A Case of the Mondays

Here are some recent current events in sports that interest me:

Cubs will play the Dodgers - Being a Northern Californian, I do enjoy watching an occasional Giants game. I'll cheer for them as long as they are not playing the Cubs. Because of this, I've also taken to the Giants hate for the Dodgers. It should be an interesting series, but I'm ready to enjoy playoff baseball in October for the second year in row. Now that I've seen the way things have shaped up, I probably would've rather the Cubs play the Mets, but whatever. You have to beat everyone to win the World Series, so let's do this.

NFL Week 4 - Wow, what a week! My first mistake came when I started Phillip Rivers over Drew Brees in Fantasy Football. Ouch, Brees had arguably the best week of any QB and Rivers tried to let the Raiders win their second game of the week (that seems like the only way the Raiders will win games is if the other team allows them to get the W.)

The Bears beat the Philadelpia Eagles on the Sunday Night Game of the Week. To be honest, I watched the last two minutes of the game because I had a show in Walnut Creek during the game. Coincidentally (or not if your superstisious) the Bears are 2-0 on days when they play on Sunday Night Football. They are also 2-0 when I play at Pyramid in Walnut Creek during the game and 2-0 when I wear a particular long sleeve t-shirt. They are 0-2 when I watch the game or put more effort into following the results, yet when my effort is going towards entertaining- they win. Well, I guess I need to put as much focus on the Bears as I do the Tyra Show, and they'll play better.

The Redskins upset the Cowboys in Dallas. They played a great game and I was especially impressed with the Redskins defense (besides their Prevent defense at the end of the First Half.) Great win. The NFC East is the toughest division in football.

Current undefeated teams left: Titans, Ravens, Giants and Bills. Odds of any of those teams winning the Super Bowl: 100 to 1

Well, Entourage was frustrating and now I'm watching Family Guy waaaaay too late at night. If there any requests for sports topics, leave it in the comments. Hey-ooooooooooooooooo!

Bienvenidos a Salamanca, Spain and Sandstone

The Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain

Bienvenidos! I'm Jen Wong and here to provide you with a blog on traveling every Friday.

To begin, let's head to Salamanca, Spain, where I first caught the traveling bug, and a logical place to begin sharing my travel background and travel style.

In between my Senior (and before my Super Senior) year in college I applied for my first passport and headed for Salamanca to study for a month and then take on the Europe backpack circuit for two months.

Salamanca is about 2 1/2 hours northwest of Madrid and named one of two European Capitals of Culture for 2002. This meant incredible concerts (BB King! Manu Chao!) in the Plaza de Toros, special events, tourists and a freshly spruced-up city.

Salamanca's central streets, shops and outdoor dining

This place is gorgeous. It's nickname is the "Golden City" because of the golden sandstone architecture. The Plaza Mayor is often referred to as the most beautiful Plaza Mayor (main plaza) in Spain. If you've seen the movie Vantage Point, it was filmed here. To study here in the summer is to join the thousands of other international students at the Universidad de Salamanca - Spain's oldest existing University and one of it's most prestigious. Students bring a very lively and festive atmosphere to this college town. And a lot of bars.

More beautiful sandstone

As you may already start to notice, there are a lot of superlatives in this blog and there will be plenty more to come in this series of blogs.

After studying, I started traveling through Europe on the same route as many other backpackers, most who were traveling for further and longer (or so it seemed) than I. If they could do it, I could do it! After graduation I worked for about a year and a half before quitting my job and heading for New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe and a bit of the USA over the next eight months.

I came home ready to work, but soon decided that my traveling days weren't over yet. I headed back to the same job, with the understanding that I would soon take off again for five months to cruise around South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and China. After those big trips, my traveling has been limited to vacations of less than two weeks each and have been much closer to home.

Now for a bit about my traveling style. I buy a plane ticket from continent to continent and figure it out along the way. I bring with me a backpack that has room for things that I will inevitably purchase along the way. I always pack way too many shoes. I always pack a shirt from my college, UC Davis. (GO AGS!)

I usually travel solo, but I'm only alone if it's by choice. I often meet up with friends and family who come from the U.S. and will join me for one week to two months. I don't book a place to stay, if I even do that, until I'm just about ready to leave my current city. I like to try (most) local foods at least once.

I try to find the cheapest and safest way to travel from point A to point B on public transportation. I like to eat my way across a country. I will travel across the world for a great festival.

The more places I visit, the more places I want to go. I like most everywhere I travel to and if not, it's just because I wasn't there long enough to experience the place and the people.

Join me every Friday for a virtual trip, both near and far to kick off your weekend!

The Socialist Republic of America?

Fitting that as we cruise into the first week of Next Generation Leaders' blog, and I being the Politics/Business guy that our country is entering its largest state of socialism, ever.

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Erik Watkins, otherwise known as Erik Wayne (call me what you will). I'm a registered independent and like Tony, spend far too much time listening to radio, watching tv, and reading news about my respective subject. At a point in my life I probably listened to 4 hours of CNBC, 2 hours of CNN, 4 hours of Howard Stern, and read every article on Yahoo! Finance. I've also given a good 2 years' worth of listening to such talk radio hosts as Mike Savage, Glen Beck, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I'm not sure why I never got into Rush Limbaugh, could be that I don't have patience for strung out, druggie, hypocrites. I'm a self taught investor and learned a lot by reading books about random walks on wall street, confessions of street addicts, and an oracle of omaha. I've also learned a lot by losing a lot of money in the dot com boom.

Now to the topic at hand, The Bailout. I did some rough numbers the other day when the government announced that they were going to bail out CEOs on wall street. Here are my numbers: 300 million population = 240 million in the lower and middle class (my rough estimate that 80% of the population fits these categories). Urban planners use an estimate of 2.7 persons per household to estimate population densities, so I will use that. 240 million / 2.7 = roughly 90 million households. $700 billion bailout / 90 million households = roughly $7,700 per household in the middle and lower classes.

Your government was nice enough to give you $600 each and $300 for your kids earlier this year, thank you uncle sam.

Aaaaaand. . . . today I saw that we have 43 days until we know for sure Bush is not going to remain in the White House. Unless we go to war at which point he may decide that life outside may not be as safe as he originally thought 8 years ago. Am I the only one who gets mad at the national polls and mass media who tell me everyday who is going to be the next president? I don't think so. Who am I voting for? I'm a realist republican, meaning, I believe that minimizing government benefits everyone (come on, we've all been to DMV (MVD for those of you who live outside California). . . uh huh, thank you), yet republicans have run up the largest budget deficit EVER, and we're still going. I want some input here. Since I'm registered independent, I want people to respond to this blog and tell me at the very least which party I belong to and if you have time, why.

Where's my political party?

Believe in a balanced budget

Believe in lower taxes

Believe in moderate government spending for the necessary items such as welfare

Believe in a woman's right to choose (believing that though it may not be my choice, I wish to not impose my beliefs on someone else)

Believe in equal rights for gay and lesbian couples

Believe in strengthening the dollar (more on this later)

Believe in strategic covert military actions vs. all out war

Keep in mind the fiscal items from above are more important to me than the social ones. Am I a republican or a democrat?

Maybe next week I'll tell you who I'm voting for.

Thanks for reading, enjoy Jen's post on Friday!

-Erik

A Case of the Mondays

Hi there. I'm Tony, and I'll be posting about sports every Monday. To give you some background on me, I am a huge Chicago sports fan (Cubs, Bears, Bulls) and I'm a former high school basketball player. I play fantasy football and baseball every year, listen to KNBR 680 every day, and watch way too much ESPNews. It's in fact amazing that I have time to do all of this, while holding a job, and playing live music at least two nights a week (www.tonybataska.com).

So without further delay, here are the sports stories that caught my attention recently:

Cubs Win NL Central! - This is the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Regardless of whether they win or lose in the playoffs, the Cubs have already had an amazing season that have seen a couple first in my lifetime:

This is the first time I've ever seen the Cubs win their division two years in a row. The last time they did this was actually three in a row (1906, 07, 08).

This is the first time I've ever seen the Cubs go to the playoffs two years in a row (once again, 06-08).

Carlos Zambrano threw the only Cubs no hitter I've ever seen. Milt Papas threw the last one in 1972. Apparently every year at the Cubs Convention, Milt would tell Zambrano, "You're going to be the next one to do it." Good call, Milt. You are correct, sir!

Week 3 of the NFL - There were many great games this weekend, and here's the quick recap:

The Bears blew another 4th quarter lead - For the second week in a row, the Bears have the lead going into the 4th quarter, and they leave the game losers. Luckily, this week I didn't go out of my way to watch the game. On the negative side, the Bears were beat by Brian Griese whom they traded to Tampa Bay in the offseason. Griese had over 400 yards passing. Way to welcome back your former teammate. A nice gift basket of fruit would've been sufficient, but letting him march up and down the field in overtime was a little too nice of the defensive unit.

The Giants beat the Bengals in overtime - The second overtime game of the week found defending champion NY Giants beating the hapless Cinncinati Bengals. Each week I'm more and more impressed with Eli Manning. He looks to have found his identity in the NFL.

Oakland loses to the Bills on last second field goal - I watched the large majority of this game and it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. The Raiders looked a lot better than the sorry, ridiculously terrible team they were in Week 1. The Raiders running attack looked great and their defense was tenacious until the end. On the flip side, the Bills are 3-0 for the first time since the early 90s.

Other games of note:

Jags beat Colts, Niners destroy Lions, Cowboys beat Packers, and Vikings beat Panthers. Sorry if I missed your team, I'll try to work in more teams next week.

US wins Ryder Cup for the first time since 1998:

I'm not a huge golf fan, but since the US hadn't won the Ryder Cup in a decade, I figured it was worth a mention. U-S-A, U-S-A!

So that's the first installment, come on back as I update the Cubs playoff results and the rest of the NFL season.

Welcome!

First I want to thank everyone for reading. Welcome to the Next Generation Leaders blog. This blog is aimed at Generation Xers who work hard and are heading towards the bright light of leadership for the next generation. We hear in the news about the power and influence of the Baby Boomer generation, and I'm saying, "what about us?" My name is Erik Watkins, I'm the founder of the NG Leaders blog. I was born in March of 1980, son of two ultra-baby boomers (born late '45 and early '46), and bound to be a leader in the next generation.



I have assembled a team of intelligent Generation Xers who I believe are going to be the leaders of the next generation. The idea is that each blogger will have his or her subject of interest and will post on their respective day of the week. I am still constructing the team but without further delay I decided that we should start the blog and those who decide to join us, may at a later date. I have great respect for the team members, and truely believe that they will entertain and inform you with their stories of personal experience.

Here is the Next Generation Leaders blog lineup:

Monday: Tony Bataska - Sports
Wednesday: Erik Watkins - Business & Politics
Friday: Jen Wong - Travel

Tony is going to kick it off with the maiden blog on Monday.

Enjoy!
Erik Watkins