DJ Yoshi

Storm Chasers Die in Tornado

June 4, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

Twister Terror

tim-samaras-storm-chasers “Storm Chasers” star Tim Samaras, 55, his 24-year-old son, Paul, and a 45-year-old colleague were among those killed when powerful storms, including several tornadoes, tore through Oklahoma on Friday.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Samaras, his son Paul and their colleague Carl Young,” the Discovery Channel said in a statement released Sunday. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families.”
The men died while chasing an F-3 tornado in El Reno, Okla., near Oklahoma City. At least nine people, including a mother and her baby were killed during Friday’s storms, officials said.
“Thank you to everyone for the condolences,” Tim Samaras’ brother, Jim, wrote on Tim’s Facebook wall. “It truly is sad that we lost my great brother Tim and his great son, Paul. Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they loved.
“I look at it that he is in the ‘big tornado in the sky,'” Jim added.
The “Storm Chasers” series ended in November after five seasons on the Discovery Channel. The network said it would dedicate Sunday’s “Mile Wide Tornado: Oklahoma Disaster”—a primetime special on the deadly tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., on May 20—to their memory.
“This has really shaken up everyone in the storm chasing community,” Doug Kiesling, a storm photographer, told CNN. “We knew this day would happen someday, but nobody would imagine that it would happen to Tim. Tim was one of the safest people to go out there.”

(golf) Taylormade Releases ALL BLACK R1

May 30, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

Dressed in ALL Black

rq black Pre-Order Your Black R1 By Clicking Here

(sports) Rangers Fire John Tortorella

May 29, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

The LONE Ranger

– VIA USA Today –
The New York Rangers fired coach John Tortorella on Wednesday after the team took a step back this season.

Last season, the Rangers won the Eastern Conference regular-season title and went to the conference finals.

This season, they finished sixth, even though expectations were high after they acquired Rick Nash in the offseason.

Though they upset the Washington Capitals in the first round, they were handled pretty easily by the Boston Bruins in a five-game loss in the conference semifinals.

After the series, Tortorella said: “There was never a lack of effort with the club. At the beginning of the series, I think there was a lack of awareness of how high you have to be as you go to the second round with your level of play. And as we went on, I thought we got better.”

The move is expected to be the first of several during the offseason for the Rangers. They are expected to buy out the remaining seven years of Brad Richards’ nine-year, $60 million contract.

The Nash trade actually hurt the Rangers at the beginning of the season because they dealt some heart-and-soul players such as Brandon Dubinsky. So did the loss of defenseman Marc Staal with an eye injury.

The Rangers improved after trading Marian Gaborik to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett and John Moore and made the playoffs.

If the Rangers are looking for a veteran coach to replace Tortorella, a former Stanley Cup winner, Alain Vigneault and Lindy Ruff are available.

NY Union Executive Enjoys $156k Salary for 10 Hours of Work!

May 29, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

Eat, Sleep, Leave Earns Rosenthal 156k

– Via The NY Post –
IT’S A DREAM JOB: Mark Rosenthal, who pulls in $156,000 a year as head of Local 983 of District Council 37, nods off at his desk during one of a series of postlunch naps that have outraged members of the union’s executive board.

“He eats lunch when he arrives at work at 2 p.m. Then, like clockwork, he goes to sleep with a cup of soda on the table and the straw in it,” said Marvin Robbins, a union vice president.

“Then he wakes up, looks at his watch and says, ‘I have to get out before the traffic gets bad.’ He’s usually out by 4 p.m. after being at the office two hours.”

Rosenthal is a former Parks Department employee who rose to power campaigning to rid the union of corruption in the late 1990s.

He last made embarrassing headlines in 2009, when he inspired a City Council bill requiring jumbo-size ambulances for morbidly obese patients after he had a stroke at City Hall.

Since then, he hasn’t been making much of an effort to give the city’s ambulances a break and slim down. Union officials say he racks up $1,400 in monthly food bills on the union dime.

Much of the 5-foot-7, 400-plus-pound Rosenthal’s food tabs are for catered union events and meals he writes off as “union business,” board members claim.

They say he significantly overorders at eateries like Dallas BBQ, the Stage Door Deli and Pine Restaurant in The Bronx, a hangout for local politicians, and takes the extra food back to his Bronxdale apartment.

“He’s always walking off with a doggie bag or extra boxes of food,” said another executive board member.

Rosenthal, who earns $156,000 annually, yesterday denied being a free spender— and insisted he works “12-to-14-hour days.”

He says the allegations are “part of a smear campaign” by a faction trying to get another Local 983 vice president, Joseph Puleo, elected president in a June 5 showdown.

He said it’s normal for executives to take “power naps.”

He also blamed his meetings with the sandman on the effects of pain medication he takes for backaches he has suffered since he fell through a chair at a McDonald’s last year.

“The chair broke because I’m big,” Rosenthal said.

“I’m 60 years old, so if I eat during my lunch hour and take a little medication, can’t I close my eyes?” he said outside his apartment complex. “Is it so outrageous?”

Rosenthal is also under fire from the union’s executive board for allowing lawyer Arthur Schwartz to allegedly rack up an average of $12,000 a month in union legal fees for years despite being on a $5,500 monthly retainer, board members said.

But Schwartz claims he has submitted only one monthly bill over $10,000 in 15 years representing the union and averages about $7,000 per month in fees.

Puleo called Rosenthal’s allegations “absurd,” adding, “He’s the one using the union’s resources to sue members in good standing.”

The case has since been moved to a federal court in Manhattan with a hearing set for today.

The union represents 3,000 workers — mostly Parks Department peace officers and maintenance workers and NYPD tow-truck operators and other traffic agents that are among the lowest-paid city workers.

But they still fork over $1,080 in annual union dues that help fund Rosenthal’s salary and perks.

Rosenthal has headed the union since 1998, when he won an election under the platform of ridding the union of corruption and alleged mob ties. At the time, he called the union a “cesspool.”

Some members say he was a strong labor advocate for the union in his early years, but his questionable spending and sleeping habits — and alleged lack of attention to union issues — in recent years led to Puleo’s campaign.

He has also ruled the union with little opposition in part because he and Schwartz have strong political connections at City Hall, so members say they were afraid to go up against them until now.

“There was always the fear that he’d use his power to retaliate against anyone who spoke up,” Puleo said.

“He always likes to say he’s a big supporter of Mayor Bloomberg and the fact that the mayor called him to thank him for his support when he was elected.

“I would love to see the mayor’s face if he saw the big sodas that he likes to drink. It’s kind of ironic.”

(art) NY Metropolitan Opens Doors on Monday’s

May 27, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

For the First Time in 43 Years

New York, March 21, 2013)—As of July 1, 2013, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open to the public 7 days a week, it was announced today by Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Museum. This new schedule will go into effect at both the Museum’s main building on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street in Manhattan and at The Cloisters museum and gardens, its branch museum for medieval art and architecture in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan.

“Art is a 7-day-a-week passion, and we want the Met to be accessible whenever visitors have the urge to experience this great museum,” stated Mr. Campbell in making the announcement. “Last year we had record-breaking attendance of 6.28 million visitors and yet were turning away many thousands more on Mondays, when we have traditionally been closed. Our new schedule will remedy that, and we look forward to welcoming visitors to our encyclopedic collections, robust exhibition program, and wide-ranging educational offerings nearly every day of the year.”

Also as of July 1, the Museum’s opening time each morning will change to 10:00 a.m. (from 9:30 a.m.). Otherwise the hours at both locations will remain the same. The new daily schedule as of July 1 in the main building will therefore be:
Friday and Saturday 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
Sunday–Thursday 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

And the new schedule at The Cloisters museum and gardens will be:
March–October: Open 7 days, 10:00 a.m.–5:15 p.m.
November–February: Open 7 days, 10:00 a.m.–4:45 p.m.

Both locations will be closed January 1, Thanksgiving Day, and December 25, and the main building will also be closed on the first Monday in May.

The Metropolitan Museum has been closed on Mondays since 1971, with the exception in recent years of the Holiday Mondays program—in which the Museum has been open on a few holidays each year that fall on Mondays. The final Holiday Mondays to be observed before the new 7-day schedule goes into effect on July 1 will be March 25 and April 1 (during Spring Break), and May 27 (Memorial Day).

Full details on admission, group tours, and visitor amenities—including dining, shopping, and parking—are available at www.metmuseum.org/visit or 212-535-7710.

(Life Advice) 15 Things to Give Up For True Happiness

May 21, 2013 By DJ Yoshi Leave a Comment

The Road to Happiness Starts Within

– via the World Observer –
1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another, attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves. You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.