The most popular name of this primarily urban genre of gymnastics is currently “Parkour“. It is all about overcoming any obstacle to get from place to place as quickly as possible and all the while maintaining a primary focus on efficiency. What this all means is that basically if the shortest path between point A and point B is over a fence and if it is the fastest way to go, then you go over the fence. This is, of course, only recommended if both sides of the fence are public areas. Park benches are another such obstacle which is commonly leapt over in Parkour. There are other more extreme examples involving such situations as rooftop navigation like a superhero, but those examples are outside of this article and should only be researched at your own discretion. Anything you try is at your own risk and this website holds no responsibility for your activity.

An interesting benefit of Parkour practice, which has lead to it being considered a sort of martial art by some of its practitioners, is the ability to flee from any situation. In many martial arts, if one has a good teacher, fleeing is the number one recommendation for any actual confrontation outside of a sporting area. In this way, Parkour can be a truly effective way to maximize one’s most advisably important way of overcoming any such situation.

As the art of Parkour has such a focus on efficiency and also as possibly because another person wanted to coin their own term for getting around, a form of obstacle overcoming grace and style also arose and that is currently most popularly known as “Free Running”. It may seem that Free Running is just an English term for the same sport, since Parkour is originally a French word, but it is actually considered to be a uniquely different branch of the same sport. If moving with style regardless of speed and efficiency is more your pace, then it is likely you may enjoy the art of Free Running.

Have fun and be careful.

New York City has been decimated by the credit crunch. All of those investment banking jobs are now gone. Hedge funds/mutual funds and other stock market related jobs have been crushed. A lot of the major marketing companies have been decimated. What was once a city of perpetual growth will likely be the last one to recover.

On the bright side, the prices of living or visiting New York City have started to reflect it. Hotel rates have plummeted. What used to be $400-$500 a night to stay in a hotel is now $200 or even less. This is also helped by the strengthened dollar, as there are fewer foreigners visiting New York.

Of course, if you are locked into your lease, none of this really helps you. But if you are moving to or renegotiating your lease, it’s a buyers market now. Property values have plummeted and your new lease should reflect that.

The NYC comparison is fair in some respects. Like NYC, Chicago is large and dense, is famous for its hot dogs and pizza, and has some pretty cold weather. However, in all of these areas, there are significant differences from New York.

First, while Chicago is large and dense, it is nowhere near Manhattan. There’s plenty of ’space’ even in areas like Lincoln Park. In Manhattan, it’s pretty much impossible to have a car, whereas having a car is fairly important in many parts of Chicago, unless your lifestyle is well suited for public transportation.

Like NYC, Chicago is famous for pizza and hot dogs, but they’re a much different style. Chicago’s pizza is deep dish, whereas New York’s is thin crust. In New York, you get your hot dog with saurkraut and mustard. Chicago has a distinct ‘Chicago-style’ hot dog, which is generally mustard, relish, pickle, tomato, and onions.

Finally, if you think New York City is cold, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve lived in Chicago. The winters are just flat-out miserable.

While Chicago’s monorail system, known as The El (short for elevated), is pretty solid, many people still find themselves needing a car. First of all, The El’s system basically connects various parts of Chicago with downtown. So if you are going from a northern suburb to a western suburb, you are pretty much out of luck or going way out of your way if you are using the el. If you live near an El stop near to the inner city and work near downtown, then you can get by without having a car, but if you live int he suburbs or need to travel around to various parts of Chicago, you’ll need a car.

There is so much to do and see in Chicago that it’s pretty much pointless to include it in this article. Long story short though, the pros of Chicago is that it is similar to New York in terms of urban living, though it’s not as intense and dense as Manhattan. The weather of Chicago should not be discounted though. After living there myself, I plan on never living there long-term again. One more Chicago winter will break my soul.

1. Drug dealers are actually selling crystal meth that looked like “Pop Rocks” and other types of candy, so that it appeals to younger people.

2. <edited>

3. The Chinese have made hairbands out of recycled condoms. This is so true it’s kinda scary. Are there really people out there that have bought these? This is a scary thing. I would never buy these because of the diseases that could be on them. How are condoms recycled?

4. Coca-cola used to contain cocaine. I think almost everybody knows about this one and how it’s true.

5. The Great Molasses Flood of 1919. On January 15, 1919, a tank of molasses flooded the streets of Boston, Massachusetts after exploding when temperatures reached 46 degrees. A 40 ft wave of 2,300,000 gallons of molasses swept through the streets of Boston at 35mph killing 21 people and injuring 150. The flood of brown goo tossed around animals and destroyed many buildings. It was a devastation to the city and to the people who experienced the disaster first hand. This is one of the most interesting urban legends I’ve ever read about and it’s really true. Wow!!!

6. Cactus Gets Revenge on Rifleman. David Grundman and his roommate James Joseph Suchochi are a couple of riflemen in Arizona, who go out into the desert to shoot Saguaro cactus’ just for the fun of it. Grundman shoots a cactus until it falls. Then he decides to shoot another one because that first one fell to easy. His next victim was a 26ft tall cactus. He shot the cactus a couple of times, and the cactus ended up falling on him crushing him to death with its piercing needles/spines. Talk about some bad juju. Imagine being pierced by needles this big. I get chills just thinking about it.

7. Man Dies From Laughing in his Sleep. A truck driver in Thailand laughed so much in his sleep that he died. His wife tried to wake him up but was unsuccessful, because he just kept laughing. One of the diagnosis was a heart attack. It was one of the oddest cases ever in Thailand. The man was 52 year old Damneon Saen-um.

8. Youngest Mother in the World: Peru is home to the youngest mother in the world, Lina Medina. At 5 years old, her parents brought her to the hospital because they thought she had a stomach tumor. A doctor told them their daughter was 7 months pregnant. A couple months later, Lina delivered a healthy baby boy by c-section. Nobody ever found out who was responsible for impregating Lina, and Lina couldn’t reveal that information because she was too young to comprehend what happened to her. Her father was actually arrested for suspicion, but was released due to lack of evidence. Turns out Lina had started ovulating when she was 8 months old, and had all the physical developments of a teenager (12-13 years old) by the time she was 4 years old. This is such a rare happening. I wonder who impregnated her etc.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shannon_Pincence

Con: That food is often more expensive, sometimes the same food costs 50% more than if you lived 40 miles away.

Pro:  Can walk to bars!

Con: You have to walk because the traffic is so bad that getting into a car is annoying.

Pro: There’s all sorts of interesting people to meet, date, and learn from.

Con: They’re not that interesting. Living in the city can be even lonelier than living out in the country since you are just one in a million.

Pro: More job opportunities in the city.

Con: You need to make more money since you will be paying $1000 a month to live in a box that you call an apartment.

Pro: You meet a wide variety of cultures.

Con: You need to learn Arabic just to be able to tell your cabbie where to go.