be easy to look at these stats and assume that a player is fantasy baseball gold if he is hitting over .400 against a certain pitcher. Before plugging him into the lineup, check ESPN or another website that offers stats to see what he has done in the last week. If he is hitting .122 over the last seven days, chances are he won't do much REGARDLESS of his average against the pitcher.

Take it from someone who has learned much about fantasy baseball the hard way. All is not what it seems. Don't stat yourself to death or lose your day job over spending hours on the internet comparing stats. Know who is hot and who is not. Pick a pitcher that should do well. Set it, and forget it.

Love For Older Gaming Systems

Am I the only one who has a passion for older gaming systems? I think not. Surely I cannot be the only person who gets excited at the sight of an Atari cartridge! Upon a recent visit to a thrift store and 2nd & Charles, I stood staring at old games. Many of them brought back memories of good times.

One example was E.T. for Atari. I still remember the Christmas when my parents assured me that our family could NOT afford an expensive gaming system. Christmas morning my siblings and I ascended the stairs only to hear a foreign sound. The sound was the E.T. game intro playing in a shiny new Atari. We played that game for hours, never getting bored, ignoring all our other gifts. Sure, there were some fights over who got to go next, but still, good times.

After that was the Nintendo and Super Mario Brothers. Hours were spent trying to complete that game, siblings by my side, trying to see who was best. I will freely admit that I was never the best, but I certainly did have a lot of fun trying to get Mario to do what I wanted him to do!

Sega Genesis. Oh, how I love thee! So many games, so little time. Skitchin', a roller blade game in which the player took risks that would have surely killed them in real life was one of my favorites. I saw this game in the thrift store and was tempted to buy it despite the fact that I no longer own a Sega Genesis. Our cable company even offered a Sega Channel that cycled games each month and allowed you to play games without the need to own them. Man, those were the days.

Other gaming systems would follow once I was a "grown up." I married at a young age. One of my husbands friends introduced us to the Sega Dreamcast. This system was completely overlooked. Maybe Sega did not market it correctly, because the graphics were and are awesome. My 20 year old son still owns one of these systems. I hope he keeps it forever.

Playstation and Playstation 2 changed the game. By this time I had kids. I purchased Rugrats Golf for my son, and could not wait for him to get on the school bus so that I could play it. Once the PS2 came along, I was once again reconnected with my siblings through various sports games, ATV racing, Guitar Hero and more. As adults, the same competitive spirit still exists. It never ends, and I would not want it to.

Today, my brother and sister both own the most modern systems - PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360. I will freely admit that interactive gaming is a lot of fun (despite the fact that one of the Olympics games blew my knee out). Still, nothing will ever take the place of the old systems. I fully plan to repurchase a number of older gaming systems and use them as much as possible. No, they will not offer state of the art graphics and game play, but they will offer me a way to reconnect to some of the best times in my life.

What Elements Make For the Best Baby Sling?

There was a time when the best baby sling was any type that held the baby in order to allow the parent to carry him or her easily. As with most products, slings have changed over the years, and there are now new options to consider. In addition to new safety features, there are now many different styles to consider. Solid colors are certainly no longer the only option. Patterns and prints are now being used to create slings that are as attractive as they are versatile.

The materials used in production have also changed. Though cotton varieties are still a popular choice, linen and silk are also available. One of the most notable differences is the creation of different sizes that are appropriate for babies of different ages and weights. The "one size fits all" approach is no longer viable. The lack of sizing options is one of the main reasons that slings fell out of favor with parents for a time before coming roaring back.

Modern baby care products are designed specifically with both safety and style in mind. As a parent, it will be up to you to choose the products that you feel will be most beneficial. Reducing the strain of carrying a baby can easily be accomplished by purchasing the correct baby sling and using it each time you and baby go out.

What if They Let YOU Run the Hubble?

It is probably the dream of any amateur astronomer to be able to be the boss of one of the great multi million dollar telescopes even if it was just for one hour or for a few shots. Sure, we can have a lot of fun with our binoculars. And as we improve our personal equipment set, we get better and better at pinpointing what we want to see in the sky.

But there is only so far we can go within the constraints of a family budget in building the perfect telescopic operation. Probably the next level then is to work together with others in your astronomy club. By pooling our resources, we can make more progress both in acquiring much more sophisticated equipment and in synchronizing our telescopic operations.

All of this is good and its fun to tweak it and play with it always finding improvements. But when we are sitting back and dreaming, it’s those big institutional size telescopes that really grab our interest. Maybe you have had a chance to visit one at Kitt Peak, Arizona, Mauna Kea, Hawaii, Palomar Mountain, California or Mt. Locke, Texas to name just a few and as you walked around jaw dropped to your shoes, you thought, maybe if I could just run it for an hour, how awesome would that be?

The good news is that while these huge observatories are not going to let you come in and turn the gears of the mightiest telescopes yourself, many of them will perform specific observations for you and allow you to “see through their eyes” via the internet for that short observation. This is a powerful option for an amateur astronomer and one you want to prepare for carefully. Here is what you do…

1. Begin compiling a list of the great telescopes of the world, their locations and how to contact them. Google will help you with finding lists of these observatories to contact by pointing you to specific directory sites like The World's Largest Telescopes

2. You can start by submitting your request to a specific observatory. Now here is where you have to do your homework. If you have a specific celestial event you wish to observe, there will be particular telescopes around the globe that will be in the best position to get those shots for you. So study up and find just the right telescope and when the perfect moment for that observation would occur. Get out ahead of this homework as you need to submit your request in plenty of time for it to go through approval and for them to get back to you and to interact with you to nail down what you are going to have them look at.

3. There are two ways you can direct the operators of the telescopes. You can give them specific coordinates to focus on and a specific time frame to perform the observation. The other way is to give them a star, a planet or a particular star system to observe and let them figure out the coordinates. That might be easier because you know what you want to see.

4. Now you sit back and wait for the email that the observation is done. You will not be able to watch them do the observation dynamically. That would be nice but it just isn’t possible yet. These are telescopes, not web cams. But they will post the pictures from your observation on a particular web location and email the results to you for study.

It’s pretty cool, free and customized to what you requested. And you can brag to your friends as you make color copies of your shots that you had Kitt Peak do these up for you personally. And you would not be lying.