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It’s official. After weeks of hints and speculation, Tony Stewart will leave Joe Gibbs Racing following the 2008 Sprint Cup Series season. He had another year left on his contract with JGR, but like Casey Mears, NASCAR pacts are made to be broken.

The new Toyotas at JGR were rumored to be the main problem, but Stewart, 37, wanted control of his future above all else. He got it when he reached an agreement with Haas CNC Racing to buy a 50-percent stake in the tenderfoot race team. The team name next year will be Stewart Haas Racing. Equipment and technical support will still come from Hendrick Motorsports, and sponsors and other details are forthcoming.

Stewart will finish the current Sprint Cup season behind the wheel of the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. He will drive in one more Nationwide event for JGR, piloting the No. 20 Old Spice Toyota on August 16 at Michigan. His successor in the 20 car(s) will likely be teenage prodigy Joey Logano, who now drives the No. 20 GameStop Camry for JGR in the Nationwide Series. Logano became the youngest winner in series history when he took the checkered flag in June at Kentucky.

Stewart already owns some sprint car teams as well as three racetracks. Gene Haas, the Cup team’s current owner, began serving a two-year jail sentence in January for tax evasion. His wife, Margaret, serves as interim owner. Current Sprint Cup drivers for Haas CNC are Scott Riggs in the No. 66 Chevrolet, with Jason Leffler and Johnny Sauter sharing the No. 70 car. Team general manager Joe Custer owns a piece of the No. 66.

Stewart Haas is expected to be a two-car operation in ‘09, with “Smoke” driving one car full time and an unnamed driver in the other. Rumors have fellow Hoosier Ryan Newman, the ‘08 Daytona 500 winner for Penske Racing, coming on board when his contract expires after this season.

As a two-time Cup series champion who is widely considered one of the top two or three drivers in NASCAR, Smoke had 32 career wins-never the Daytona 500-at the Cup level before Chicagoland, and was mired in a 32-race winless streak. Teammates Kyle Busch, 23, and Denny Hamlin, 27, have been well ahead of him in the ‘08 point standings.

Stewart won the 1997 IndyCar Series championship while running five Busch Series races that same year for JGR. He drove in 22 Busch events in ‘98 before entering the Winston Cup Series full time in ‘99. After a rookie record three wins in ‘99, he has won at least three times in every season but two-winning twice each in 2003 and ‘04. His championship seasons came in ‘02 and ‘05.

One of the more intense competitors in racing history, Tempestuous Tony has had his share of scrapes and scuffles and is always quick with a good quote or candid comment. His oft-cited statement that Dale Earnhardt Inc. would become a museum upon Dale Jr.’s departure is still widely circulated.

The reasons for Stewart’s parting are amicable, if not mutual. He wanted to be an owner-either full- or partial- -which wasn’t an option at JGR. He therefore sought, and obtained, a release after pitches toward an extension by the Gibbs family went unheeded.

The rest, we can say, is future.

More articles about NASCAR news and auto racing can be found at http://www.speedweekly.net

The best way to watch NASCAR can be found at http://www.watchautoracing.com

E-newsletters are a great way to form and maintain relationships with your customers and prospects. You get to show your expertise in a way that fosters confidence in your company. Great newsletter content will encourage your readers to take action – call you for more info, book an appointment or visit your Web site – whatever action you tell them to do.

E-newsletters are gaining in popularity because they reduce newsletter printing budgets. You should still print some newsletters for customers that walk into your store, though, so you do not alienate those that do not want to give out their email addresses. You also will not waste paper, which is important these days when everyone is into being “green” – doing good for the environment.

To make a successful newsletter that people want to read, you must include relevant and interesting information in each one. If you do not know what to include other than information about your business (which will eventually be a real snooze-fest), read on:
Feature a FAQ or Q&A section. Ask readers to submit questions, which you will answer in the next e-newsletter. Select questions that are pertinent to all of your readers.

Expand on the Q&A idea by writing articles on topics that are frequently asked about. You are an expert in your industry, and a newsletter is the perfect chance to share your wisdom with your readers. If you are always asked certain questions that are too long for a Q&A format, consider writing an entire article based on the answer. Do not include the question, just write about the answer. The answer could be a solution to picking the healthiest dog food or how to prevent food stains in clothes. Offer a bit of free advice in each e-newsletter so people will build their trust in you and will see you as an expert.

People like to buy from experts!

Share other customers’ success stories. You can either focus on stories that show how your business helped out a customer, or you can just profile one of your customers. Either option will help your company become more relatable and personable – you show you care about your customers by either how you helped, or just by acknowledging them with their own feature story.

Interview other experts. Highlight other pros who offer services or products complementary to yours. Make sure this content is related to your business and is relevant to readers. For example, a pet day care facility could interview a vet who gives tips on hot-weather health for pets.

Inject some fun facts. Include some trivia or interesting facts that are relevant to your industry or the regional area your business serves. You could even turn this into a monthly contest – ask a fun fact question and invite readers to email you with their answers. The prize could be a free product.

Talk about current events. Cover an event or news item that the media is covering and try to tie that into your business. High gas prices, election news and upcoming holidays are all topics that are ripe for discussion.

Include an online survey link in your next e-newsletter asking readers what kind of info they would like to see. Give respondents options of topics, and give them the chance to write-in topics. If they favor one of your given topics over others, include more stories about that topic. You will probably get story ideas you never would have thought of!

To know whether your newsletter is successful, keep track of your newsletter statistics. How many people opened your email and what did they click on? An interesting and relevant newsletter can be one of your most successful marketing tools.

Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

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Summer festivals are the Canadian way of celebrating the season and truly enjoying the best of the glorious sunshine and all round good cheer. Across Canada, summer festivals add an air of festivity with a wide range of entertainments and exciting events.

The Fringe Festival represents the spirit of summer festivals in Canada. This is where anyone can perform and get away with appreciation. These perform or perish events grant the performers one whole minute to win the audience or retreat. Events include dance, music, comedy shows, drama, musicals, theatre and more. Audience can use the festival guide to help decide what to watch from the literally hundreds on show. Fringe Festivals can be found in cities including Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Victoria, Ottawa, London and many more.

Canada’s summer festivals celebrate music like none other. The Cisco Systems Bluesfest in Ottawa, Ontario is a perfect example. Anything from Cuban music to jam bands can be expected at this extremely exhilarating music fest. To add to the melee there are the side shows and the overall festival atmosphere.

Here’s one for the funny bone. Canada’s summer festival celebration sets great store by comedy shows. The Funnyfest Comedy Festival in Calgary, Alberta is where the good humor spreads good vibes all around. Hilarious comedy shows, stand up comics that make you double over, and plenty of laughing matter is on for about 16 nights incorporating over a hundred performers. It’s a punch line a minute attack that will have you ROFL.

Montreal of course has the Just for Laughs Festival and the Giggleshots-International Comedy Short Film Festival in Toronto is the largest of its kind in the world and everything you’ve heard about it is true. This major event is now all set to be staged in the UK.

The Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa began in 1987 and is growing stronger by the year. It is now the primary showcase for professional dancers to strut their stuff. Get ready to witness an awesome range of performances that will have you entranced. The Toronto International Tango Festival is another venue where dancers from all over the world come to stage their passion for tango.

Folk Festivals are held as part of summer festivals in Canada in Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Edmonton among other places. All sorts of music from all over the world including Celtic, aboriginal, country, swing, and anything else you can think of are performed with gusto, and uninterrupted for four days.

No celebration can be complete without wine and beer. Canada’s summer festivals celebrate this in style at the Great Canadian Beer Festival in Victoria, BC. Contrary to conclusions one may jump to, this is not a drink all you can fest but rather an upmarket venture where the quality of the beer has to be irreproachable as does the integrity of the brewer. It’s more a celebration of the craft of beer brewing and its artistic aspect. The Niagara Wine Festival is a magnet that draws visitors in their thousands to the area. It runs in a series including the Ice-wine Festival, the New Vintage Festival, and finally the Niagara Wine Festival.

Be sure to visit http://www.FlyFromCanada.com for more great tips on Canada Travel. Flying from Canada? Check out which Canada airline will take you there!

The movie Bachna Ae Haseeno is produced by big banner Yashraj Films and is directed by Siddarth Anand hence there are great expectations, but just to keep you informed there has been an attempt to make the film different, but does seem to have resemblance to the 1965 movie named Teen Devian (Starring Dev Anand, Nanda, Kalpana & Simi Garewal).

The movie is all about a Casanova character with three women through different stages of in his life. He ditches two of them only to be dumped by the third. In the process he happens to learn the facets of love and of life. The first affair is in the early teens where Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) meets Mahi (Minnissha Lamba) in Switzerland wherein the duo misses the train and left into each others company. The second affair is in the twenties where Raj who is working in Mumbai, has a live-in relationship with a sexy babe Radhika ( Bipasha Basu) and does not want to be committed. He ditches her and moves to Australia. The third affair is in the thirties with Gayatri ( Deepika Padukone) a cab driver, who is not at all interested in Raj.

It’s Gayatri’s ‘NO’, which makes Raj ponder over his past and he is overcome by guilt. He decides to go back to his ex-girlfriends with an intention of seeking forgiveness from them. Only to find Mahi married to Joginder ( Kunal Kapoor) and having two kids. Mahi isn’t happy with the marriage, Raj does his part and manages to reunite the couple in love. Radhika is now a star called Shreya, on seeing Raj she gets more infuriated. She is hell bent on teaching Raj a lesson and no amount of cajoling or apologizing seems to work. Does Raj get forgiveness or not? How do Mahi & Radhika react?

Bachna Ae Haseeno somehow seems to lack the romance formulation of Yashraj Films and the screen play doesn’t seem great with a lot of disconnect in the on-screen events. The director Siddarth Anand offers great visuals and has managed to pull some fine performances. Vishal-Shekhars music is okay with interludes from R D Burmans compositions. With stunning locales of Australia and Switzerland the cinematography by Sunil Patel is worth a mention. Dialogues have been great.

Ranbir Kapoor has surely stolen all the limelight with his performance and is likely to set many hearts on flutter this time without dropping a towel. Among the ladies, its Bipasha Basu who clearly stands out and there is no trace of the much spoken age difference factor their on-screen chemistry is sizzling, she is just getting into right roles now. Minnissha Lamba has scored a point in the emotional scenes. Deepika Padukone has got a raw deal as her role is not that convincing, but she surely looks stunning. Kunal Kapoor has carried out his part efficiently.

You could also possibly feel sprinkled traces of DDLJ, Salaam Namaste in the film. On the whole Bachna Ae Haseeno has a catchy interesting first half, weak and clumsy second half. A much stronger second half would have given the movie a much better chance at box-office, especially to justify the hype which was created in the promos.

MovieJini writes on the latest movies and films, Hindi movie reviews, film news, celebrity news related to Bollywood.

The Massai warriors are one of the most prominent and respected ethnic groups in Kenya. The warriors are so greatly feared, it is told that lions and cheetahs will run away or stop their pursuits of game animals if a Massai warrior is anywhere close by. As soon as a Massai warrior is initiated their spear and shield are decorated with red paint, which is symbolic of their status in society.

The central unit of the Massai society is the age-set. Although young boys are sent out with the calves and lambs as soon as they can toddle, childhood for boys is mostly playtime. Girls are responsible for chores such as cooking and milking. Every 15 years or so, a new and individually named generation of warriors will be initiated. This involves most boys between 12 and 25 who have reached puberty and are not part of the previous age-set. One rite of passage from boyhood to the status of junior warrior is a painful circumcision ceremony, which is performed without anesthetic. The Maa word for circumcision is emorata. The boy must endure the operation in silence. Expressions of pain bring dishonor, albeit temporarily. The healing process will take 3-4 months, and boys must remain in black cloths for a period of 4-8 months.

During this period, the newly circumcised young men will live in a “manyatta”, a “village” built by their mothers. The manyatta has no encircling barricade for protection, emphasizing the warrior role of protecting the community. Further rites of passage are required before achieving the status of senior warrior, culminating in the eunoto ceremony, the “coming of age”.

When a new generation of warriors is initiated, the existing warriors will graduate to become junior elders, who are responsible for political decisions until they in turn become senior elders.

The warriors are in charge of society’s security, and spend most of their time now on walkabouts throughout Maasai lands, beyond the confines of their sectional boundaries. They are also much more involved in cattle trading than they used to be, developing and improving basic stock through trades and bartering rather than stealing as in the past. Boys are responsible for herding small livestock. During the drought season, both warriors and boys assume responsibility for herding livestock. Elders are directors and advisors for day-to-day activities. Women are responsible for making the houses as well as supplying water, collecting firewood, milking cattle and cooking for the family. One myth about the Massai is that each young man is supposed to kill a lion before they are circumcised. Although lion hunting was an activity of the past, and lion hunting has been banned in East Africa, lions are still hunted when they maul Massai livestock, and young warriors who engage in traditional lion killing do not face significant consequences. Increasing concern regarding lion populations has given rise to at least one program which promotes accepting compensation when a lion kills livestock, rather than hunting and killing the predator. Nevertheless, killing a lion gives one great value and celebrity status in the community.

To see beautiful and affordable African Home Decor crafted by these talented Massai people, click on the following link: http://www.acaciawoodcarvings.com

Texas Lightning Soccer is an all youth club which was organize for the development of youth soccer programs. The Lightning Soccer Youth Club is based in Arlington, Texas and consists of young soccer players coming from different areas of Dallas.

The club aims to train and develop the youth to be able to compete in various levels of competitions such as in regional division, state division and national collegiate soccer tournaments. The club also wants to help build the personality of each of its members in terms of discipline, self motivation, social responsibility and sportsmanship. They will serve as a guide in making the youth players a productive citizen of the community through sports. In its commitment for the development of the youth, a scholarship program is provided to those deserving members and given the opportunity to study at their chosen school like Duke University, Texas A & M University, West Point Academy, University of Southern California, Radford University, University of South Carolina, Louisiana State University, The Naval Academy and Brown University. Almost 300 players have benefited from the scholarship program.

As a commitment to serving for the welfare of the young soccer players of the community, the club will continue to create more developmental programs such as leadership training, skills training and team building. It will not focus only in sports development and educational programs but will also provide values formation to its members. It will continue its objectives to showcase the talent of the youth in the field of soccer.

Learn more about Texas Lightning Soccer.

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