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Fitness Center Holiday Hours

Dec. 24^th – Closed
Dec. 25^{th –} Closed
Dec. 26^th – Closed
Dec. 28^th 5:30-7:00 a.m. & 4:30-8:00 p.m.
Dec. 29^th 5:30-7:00 a.m. & 4:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Dec. 30^th 5:30 – 7:00 a.m. & 4:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Dec. 31st through Jan. 3rd – Closed

Normal hours resume January 4, 2010.

DECA would like to thank all groups who participated in the annual holiday door decorating contest. The 16 doors that decorated our halls were presented by:

Mrs. Gauss’s Link Crew Study Hall
Mrs. Fragale’s Shakespeare Class
Mr. Wenglowsky’s/Ms. Mai’s American Lit Class
Ms. Neau and her students
Mrs. Nolan and her students
The Main Office Staff
Dakota Cates and friends – Mr. Adamczyk’s Office Door
Mrs. Reichwein and Honors Study Halls students
Mrs. Anderson’s Link Crew Study Hall
Key Club & Mrs. Tilsner
Ms. Banwart’s Leadership Class
Mrs. Smits’ Art 2 Class
German Club & Ms. Bauer
DECA & Mrs. Grochowski
Mr. Wetzel’s Link Crew Study Hall
Mr. Sepnafski’s Link Crew Study Hall

And the winner of the 2009 Door Decorating Contest is……………………..

Mr. Wenglowsky/Ms. Mai’s American Lit Class!

Congratulations!

There’s less than a week left of Christmas shopping. A common item on a family’s buy list is a brand new high definition TV. There can be lots of confusion when trying to get the best bang for your buck. Here’s a few tips:

• Don’t worry about 120/240Hz. A lot of people like the smoothness of 120/240Hz, which is an increase in the refresh rate compared to normal NTSC (America/Japan) standard of 60Hz. Other people argue that 120/240Hz can look a little unrealistic while things are moving around on screen. 120/240Hz is a neat feature in a TV, but it is not needed and can cost you up to $400 extra.
• Larger contrast ratio is a HUGE plus. With a higher contrast ratio, your blacks are going to be blacker and your white are going to be whiter. Colors will also be more vibrant, and there will be a visible difference in detail. Anything lower that 30,000:1 is considered to be low, any thing above that up to 50,000:1 is considered to be about average and anything above that I believe to be ideal.
• Make sure you’re paying the best price. That 46″ hanging up in Best Buy probably looks pretty and seems as if it is a great deal, but shopping online or comparing to other retailers can save you HUNDREDS of dollars.
• Do not worry how the TV looks in store. Most of the settings such as brightness, contrast (not to be confused with contrast ratio), and color can be adjusted via calibration. There are multiple reference sites out there that allow you to finely tune your television viewing experience.
• Go for 1080p. Most TV’s over 32″ have an option of 1080p, that is, a higher resolution TV. As more and more devices become available, they will probably have a 1080p output.
• Have a good idea of where you want to place it. Hanging above a fireplace or some other higher-than-usual place may seem like a good idea, but it can cause neck and eye strain, and may also limit the visual quality of your TV.
• If you can, get a BluRay player too. DVD’s are on the way of being flushed out. BluRay allows video playback at 1080p and can also store more content. Many BluRay players available on the market today also support Netflix Live Streaming, Pandora, and media sharing between your computer and TV.

I hope this post has helped you. I personally like to research on this sort of subject as it involves some big amounts of money, so make sure you really read up on a TV before you make your decision.

As many of you have heard, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard have been out for a while now. From what I have heard, the initial launches of both products are pretty much over, I feel that a review should be written on their effect thus far. One important thing I would like to mention, I am both a Mac and PC user. Any quirks I may find in an operating system are strictly personal preference and should be treated as such.

First let’s talk about Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest addition to the Windows family. Compared to Windows Vista, 7 was designed to be faster, cleaner, and more functional. It certainly shows. From the moment you boot up a computer with Windows 7 installed, you get a sense of “this is just… right”. Boot-ups are faster than ever, programs open flawlessly, and little features allow you to be more productive. One of these features I have really grown fond of is the ability to put two windows side-by-side as shown below:

Windows 7: Windows Side-By-Side

The only feature about Windows 7 I struggle with is the new taskbar. I might just be used to the feel of Vista and XP with text labels next to the application icons.

Apple also released OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which promised the same as Windows 7. A large part of OS X was rebuilt for this newest version so that it could incorporate modern technologies such as multiprocessing and 64 bit. Nothing visually is too different between Snow Leopard and it’s older counterpart Leopard, except for minor tweaks such as Quicktime and stacks found on the dock. I personally found boot up times to be the thing I hated the most about Leopard, but that was improved greatly upon by Snow Leopard (my last boot was about 37 seconds from a full shut down).

My Snow Leopard Desktop

Snow Leopard isn’t as full featured as I wanted it to be, but the speed alone was definitely worth the upgrade. I also wished it had the side-by-side feature built in, although you can download an application that does practically the same thing.

All in all, both operating systems are a great improvement compared to their predecessors. I highly recommend upgrading as with either software you will see a significant boost in speed, allowing you to fully harness the power of your PC or Mac.

The trailer for the second Iron Man movie was released earlier this week! It doesn’t have any fancy title but it’s sure to be as awesome or even more awesome than the first one. Robert Downey Jr stars as Tony Starks once again.  This time, there

Iron Man and all his glory....

isn’t just one hero, there’s two. War Machine(Don Cheadle) joins in the fight for good. The enemy in the film is none other than Whip Lash(Mickey Rourke)! Black Widow( Scarlett Johansson) also makes an appearance. The movie is to be release on May 7th, 2010. It seems so far away for Iron Man fans. It gives people the chance to see the first movie if they haven’t already. Hey, watch it again even if you’ve seen it already!

Check out the trailer here.

Thursday December 17th was another night of thursday night football Featuring the Undefeated Colts against the Jacksonville Jaguars who are trying to stay in the wild card position. the only scoring in the first Quarter was a 50 yard Field Goal by Jaguars Kicker Josh Scobee.  But in the Second Quarter the Scoring began teams where exchanging scores left and right with the score at half time 21 to 17 colts lead. then in the third the Jaguars come back and take the lead over again. With a 31 to 28 lead. But that was it for the scoring in the forth there was only one touchdown pass from Manning to Reggie Wayne a 68 yard pass to take a 35 to 31 lead. the colts defense stepped up and stopped the jaguars offense with the last drive and finished the game off. Peyton Manning was near Perfect on the night. The colts improve to 14-0 as the Jaguars drop to 7-7 on the season.

Wilmot played Delevan-Darien yesterday for there 2nd conference game and this game was a close one.

With just 5 seconds left in overtime  Justin Fowlkes hit a 17 footer to put the Comets up by 2. After that  Chris Nelson had enough time to shot a NBA three pointer but just missed it. The Comets won 49-47. Chris Nelson had the team high with 15 points. Grant dull had 12 points. Michael Rawlins came off the bench and hit 2 clutch three pointers, one to tie the game up in the 4th quarter to make the score 42-42. Justin Fowlkes had the team high for the Comets with 17 points. Garrett Brickner had 11 points for the Comets. The Wilmot Panthers will play at winless Kenosha Tremper tonight. This game will be also be aired on the internet at gatewaysportsweb.org. Hope to see you there.

Chris Henry

The NFL lost a member of its family Thursday morning, one day after falling out of the back of a pickup truck in what authorities described as a domestic dispute with his fiancee.  Although Chris was no stranger to trouble, his teammates and coaches say he was determined to turn his life around and move ahead toward a bright future.

“Everyone makes mistakes”, says Bengal’s wide receiver Chad Ochocinco, “But I don’t see how Chris was supposed to go already, especially when he was on the right path.”

Chris Henry was only 26 years old at the time of his death.  He was away from the Bengals after suffering a season-ending broken forearm in a game last month.

“There was a lot of speculation about who Chris was”, says Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer, “but the only guys that knew him and knew how good of a heart he had, how kind he was, how gentle he was, how soft of a heart he had, were the guys in our locker room, the guys that were close to him, his family.”