Christmas 2010

Only a couple more days till Christmas. If you have not yet gotten all the gifts to give to friends and family, here is a great website to get great ideas from. You can also get ideas for meals, games, etc. 

Have a very merry holidays Tampa Bay!

 

 

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Vertical Ventures

Here's a very cool present idea for adventurers out there in Tampa:

 

Intro-to-Belay Class for Two ($30) or $30 to Spend on Merchandise and Services (Pay $15)

This holiday season put your relationship on the rocks. But instead of stony stares, give your loved one the gift of stony stairs: Spend just $30 for an Intro-to-Belay rock climbing class for two at Vertical Ventures (a $72 value). This wired offer includes gear for two during your visit (including shoes, harness, and chalk bag) as well as a return visit to practice your new skills. Already big time on the (fake) boulders? Opt for $30 in merchandise or other services for just $15. Vertical Ventures was the first indoor rock climbing gym in Florida, and today it has more than 6,000 square feet of climbing. Every wall offers large, top-roped routes and smaller boulder problems, and every day new routes are set -- which will really help alleviate the ups and downs you feel about any type of workout. Leave the haul bag and climb on to today's deal before it hits rock bottom.

 

• 50%
  savings
• 108
  purchased
• 2 Days

 

Click here to learn more:

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Commission, Waste Management partner to green sporting events

Here is an interesting article to help eco efforts in Tampa Bay:

 

 

The Tampa Bay Sports Commission and Waste Management plan to help make local events greener.

 

Waste Management (NYSE: WM) will offer recycling services for cardboard, paper, plastics, glass bottles, aluminum cans and other materials for each Tampa Bay Sports Commission sponsored event within the Tampa Bay area.

 

The Tampa Bay Sports Commission is focused on generating social and economic impact through the vehicle of sports and works with more than 100 youth and amateur events on annual basis. The events produce more than 100,000 hotel room nights annually and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors, tourism executives said in a release.

 

“Sustainability continues to be an enormous priority for our community and for our sporting events,” said Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, in a prepared statement.

Read more: Commission, Waste Management partner to green sporting events | Tampa Bay Business Journal 

 

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Despite departures, Rays confident about 2011

Here is some recent news about our very own Tampa Bay Rays:

ST. PETERSBURG -- Rays fans have endured the pain of seeing Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford sign contracts with other teams, and more are likely to follow.

Rather than remain cranky, perhaps a change of mindset is in order, and a William Wordsworth passage is just the right tonic as the classic romantic poet penned:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind ...

Even though he wrote that long before computers -- or even typewriters -- Wordsworth's words should resonate with Rays fans. Despite the changes, there is a lot to draw strength about in what remains behind.

 

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Remembering Coach McKay's winning ways

Here is the most recent news on our Tampa Bay Buccs:

 

TAMPA - As the story goes, John McKay, already an icon as football coach at the University of Southern California, was dining with his buddy, Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant. They were at Chasen's, then the ultimate see-and-be-seen spot in Beverly Hills.

The waiter approached.

"Coach McKay," he said, "Mr. Sinatra has a table in back and wants you to stop by."

McKay, unflinching: "You tell him to come up and see us."

A few minutes later, there was Frank Sinatra, paying homage.

Yes, John McKay absolutely did it his way. At USC, where his steady stream of one-liners played well with the Hollywood set, he won four national championships. McKay was the king.

Then he gave it all away to join an NFL expansion franchise. Fans in Los Angeles thought he was crazy. McKay probably agreed when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games.

But McKay's plan worked. The Bucs went from worst to first, coming within 10 points of a Super Bowl appearance in 1979, just two years after the 0-and-26 nightmare. In turn, McKay added to his legacy, showing a level of determination that wasn't required when overseeing a college-football dynasty.

McKay will be posthumously inducted into the Bucs' Ring of Honor (joining his former defensive end, Lee Roy Selmon, the Pro Football Hall of Famer) at halftime in today's game against the Atlanta Falcons at Raymond James Stadium.

 

Click here to read more.

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Miracle on Cleveland St.: 40 Tons of Snow Expected to Hit Downtown Clearwater December 4th

Here's an article to show you what happened in downtown clearwater on December 4th:

 

With nearly 40 tons of snow and 2 toboggan snow slides, Downtown Clearwater’s Miracle on Cleveland Street is back on December 4th with Carolers, SANTA and a special Christmastrain to take kids over to the Christmas Village!

Clearwater, FL, November 9, 2009 - Who says it never snows in Florida? The Clearwater Downtown Partnership figured out how to make it snow at their inaugural Christmas event called Miracle on Cleveland St. last December. 20 tons of snow graced Cleveland Street along with 2500 attendees - many of which were children who came out in full force to ride the toboggan snow slide and see SANTA. This December 4th, there will be nearly 40 tons of snow, 2 giant toboggan slides and a play snow area for those infamous snow-ball fights!

 

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Woman’s Club Fulfills Wishes of Children at Joshua House

You can check socks off the Christmas list

 

Lutz, Fl (11/5/2010) – The GFWC New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club conservation initiative has enabled them to provide four hundred and eighty socks for the children at Joshua House. That is six pairs for each child residing on campus, enabling them to check off one item for each child on the Christmas Wish List.

 

“In August I presented the membership with a challenge. For each pair of athletic shoes brought to a general club meeting for recycling via the Nike Reuse a Shoe program the Board would purchase a six pack of socks for a child at Joshua House,” said Patricia Murphy Conservation Community Project Coordinator for the GFWC New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club. “The response has been amazing! Last year we didn’t have much interest in the program and I thought this would be a good way to encourage recycling and help the kids at Joshua House. Initially I requested $250 for the project budget for the forty children currently living on campus but we started the new program three months ago and we have already recycled sixty three pairs of athletic shoes.”

 

The Friends of Joshua House recently published the Christmas Wish List for the children at Joshua House, “The timing was perfect,” said Murphy, “we had the size information and I went shopping for the kids last weekend and dropped off our first donation today.”

Joshua House is a safe haven for abused, abandoned, and neglected children, offering a therapeutic residential group care program that provides a protected, nurturing, family-like environment for children six - seventeen. These children have been removed from their homes due to crisis and many have been through multiple foster homes. The Wish List is available on their website at www.FriendsofJoshuaHouse.com.

 

GFWC New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club (NTJWC) is a 501 (c)3, non-profit organization dedicated to community improvement by enhancing the lives of others through volunteer service. The GFWC was established in 1890, and is an international organization of community based women’s clubs. Annual contributions of GFWC clubs average 13 million hours and $37 million dollars donated through 168,400 local club projects. The structure of GFWC and its state federations allows member clubs to address the emerging needs of individual communities and to respond quickly to calls for help.

Established in the early 1990s, Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe program collects old, worn-out athletic shoes for recycling, transforming them into Nike Grind, a material used in creating athletic and playground surfaces as well as select Nike products. Athletic shoes for recycling can be dropped off at the Nike Outlet Store in Ellenton. Nike has collected more than 24 million pairs – in other words, enough to create a chain of athletic shoes that goes all the way around the world more than five times. That’s a lot of kicks kept out of the landfill. Reusing old athletic shoes in sports surfaces also decreases the need for virgin rubber and other materials, decreasing the environmental impact of using new materials when building courts, tracks, fields and playgrounds. But the impact of Reuse-A-Shoe goes beyond keeping old kicks out of the trash. As one of Nike's longest-running environmental programs, Reuse-A-Shoe has been blazing the trail for sustainability and environmentally preferred business practices at Nike since 1990.

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Ultimate Dodgeball

For all fo you dodgeball fanatics out there, there is now a center where you can play dodgeball in a trampoline arena in Tampa. Read below to get more details about this place:

 

Boing! Jump Canter

welcomes all ages, beginners to professional athletes to defy gravity on our Giant Trampoline Arena!  Whether you want to enjoy open jump, play dodgeball (BOING! style), host a party or event, or get a crazy workout doing BOINGRobics, BOING! Jump Center is the place for you! 

Located at 622-624 Ware Blvd, Tampa 33619, next to Brandon Crossroads Bowl

 

Phone: 813-341-4897

 Email: info@boingjumpcenter.com

 

Click here to go to their website.

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White House: No drilling off Florida coast

Here's is an interesting article for all Florida residents:

 

TALLAHASSEE (AP) - The Obama administration will maintain a long-standing oil drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida after considering loosening it before the BP spill, a senior administration official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Just a month before the spill started in April, the Obama administration had announced plans to allow drilling in the eastern portion of the Gulf as part of the management plan for the Outer 
Continental Shelf.

"In light of the BP spill, we've learned a lot and understand the need to elevate the safety and environmental standards," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the 
decision hadn't been announced yet. "We took a second look at the announced plan and modified it to remove the Eastern Gulf of Mexico from leasing consideration."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar planned to discuss the decision Wednesday afternoon.

The eastern Gulf -- an area stretching from 125 to 300 miles off Florida's coast -- was singled out for protection by Congress in 2006 as part of a deal with Florida lawmakers that made available 8.3 million acres to oil and gas development in the east-central Gulf. Under that agreement, the protected region is to remain off limits to energy development until 2022.

But the administration had entertained the idea of expanded drilling, until the BP spill that spewed an estimated 172 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. In order to open more of the eastern Gulf to drilling, the administration would have to ask Congress to lift the drilling moratorium.

 

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