Strike or Strong Blog72270

If you are fanatical about soccer, as you read through this article you're going to learn that it's easier than you think to travel to Rome, and see a classic soccer match, with the fans of Roma or Lazio at your side. Wouldn't it be amazing to tell your friends that you were there, in the Stadio Olimpico, when the winning goal was scored!

Whether you are coming to Rome on vacation or business, you simply have to experience the thrill of a football match! Rome soccer tour packages give you tickets to AS Roma or SS Lazio home games, hotel accommodation and breakfast daily. But don't delay, tickets sell out quickly because both teams attract fanatical support.

The Stadio Olimpico is home to both Roma and Lazio and was built for the 1960 Olympic games. An impressive 82,000 plus venue it has housed European Cup Finals and the 1990 World Cup Final. It is also the first choice home of the Italian national team, and a great venue for these Rome soccer tours.

And you can be reassured... it's easy to get there. Romes principal airport, Fiumicino, lies 30kms south of the city and connects to Romes major train station, Termini by regular hourly trains. The second airport, Ciampino, lies 15km south east of the city and is connected to the centre by bus to Anagnina metro station, where a direct train and then a tram will quickly get you to the stadium.

You can even save time and money and book your airport transfer services before you go! You can use a shuttle service that will take you from Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport to your Rome Hotel, without the hassle of picking up a rental car, negotiating unfamiliar traffic and maps.

The history of both Roman Football Clubs is equally littered with glory and frustration.

AS Roma were born in 1927 from the fusion of three different clubs - Alba, Fortitudo and Roman. A fine record in the 1930s eventually led to the first Giallorossi Scudetto in 1942.

Difficult years followed until their one and only relegation in 1951. With an immediate return to the top flight, Roma quickly captured a third place and the 1961 UEFA Cup. The Coppa Italia came in 1964, the first of seven in this competition.

Romas most glorious years were the 1980s as aside from the two Italian Cups, the clubs second Scudetto was lifted by Coach Nils Liedholm in 1983. The following year only a penalty shoot-out against Liverpool at the Stadio Olimpico kept them from winning the European Cup.

Fabio Capellos Roma led the 2000-01 Serie A table from start to finish for their third Scudetto and the clubs first medal in a decade.

Rivals Lazio were founded in 1900 as Societa Spotiva Lazio, a multi-purpose sports club. The Biancocelesti began football full-time in 1906. Winning one wartime Roman title in 1944, the club lifted their first national trophy - a Coppa Italia - in 1958 but were relegated three seasons later.

Several trips up and down the Divisions preceded Lazios first Scudetto in 1973-74 when they were led by the legendary Giorgio Chinaglia. But within five years came the clubs darkest hour as Lazio was relegated for financial irregularities and only a play-off prevented the club from slipping into Serie C in 1987.

Sergio Cragnotti took over the club in 1992 and with his financial backing Lazio have become a force both in Italy and Europe. Since 1997 the Biancocelesti have won their second Scudetto, a Cup-Winners Cup, an Italian and European Super Cup and two Italian Cups. However, only massive sales and a restructuring of contracts allowed the club to avoid bankruptcy.

Both clubs continue to ride close to the top of Italy's Serie A, and the rivalry is intense, especially during the annual "derby" matches where the teams and tifosi face each other. So, if your passion is football, then don't miss the opportunity to see your favorite Roman team play a home game this season, and be there with The Ultras!

Why book ahead?.. Well, here are my thoughts:

* The most popular matches can sell out well in advance. Don't risk being disappointed!

* Reduce stress! Don't waste time haggling with the hotel concierge for matchday tickets.

* Lock in your price! Currency dips & price hikes won't effect you.

* Save vacation time! Plan & book now, not when you're there.

* Balance your vacation budget! Charge tours on this month's credit card bill.

Believe me (and I've been in Rome during a major soccer tournament!) there's nothing like the atmosphere of a match day, and the city buzzes with excitment. So, try one of these great value Rome soccer tours. Take the easy way - and book this efficient service online now and save time in Rome. You could have your match tickets secured in the next fifteen minutes!

I hope you'll agree that these special Rome soccer tours offer real value, and I know that you'll return home with some special memories of your stay in the Eternal City.

As an extra resource for readers, I have posted this article onto my website, and provided quick links to these great tours. Lets-Travel-Rome.com/RomeSoccerTours

Best wishes for a great trip, and let me know the score!

Les Sheppard

The Plain old Weird
I don't normally use the word weird because its meaning is too encompassing. It is one of those words that can be applied to all things, all people and all situations depending on the angle of observation. This is precisely the reason I am using it now because EVERYTHING to do with getting rich, i.e. the road to it, the inheritance of it, the use of it, the spreading of it, the earning of it and the giving of it depends on something that is weird.

What do I Mean?
Here are some synonyms for weird: strange, odd, bizarre, peculiar, uncanny, eerie, creepy, unusual. But dont misunderstand, wealth itself is none of these things, it is the journey (short or long) that takes one to it that I am describing as weird and moreover I am saying that all such journeys are weird. So let us all try to understand this weird journey. To add a little humour to our discussion, Im going to paraphrase what Rockefeller said when he was asked what the secret to wealth was. He replied: "To bed early, rise early and strike oil."

The real meaning behind this statement, to me at any rate, is that the question is absurd. There is no secret. It is not mechanical. There is no set of instructions that guarantees wealth if you follow it. This is why the road to wealth is ALWAYS, without exception, weird.

Consider the following formula that I've devised to explain this:

M = ETW O

You many read this as follows: Money equals Effort times Time times Weird minus Outgoings. The left hand side of the formula is purely materialistic whereas the right hand side is humanistic. A person puts in effort and time. We can scale the effort as a number between 1 and 10 inclusive. So anyone with an effort factor of 1 is very lazy whereas an effort of 10 means he or she works very hard. As for time, we'll make this a number between 1 and 24 to represent the average time spent on this activity in any one day.

We can apply this to anyone who is doing something to make money. Lets straight away apply the formula to someone who has an ordinary job which pays an average salary. Let E = 5 and T = 8. So for one day we have:

M = 5x8xW - O = 40xW O

But what possible number shall we give the weird factor. This really is the unknown because it is not limited to the amount of possible effort or the number of hours in a day. So what is it? Well, for this type of activity, i.e. an average job, the weird factor largely depends on the market value for that particular job. But without going into all of the different types of job and how well each pays, we can scale the weird factor to a number between 1 to 100 where 1 represents the lowest paid and 100 represents those in the highest wage bracket. But we really want a scale that can represent all people in all activities, not just the plain old employee. As it turns out, there are really only two divisions to consider. Those that work for others and those that work for themselves. So we need only consider two scales. Those with jobs as weve already stated are in the 1 to 100 scale but those who work for themselves, the scale is, and youll get a shock, -1000 to 10000. Yes, the scale must start from a negative number because working for yourself is risky which means you may in fact lose money but how much you lose is controlled largely by other parties such as creditors. At the same time the rewards are potentially phenomenal. All we have to do now is subtract the outgoings and we have found how much money we have made in one day. So getting back to our ordinary employee to whom we may attribute a weird factor of 6 gives us:

M = 5x8x6 O = 240 O

The outgoings aren't that important because this is probably the easiest factor to control since we can choose to spend or save. So for someone who does not save, the daily outgoing number is close to the earning or more if there is some borrowing involved.

In case you are still wondering where lies the secret if there actually is one, I can now reveal it. The only thing in the formula that is the LEAST in our control is the weird factor. It also explains why it is possible to have two neighbours living in the same area, earning more or less the same in their jobs, with a comparable set of financial responsibilities and yet there is a very great difference in the amount of money that each has. This brings us to a fundamental question:

Are we BORN with a high weird factor or can we influence it to go up or down by our behaviour, thoughts and actions? It is clearly an individualistic factor.

If it is fixed at birth, it has no prospect of ever changing. In other words, there is no possible chance on this planet that you can become rich if your weird factor is low. However much effort and time you put in, what ever degree of frugality you adopt, it simply will not happen.

On the other hand, if the weird factor is something that is in our control, however unyielding it happens to be, there exists the probability that we can do, think or behave in ways that can help us in our lives. I think that it is possible to devise similar formulae for non-monetary aspects of living such as love, leadership, influence, power, fame, intelligence, talent, etcetera. But let's not go off on a tangent and stay with money.

So Which Is It? Predestined Or Changeable
To answer this question we need only examine the evidence, and there is rather a lot of it if you know where to look. Youll find the answers in a place called history. But not world history. I'm talking about the history of every one of us from birth to the present moment. Let's conduct a little thought experiment using a fictitious individual's life as example. I want to present to you 5 randomly chosen scenarios out of the infinite that is possible with every one that is born on this planet. Don't forget, the individual is the same, it's only the circumstances that are different.

1. Born in 1970, went to school then to college and took business studies which culminated in a thriving business in real estate.

2. Born in 1970, went to school, dropped out, took interest in antiques, specialised and became an expert in fine art and now runs a chain of outlets.

3. Born in 1970, had an accident at 10, lost the ability to speak and longed to discover a way to help all such people and invented the speaking machine. Needless to say, wealth was only around the corner.

4. Born in 1970, lost both parents at an early age and suffered much in the hands of foster parents. This led to an internet business that drove all such people to the website which grew to something like one million hits per month. Advertising revenue came flooding in.

5. Born in 1970, left school without qualifications and took a job delivering parcels for a small local company. Within 5 years gained invaluable knowledge of the area and the business. Within another 5 years a single rival business was set up that could do the job more efficiently and more cheaply. Soon, there were branches in every major city in the country.

It certainly looks as though whatever the circumstances happen to be, this person is destined to make it one way or the other. Do we conclude then that who ever it was, the weird factor was extremely high. No. Definitely not. In every case there was something that this person wanted to do but it was never to make money. It was to help people in some corner of life or some avenue of interest. Money MUST BE, without exception a bi-product NOT the driving force. It must be SECONDARY to the activity itself. I believe that there is a hidden law which says that if you do something purely for money you will never get much of it. If you do something for other people to help them or to teach them or to make their lives a little easier in some respect, this law GUARANTEES unexpected returns and guess what - those returns might not even be financial but immense satisfaction which leads to happiness and contentment directly, instead of through wealth. And yes, happiness CAN be attained through wealth.

I firmly believe that the weird factor goes up as soon as we do something because we genuinely want to help people in some way, however insignificant it happens to be. But the greater this help is, the more number of people it affects, the higher will this factor go and there really isn't an upper limit.

During a site consultation for a department of the United Nations in Malaysia, one of its employees asked me a question that seems to be asked often: can you give me some quick guidelines for my home without having to go too much into it? And of course, still using classical Feng Shui. House consultations are usually very detailed affairs with many layers of disciplines used and time consuming as each home is unique BUT there still is general advice that can be used without accidentally creating negative effects.

It helps to know which directions should be enhanced and those that are not to be stimulated. If you are not sure of your Kua number, you can use our Kua Number Calculator to find out your Auspicious and Inauspicious directions. Inauspicious directions need remedies and more protection while Auspicious directions should be primarily enhanced. Remember, different people have different Kua numbers and directions, meaning a good direction for you to stimulate may be a bad direction for a loved one. In cases where there are multiple occupants whose good/bad directions overlap: use items that are primarily protective items with a secondary role of enhancing. That way, if an item for some reason is placed in the wrong direction, you're still protected.

The Entrance
Asides from the entrances being entry points for your home, it is also very important in Feng Shui as that's where a very large amount of chi comes in and sets the overall tone of your home. Wouldn't you rather allow good flowing chi into your home instead of negative chi entering and pulling everything down? Here, you would want to set up a filter point choosing for auspicious chi coming in or good chi. A protective item would make sure only good chi (sheng chi) comes in, whereas a wealth enhancer would transform the chi coming in to be auspicious chi. Recommendations: All Protectors (Protective), Authentic Wealth Bowl (Auspicious), Kuan Kung on Horse of Progress (Both).

The Backdoor
The backdoor or exit of your house is frequently overlooked because there is usually more importance stressed on the entrance. The importance of this part of the house increases when depending on how often you use it. For some, it is an entrance to their garden or a more convenient form of exit. If you do not use the backdoor often, focusing on protection takes priority. If it is used very often, then you can also treat it similar to an additional entrance. Recommendations: Kuan Kung God of War (Protective), Lucky Wealth Bars (Auspicious), Inscribed Dragon Tortoise (Both).

The Living/Dining Room
This is usually the place where members of the house would spend a large amount of time together. Be it entertaining guests, watching a favorite show together or just winding down after a tough day at work. This is also a place to maximise the usage of Feng Shui for you to reap the benefits it can bring. Recommendations: Fu Lu Shou Set (Protective), Prosperity Buddha (Auspicious), Lord Chung Kwei Guardian of Harmony (Both).

The Bedroom
This is a place where we rest and recuperate and thus open ourselves to negative or positive influences in our immediate surroundings. Most of the times, health related items are recommended in this section and refrain from putting enhancers that are constantly moving like windchimes. This is one of the best places to promote harmony and soak up auspicious chi. Recommendations: 8 Immortals Wu Lou (Protective), Health Wealth Pendant (Auspicious), Kuan Yin on Arowana(Both).

Well, hopefully this list has provided you with some basic knowledge of how you can use classical Feng Shui in your home properly. I'd also like to take the time to wish you and your an prosperous Lunar New Year!

For more information on remedies, don't forget to visit our website at: www.smilingbamboo.com! :)