Helpful Centers

The type of restaurant equipment you will need for your restaurant depends on the type of service you provide. For example, if you are a full-scale restaurant you will need many more equipment items that a small mom and pop store will need. If you are a fast food restaurant, you will need different items than a restaurant along the lines of Ruby Tuesday’s.

There are so many different types of restaurant equipment available throughout the world that it will be in possible for me to write about them all. Therefore, I have chosen a few fascinating pieces of equipment to help you in your search and maybe make your job or that of your employees job a little easier along the way.

You should give serious consideration to investing in a reliable food processor. They save time and labor. The way in which your food is processed, how you chop, slice, mix, grate and blend will greatly affect the amount of time it takes to provide the ending result to your customer. By investing in a quality food processor you are investing in a piece of restaurant equipment that will provide safety, better time management and essentially better results.

The refrigerator is the most critical piece of restaurant equipment you can ever buy. Keeping cold foods cold is essential to food quality and the extreme importance of food safety. Invest in a refrigerator that will show you the temperature accurately on the outside of the equipment. Find a refrigerator that is tough and built to last, with proper usage.

Delivering cold and hot beverages is extremely important to the success of your restaurant. This piece of restaurant equipment should provide a quick and efficient way of dispensing the beverages. You will need a well-designed layout to deliver the best product to your customers. A soda tower has the ability to dispense six different beverages and has an ice dispensing point. The ice dispenser should hold around 100 to 150 pounds of ice.

Fried foods are as popular as ever. To keep pace with the demand, today’s frying equipment offers features that save time and money and help you prepare consistent, quality products. Commercial deep-fat fryers are complex pieces of equipment designed to turn out load after load of perfectly fried foods. Today’s frying equipment is made to be safe, energy efficient, and easily cleanable. Energy efficiency is easy for electric fryers since the heating elements are immersed in the frying medium, giving the highest possible efficiency from the electric source.

Gas fryer manufacturers made their products more energy efficient. Gas fryers heat the food either with a burner under the fry pot or by injecting the gas flame into tubes running through the fry pot. Recently, manufacturers have introduced infrared burners and various types of baffles in the tubes to distribute heat more evenly, extract more heat energy from the fuel, and reduce waste heat needing to be exhausted.

Rory H. Hawkins writes about restaurant equipment and other interesting topics. For more information on buying restaurant equipment visit us today.

This is pretty much where you want to start with your online venture. You want to keep track of all things in an organized way. You need to also establish goals. How many products do you intend to sell within a given time period. Where do you want to be at this time next year? These are important aspects to consider.

One way to track sales or create goals is to base your output on a quarterly approach. Plan out your goal for the first quarter of the year. Look at your numbers at the end of the quarter and see how they look. From this analysis you can give you self and idea of what numbers you want to see in the quarters to follow. This three month at a time approach is great because it gives you a time out to look and see what is and isn’t effective.

Now, this may be the wrong section to place this in, but I don’t care. IF you are going to have your business online, it IMPORTANT that you get a real domain name, website and SPEND MONEY for it…don’t go at it for free. Having a real and established domain name gives your customers a comfort that says, “This is a real company” and not some guy just making websites to take my money and run.

Yeah, I know you have seen those free tripod, geocities and other free sites, but you have to understand, you get what you pay for. If someone comes to your site to buy something, they certainly don’t want to see any pop-ups that have NOTHING to do with your product or service. That is what you get with freebie web hosting. So what are you to do? There are a ton of web hosting companies out there, many of which let you register your domain and pick a hosting package all at the same time. I have had much success with a company called DOTNETPARK, but you can always look around for yourself. They have complete web hosting packages that start at around eight dollars a month.

Once you get your website up and running, you will need to establish email contact information for your customers. You will want to create simple, relevant email addresses such as:

info@yourdomain.com

help@yourdomain.com

webmaster@yourdomain.com

Next you are on to design. Now I am not going to give you a whole tutorial on how to design a website, but I will give you a small list of points to consider. It is important to design for your market. Don’t use the wrong colors, don’t overly use stock photos and don’t use photos images that don’t belong to you. Host the images on your site…don’t reference images from other sites. Design for usability…make sure even Joe Schmoe can navigate your site with no problem. Also, if you are going to do your own design and web page construction, consider purchasing THE standard in web imaging, the all mighty Adobe Photoshop and its super compliment Macromedia Dreamweaver. These two products go hand in hand!

OH! one last thing: Do not use sound effects!!! Let me say it again, do not use sound effects!!! Ok, I’m done. I can move on now. Always have people look at your site before your release it. Consider using a content management systems to maintain your site. This will save you much time and effort when updating content for your users. Heck, a blog application like Wordpress could even work for you. Those of you with blogs out there are probably already familiar with this tool. If you admit that you have no eye for design, these are your options: Find someone who does and pay them Go to your local bookstore and browse great books such as “WebPages That Suck ” to get the latest do-s and don’ts of web design

Visit other websites that may offer the same thing as you to get an idea of where to start with your design but don’t blatantly copy anyone else’s work or you could be infringing on copyright laws.

Always provide contact information about your site so that people can feel at ease with visiting your site and purchasing your offerings.

Keep track of what works!

You may publish this article freely while you do not change it’s content and the resource box.
————————————————–

Tony Rocks is a full-service web development company
that can tackle any project. From Enterprise-level applications
to data integrity and storage and marketing solutions,
Tony Rocks simply Rocks!

http://www.tonyrocks.com

Though skateboards were around in the early 50’s and 60’s and actually very widely used back then they weren’t well made and so eventually died out. The early ones were basically just milk crates with roller skate wheels and maybe a handle. More like a scooter. The wheels were the big problem, being mostly of clay, and resulted in lots of accidents from slipping or breaking and causing a fall. Even with better boards the wheels still created difficulty, and the sport pretty well died out in the mid-60’s.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Frank Nasworthy, a surfer, developed a wheel made from urethane and then added precision bearings, and bolted them to a good quality board. The sport took off again.

The first skateboard parks from that time were mainly empty pools but lots of great moves and jumps were developed during that time, including the famous “ollie”, a no hands aerial. Accidents and then the ever-increasing liability insurance killed the sport a second time and by the 1980’s most of the parks had closed down.

In the 1990’s the sport regained popularity and though it has had some fluctuations since it has mainly grown and developed over the past few decades.

Over the years I’ve often heard it said that this sport wouldn’t last. It was just a fad. But it has developed from an activity into a relevant sport and now is widely followed around the world. The focus on tricks and jumps, great artwork on boards, clothing lines, shoes, skateboard posters, and even music has enhanced the image.

Throughout these years there have been increases in the quality of boards and wheels but mainly the concept didn’t change much, until now. Coming up are some radical new designs. The S-Board is a board that twists in the middle and has only a single front and single rear wheel. The ride is apparently very much like snowboarding.

Then there’s the Australian Bushpig, motorized skateboard (sort of), that does 20mph. Gotta get me one of those.

And the ultimate so far? That has to be Danny Way and his jump over the Great Wall of China. I wonder if his jump could be seen from space? hmmmm.

Philip G. Jones, Phil is a freelance writer and co-owner of www.artinspires.com His favorite print is “Seize The Day-Skateboarder” a motivational print

1. For a natural look your foundation must match your skin tone. Test foundations along your jawline. You will know the best color because it will disappear into your skin.

2. Spread foundation on your hands and pat it on your face, then smooth out with a sponge making sure not to pull or stretch the skin. Be extra careful in the area around
your eyes where the skin is super thin. Don’t forget to apply foundation on your eyelids and lips.

3. To make foundation last apply moisturizer first giving the foundation a base. Dry skin will soak up the foundation if not given that base. For oily skin use an oil-free moisturizer and powder foundation

4. On hot days foundation can be difficult to keep looking fresh. Set your foundation in the morning using a loose powder and puff, then do regular touch ups throughout
the day.

5. To cover imperfections apply foundation first and then go back and dot on a concealer that neutralizes red. For noticeable imperfections like very dark circles and birthmarks use a yellow concealer (available from Mary Kay). Don’t use too much powder in problem areas because it will draw attention to it.

6. To avoid a foundation line around the jaw apply foundation as usual then use a little moisturizer in your hand and blend it down your neck.

7. For evening mix some shimmer powder with your powder and put it where you want to attract light such as the bridge of the nose, underneath the brow bone, the temples, cheekbone, chin and shoulders.

8. Always use a foundation with a sunscreen of at least 15 to prevent future sun damage.

9. Change your foundation shade if the color of your skin changes.

10. After you apply foundation go near a window to make sure it looks natural. Natural light is the ultimate test.

Copyright 2004 Sheila Dicks

Sheila Dicks is a wardrobe and image consultant who teaches women
how to look slimmer by dressing to suit their body type. Visit her at
http://www.sheilasfashionsense.com to download a copy of her e-book Image Makeovers and get How to Build a Wardrobe free.

If you’re like most people, your personal financial records are most probably kept in less than “Good Accounting Practices” standards. For example, stashing old ATM receipts and hanging on to a stub showing what you paid for a pack of mints two years ago (cash, of course), might be filed with your paycheck stubs, credit card statements - paid and unpaid alike - as well as a few tax forms, a stray paper clip and a penny. Anything from an old shoebox to a toolbox would do you for this method of personal financial tracking but you can do better than that.

Not to worry. Here’s how:

1) Plan for a few hours of “alone time” with your financial records. This is a dandy time to pack the kids off to the mall, put up a pot of excellent coffee and a little snack (preferably chocolate), as a treat when you’re done.

2) Supply yourself with ample space, such as a large dining room table. Make sure you have enough organizing supplies close at hand: sticky notes, file folders, a tub to hold them with hanging file folders, large envelopes, a check file, ring binder/s and a three-hole punch if you like, an open stacking file, and an organizer/sorter. A trash can by your side is a must.

3) Get everything from everyplace - shoe boxes, check files, file folders, etc.

4) While enjoying your cup of coffee, make a game plan. Decide what you’re going to put where: e.g., checks and statements go in a specific file for checks and statements, credit card statements can be unfolded and placed in a file folder, etc.

5) Start sorting on the table. Checks go here, ATM receipts go there, paycheck stubs go over there, paid bills go on the other side, etc. until all the “stuff” is divided into neatly organized piles. Use sticky notes to mark what-goes-where on the table to avoid confusion.

6) Put all the “paid” items away first. Be ruthless - it’s perfectly okay to toss the receipt for those mints from two years ago.

7) Put the rest of the inactive items in the envelopes, file folders, check files or other storage devices as are interesting, functional, and readily available from your local office supply store.

Have another cup of coffee and tackle the active, or open, items. Decide what you’re going to pay and when. If you have an open stacking file, you will find one with four compartments (one for each week of the month), very handy for this purpose.

9) Balance your checkbook. Now.

10) Enjoy your chocolate after putting everything away where it belongs and, oh, by the way, check the calendar for when you’ll be doing this again next month.

Of course, next month this will all be done much faster.

I highly recommend using technology to make this much easier and faster. Programs like Quicken and Microsoft Money will help. Really any spreadsheet program will do.

Have a category for each life area you spend money. Once a week or month take your receipts, checkbook records and scribbled notes and record where you spent ALL your money….every penny. One of my students was shocked to find out he was spending $75 per month on orange juice! Legend has it that the Rockefeller boys did this and they turned out alright.

This time next year you’ll wish you started today.

Leo J. Quinn, Jr. owner of http://www.LeoQuinn.com is a financial educator from the Albany, NY area. For over eight years he has been helping thousands of people get control of their finances and get out of debt in a fraction of the normal time. He has a special offer for readers of this newsletter at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=132551

The financial aspect is essential to any kind of business. How a company receives funding and incomes determines its overall welfare. For any B2B company, one of the major concerns is the control over the payments of the non-bank debtors, i.e. the payments resulting from sales of goods and/or services. Indeed, this inflow enables the company to assess its efficiency, playing the role of the factor underlying the company’s profits. Having produced some goods or services, the company sells the ware, receiving money for the ware — which becomes income. The company crucially needs this income in order to be able to buy some raw materials and equipment needed to produce new portions of goods. Thus, it is essential that the company receives income regularly. What is regularity, in this case? It’s in fact receiving the money on a predetermined schedule. The one that has been formed with a necessity in mind to meet the company’s needs in financing its expenditures. However, we are living in a REAL world, which means that, inevitably, there are delays in debtors’ payments. This, in turn, can lead to a complete breakdown of the financial plan. The latter may cause a non-reversible failure of the company. Effective planning of these delays is the key to successful financial management.

Given the stated facts, we arrive at the importance of a system that would be able to forecast potential delays in debtors’ payments. Errors (deviations of the actual payment dates from forecasted dates) should be minimal in order for such a system to be considered effective. Now this is a tough point. Existing works show that ordinary statistical models cannot bear really effective results that would be stable in time. From our viewpoint, the best way to solve this issue is to use the so-called “fuzzy approach”, which is based on the fuzzy set theory, originally suggested by L. Zadeh.

The basics of the fuzzy sets are explained in a huge amount of articles and books — use web search engines to find out what fuzzy logic is and how it all works, if there’s such a need. Here, we only suggest a ready-to-use principle of forecasting debtors’ payments, basing on the fuzzy approach. The principle suggested in this article has been realized in the form of a computer program. The program has been tested on real data of a real company. The mean-square deviation thus calculated estimated 3, which suggests the idea that the principle presented herein is rather effective, but can be subject to further improvement.

Given a relational database (which may be in fact realized in any way, including but not limited to, MS Access, MS Excel DB-like data sets etc.) containing info on invoices, their birth dates, adjournment periods for each of the debtors, actual dates of debtors’ payments that have occurred in the past, we can view the statistics “Past payment delays”. The density function of this statistics can be viewed as a subnormal fuzzy set. This set, labeled “A”, will be the first of the three fuzzy sets to be components of the resulting fuzzy set “payment date forecast”. The density function can give us a general idea about the “payment discipline” of a specific debtor in the past. The density function, in a general case, will be containing several “waves” because it’s usually not a trend-containing characteristic as to how many days a debtor will be evading from paying the debt.

Firstly, in most cases the amount of days of a payment delay is a random variable. It can be fluctuating within a couple days’ limits. Secondly, statistical forecasts of delays may be differing significantly for different periods of time. This is because B2B relationships are not static, they are developing all the time. Sometimes, the selling company comes to “shaking hands” with the buying company for the latter to pay a couple days earlier, whereas sometimes the buying company may be facing temporary financial problems (e.g., resulting from a huge credit to be returned to a bank by the buying company), so that the buying company warns the selling company that there may be slight delays of payments. This is reflected in another component of the resulting fuzzy forecast, — fuzzy set “C”. It is in fact a linguistic variable “Payment delay most likely” fuzzy set. The linguistic variable may take one of the following values: “Neutral” (which means that there are no specific anticipations of the payments delay value for the specific debtor), “A slight delay is possible”, “A slight delay is most likely”, “A large delay is most likely”, “An on-time payment is most likely”, “Payment in advance is most likely”. Each of these term-values has its own membership function. A corresponding membership function is used each time when building a forecast for a specific debtor. The membership functions for the term-values of the linguistic variable “Payment delay most likely” are given below:

“An on-time payment is most likely”: y=SQRT(1-ABS(x)/2), x belongs to [-2;2]

“A slight delay is most likely”: y=SQRT(1-ABS(x-4)/3), x belongs to [1;7]

“A slight delay is possible”: y=(1-ABS(x-4)/3)**2, x belongs to [1;7]

“A large delay is most likely”: y=SQRT(0.25-(12-x)/24)+0.5, x belongs [6;12]

y=(0.71-(6-x)/4.23)**2, x belongs to [3;6)

y=0, x<3

y=1, x>12

“Neutral”: y=0.5

“A payment in advance is most likely”: y=1/SQRT(ABS(x)), x<0

y=0, in any other cases

In the listed formulae SQRT(x) means “square root of x”, ABS(x) means “the absolute value of x”, x**y means “y-th power of x”.

Finally, the fuzzy set B which is also used in calculating the resulting forecast, is in fact a triangular fuzzy number with the peak equal to the expectation function based on a “4 last payments” sample (the number of payments may be altered, depending on which value leads to a better efficiency of the forecast). The left and the right borders of the triangular fuzzy number “B” are respectively the minimum and the maximum values of the sample.

Now, as we have the three components of the forecast (fuzzy set A and fuzzy numbers B and C), we are able to build a resulting forecast. To do so, we transform the fuzzy sets A, B and C, so that their domains are identical, and calculate a weighted sum of these fuzzy sets (since in terms of our task these fuzzy sets are discrete, we are viewing their sum as the sum of vectors a, b and c, components for these vectors being the discrete values of the fuzzy sets A, B and C). Weighting coefficients are set for each of the fuzzy sets A, B and C; these weighting coefficients are defined as the coefficients that are providing best results; their values should be recalculated regularly (e.g., once a month).

In our tests, we used actual data of a Russian industrial company. In these tests, best results were achieved with coefficients 0.1, 0.6 and 0.3 for the fuzzy sets A, B and C, respectively.

Alexander Myasnikov is a graduate of Saratov State University School of Economics and also a 5th year student of Saratov State University School of Applied Math. Major fields of interest are: Financial Infrastructure; Financial Management; Fuzzy Sets and their Applications to Economics, Business and Finance.

Easy, Step-by-Step, New FREE Video Course on the Web

Finally! I got it and you can do it, too! A new, just released
FREE video course thought me how to create my own web page. And
do you know how much that cost me - 10 minutes. Yes, it cost me
noting, but 10 minutes of my own time to watch it on the web and
do it at the same time.

Brian, the guy on the video, explained how to do it and I did it
and had a lot of fun, really. Amazingly, I had to use a program,
downloaded for free, too. All I had to do was:

* open my browser * open composer page

* Enter the text

* Edit the text

* Save the page as index.html in a separate folder on my
computer

And my first web page was created!

After so many years of frustrations, paying for expensive
seminars and home-study courses, I did it! I still cannot
believe that! And it turns to be so simple to create your own
web page.

Nobody out there is giving you the basics of creating a website
in such a simple way. But that is not everything you can get
from that free course. There is much more:

* How to insert images

* How to create tables

* How to create links

* How to create multiple pages in a web site

And the course doesn’t stop here. There is a lot more about
website design in it, like:

* How to start html coding by your self (I was shocked - how
could that be so simple?)

* How to use tags and tables

* How to use color code tables

* How to create background images

* How to paste code within your web page

* How to upload it on the Internet

* …. And many, many more tools and tricks

You are going to enjoy that! It’s all new, just released
information about the latest and hottest tricks on the web you
need to know, if want to do the things properly. More that 12
hours of video you can watch any time you want.

This is really a must see course, I never saw on the web before.
I’m so exited, because I know that I’m on a way to create my
first virtual property on the Internet! You can do it, too!

If you have an ad or sales letter that promises to teach someone X number of “tips” about how to do whatever it is you are selling, I’d like to show you a quick and easy copywriting tactic that could as much as triple the number of responses you get.

Listen to this:

One really great way to write ads (especially lead generating ads) is to immediately involve your reader by getting them nervous about their lack of knowledge about whatever it is you are selling.

Let me give you an example.

Instead of saying:

“10 Tips To Make Your Car Run Smoothly During The Winter”

You can many times get a stronger response by turning your ad into more of a “negative” statement like this:

“The 10 Biggest Car Maintenance Mistakes People Make In The Winter”

In other words…tell them what they’re doing wrong…and then tell how your product or service will fix it for them.

Why will using a negative statement like this usually work better?

Because, in addition to getting the reader’s attention, you automatically set them up to look for someone to show them how to do everything right.

And by positioning yourself in your copy as the “go-to” guy — the person who really knows your stuff — you will be that person they look to for help and guidance.

Ben Settle is an expert copywriter and direct marketer. If you liked this article then check out Ben’s website at http://bensettle.com — and get your hands on over 500 pages of advertising ideas, strategies and tactics just like this one — as well as rare swipe file ads and hot marketing information not easily found anywhere else.

Some of the most unique and individual décor consultants can be found in smaller centers, but for a truly competitive field that will supply window treatments for your home, you’re looking at the larger cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.

Larger dealers have more contacts, often further afield both in distance, and in tastes, so that they can lay their hands on virtually any accessory, material, or extras that you need to create the right window treatment.

Of course, even large centers will have to consider not just the variations in the decorative aspect, but also in their functionality. A window treatment that works well in Los Angeles, might not be suited to the weather extremes of Chicago. Where one can use sheers year round, the other may require a good quality lined drape to not only offer privacy, but to keep out winter cold that can seep into a room from the glass.

Wherever you live, window treatments are going to be a major component of your home décor, and you want it to turn out just the way you imagined. Sometimes it means doing all the work yourself, to get every detail as you envisioned it, and occasionally it may mean ordering drapes or extras from consultants who design window treatments in places like Los Angeles or Chicago.

Whether your window treatment is a stand alone, or cooperative effort, the results will be exactly what you want, and in the end, that’s what really matters.

About the Author

Sarah Peters works at home, and spends most of her free
time on various home improvement tasks. Over a few years,
she had all her house windows replaced. In this series of
articles, she shares her experience and advice.

The object of this newsletter is to give an early look at some games we have already played or are looking at playing. We are providing information we are looking at to help make our decision and in short, give you a snapshot in time during the early part of the handicapping week.

We want to add extra value to being a full-client of Vegas Sports Authority. Obviously, providing winners is the bottom line. However, we have a number of clients who also play their own picks and like to see what we are playing or considering to provide some extra guidance for their own selections. Many of our clients are very sharp bettors who just do not have the time to follow 119 college and 32 pro football teams.

Please realize these are early in the week plays, weather information, injury info, and other news can cause us to change our minds and potentially buy back a wager. Just because we have placed these wagers does not guarantee they will be an official Premium Pick selection. While Paul and I communicate extensively regarding the coming week’s games, we do not always share the same opinion or play the same plays. There will be games we have a difference of opinion on. Some of our wagers are made in anticipation of a line move the opposite direction to give us the opportunity to “middle” the game by placing an offsetting wager later in the week hoping to win both sides.

As always, comments and questions are welcome.

Past Week Notes

College

• Those who discount the impact of a placekicker need only look to Colorado’s Mason Crosby who kicked field
goals of 52, 42 and 50 yards in the Buffs’ 23-20 road victory over Kansas State Saturday. The third of the
three field goals by Crosby, who will be a consensus first-team All-American, came as time ran out.

• Regularly-scheduled open weeks and an unplanned hurricane places the South Florida Bulls in an
unusual, mid-season spot in their game this Saturday at Rutgers.
On the eve of Saturday’s game, the Bulls will have played exactly one game in the previous 34 days. While
Rutgers has played five games since Sept. 30, South Florida has played just two.

Does it make any difference in one’s approach to handicapping the game? Maybe a little, but would not
give it too much credence. What the Bulls may have lost in timing has been offset by the healing of those
little bumps and bruises that begin to effect most teams this time of year.

* Much has written about Tennessee’s incredibly disappointing season punctuated by Monday’s
resignation of offensive coordinator Randy Sanders who succeeded former Mississippi head coach David
Cutcliffe in that role (Cutcliffe was essentially fired at Mississippi this past offseason).

But what about Purdue?
Purdue was picked to win the Big 10 by a number of respected pundits, including Phil Steele of Northcoast
Sports, but limps into Saturday’s home game against Michigan State with a 2-6 record and six straight
losses.

The Boilermakers returned all 11 starters from a defense which gave up just 17.2 points per game last
year and figured to be one of the nation’s best this season. Instead, Purdue ranks 116th out of 117 teams
in total defense (476 yards per game) and 106th in scoring defense (33.9 points per game).

* Most who follow college football closely would acknowledge USC’s offense ranks among the best in recent history, if not all time. Evidence to support this belief was the performance of QB Matt Leinart and WR Dewayne Jarrett in the Trojans’ 55-13 victory over Washington State Saturday.

Leinart was 20-of-31 for three TDs and 302 yards, while Jarrett caught seven passes for 138 yards and a
touchdown.

Of course, these numbers came in first half only.

• North Carolina State, whose head coach Chuck Amato is probably not house hunting in Raleigh these days,
had a miserable first half in its 21-17 victory over Southern Miss.

Trailing, 7-0, at the half, the Wolfpack had almost as many turnovers (four) as first downs (five) as
first-time starter Marcus Stone was 1-for-7 for 15 yards and two interceptions in the opening two
quarters.

The Wolfpack, however, rallied for the victory and kept its bowl hopes alive.

NFL

Losing a sports bet hurts. Sure, anybody who bets knows you aren’t going to win them all. But you really feel short-changed when “your team” is not even in the game as was the case with the Redskins against the Giants. It was so bad I couldn’t watch the game. Oh, yeah, the Skins were a pick of VSA.

Nobody likes to admit he made a mistake, but Jim Kruger sure made a big one in discounting the Wellington Mara, Jr. death as a factor. Tiki Barber sets a personal record with 206 yards rushing. Giants smother Washington.

Denver continues to look like an AFC force, beating the pants off of Philadelphia. It really adds to the belief that the AFC is exceptionally better than the NFC. The NFC on the road against the AFC has not shown very well at all.

Paul and I don’t always agree with what play to make. Last week he was very adamant about taking the Houston Texans over the Cleveland Browns. I liked the Browns. Paul talked me out of taking the Browns. I actually had bet Cleveland early in the week but ended up buying my bets back.

I also wasn’t very keen about Paul’s Packers pick. Was concerned the Bengals might be madder than a hornet after their loss to the Steelers. I thought it was just about time to stick the fork in Favre and Green Bay. They lost, but the important thing is they covered.

Miami really put it to New Orleans outgaining the Saints 342 to 203. They also rushed for 188 yards, their best output year to date, with Brown and Williams both looking better than they have all year. I am having a rough time reading this Dolphin team.

EARLY SELECTION OF THE WEEK

Conference USA entrants Houston and Central Florida are certainly two of the most improved teams in all of
college football this season.

Coming off a 0-11 showing last season, UCF entered 2005 with a 15-game losing streak (dating back to
2003) and that string stretched to 17 as the Golden Knights opened this season with losses at South
Carolina and South Florida.

Since the South Florida loss, however, Central Florida has won five of six games and currently sports a 5-3
record.

After a disappointing 3-8 mark last season, Houston has reverted to its Hawaii Bowl form of 2003 as the
Cougars are off to a 4-3 start behind the quarterbacking of veteran junior signal-caller Kevin
Kolb.

The Cougars are 3-1 straightup on the road this season, with wins over Tulsa, Tulane and Mississippi
State. Their lone road defeat this year was in double overtime (44-41) at UTEP.

Houston did not play last week and is 10-5 ATS off a bye since 1995.

Paul Stone recommends laying the 3 points and taking Houston in this matchup of improved squads.

Coming College Attractions & wagers already placed:

Toledo is very good at home at the Glass Bowl, quite human on the road where they haven’t covered their last 5 road games. The MAC used to be a conference with the biggest gap between top and bottom teams. The gap is getting more narrow. Ohio’s offense is improving, but unfortunately Toledo lost last week to Central Michigan which should mean a focused effort from the Rockets. Giving eleven points on the road, however…..

I played a bit on the UNDER in the Boston College- North Carolina match at 44. Should be a hard fought battle as both teams are coming off of losses to superior talents, Va Tech and Miami. UNC is fighting to keep their bowl hopes alive.

One of the participants at my weekly handicappers/sports bettors meeting has a system that has worked tremendously for him the past two years, around a 75% winning ratio. He picks Northwestern as a home dog over Iowa. Iowa has only averaged 14 ppg on the road this year.

Kruger played the UNDER 54 in the match between Western and Eastern Michigan. EMU has gone UNDER in all 8 games this year and have had a bye week to prepare for the WMU passing attack. I won with EMU a couple of weeks ago and very well could be on them again.

Before you big dog players jump on Duke +31 against Clemson, remember that Duke is 0-8 ATS this year and that Clemson has revenge for losing straight-up last year to a team that was only 2-9.

Also interesting to note is Arkansas being a four-point favorite to a South Carolina team that just beat Tennessee at home and has won three straight. Also, the Gamecocks are looking to become bowl-eligible with their next victory. Is the linesmaker telling us something? For my bucks, it is Arkansas or nothing.

I jumped on Penn State when the line first came out at minus ten. Joe Pa’s crew is looking like the class of the Big Ten and this could be the week to expose the Wisconsin Badgers as the team they really are.

NFL this week:

Interesting point was raised a couple of weeks ago at the handicappers meeting I go to every Tuesday in that historically speaking it is a winning proposition to play on teams at the halfway point that are 2-6 SU or worse and to play against the teams that are 6-2 or better straight up. Don’t recall the winning percentage but it was higher than 54%.

Detroit at Minnesota - You don’t get the Vikings as a home dog very often. Especially to the Detroit Lions! Minnesota gets another reason to rally, group together, and give a strong showing. This time it is losing your long-time QB Culpepper to injuries. In fact, the Vikes have only been a home dog 8 times over the last five years. They’ve posted a nice 6-2 ATS record when in such a situation. A good situation to bet on is a team that did terribly on the road the previous week and now return home. Detroit is 29th in total offense. The last two games behind QB Garcia they have only scored 13 points each game. Minny has done better at home, we have played the Vikings lightly at this point. Brad Johnson is a serviceable QB, can’t be much of a step below the Lions’ Garcia.

San Diego at NY Jets - Betting the NFL, sometimes you have to make wagers that almost hurt. Witness San Francisco last week and to a lesser extent, Houston. Well, this week the painful bet is going to be on the New York Jets +6 at home over the San Diego Chargers. The Jets are off of a bye. They went into the bye losing twice in a row. Chargers have to be pretty happy with themselves beating their arch-rival Kansas City Chiefs. AND, after this “easy win” over the hapless Jets, the Chargers get to take a week off and go and do whatever they want! Whose mind is going to be on this game? We think the J-E-T-S!

Last week we wrote about a “Mystery Game” that we did not reveal the teams. We have had a lot of people ask us who the team was we were waiting on the line to move more before we released it. Well, it didn’t move any more than where it was already, but it turned out to be a winner, not just against the spread but outright, also. The play, as I announced on the Stardust Line Saturday night on KDWN radio in Vegas was on San Francisco.

NBA

I love the NBA. Actually, any basketball is fine with me, it is by far my favorite sport. I like betting the NBA as it is an everyday occurrence. There are many factors you need to use in handicapping NBA games. No team is able to give 100% every single game for a seven-month long season. Matchups, travel schedules, injuries, style of play, etc. are just a few variables that have to be looked at closely.

We come out firing in the NBA. The lines are the softest at the beginning of any season, regardless of the sport. The best opportunity to win at sports betting comes through excellent preparation before the season starts. Watching the first few weeks to “see how teams are doing” is actually saying “I haven’t done the proper research”.

Good Luck this weekend!

Jim Kruger

Jim Kruger is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Jim_Kruger.htm