Brady reflects on loss of mentor, preps for 2012

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady smiles while stretching during NFL football practice in Foxborough, Mass., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady smiles while stretching during NFL football practice in Foxborough, Mass., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady sets to pass during NFL football practice in Foxborough, Mass., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

(AP) ? It's been almost four months since Tom Brady lost the single biggest influence in his football life.

Tom Martinez was his throwing coach. His mentor. His adviser. You name it.

And then, while waiting on a kidney transplant, Martinez died on Feb. 21 from a heart attack during dialysis. It happened to be his 66th birthday.

"I had a great level of comfort with Tom over the years," Brady said. "He was always someone I could call on to rely on him. I know he's watching down with every throw and I hear his voice in the back of my head after every throw. Throwing the football is about mechanics. There's nothing special. It's just a matter of doing it the right way. The better mechanically you are, the more accurate you're going to be able to throw the football."

Martinez taught him that, and Brady perfected it. Now, five months after he lost the Super Bowl 21-17 to the New York Giants in Indianapolis, Brady is pushing forward, aiming at 2012. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, he and the Patriots went through the motions at a Gillette Stadium minicamp.

"When you're not accurate, there's a reason for it. It's not like, 'Hey you've got to throw the ball more accurate.' No, there's a reason. What are you doing?" Brady asked. "I'm constantly evaluating every throw. I watch every practice. Every rep I take in practice, I have someone film and I watch it after practice. I just make sure I'm continuing to work on the right things because ultimately when you're under pressure, your body is going to revert to what it knows.

"Muscle memory is a very important thing for a quarterback. Hopefully, you train your muscles to react the way you need them to react when the pressure is on the most. That allows you to throw the ball with velocity and accuracy. The tougher the games get, the closer the coverages, the more accurate you need to be."

Brady threw for 5,235 yards and 39 touchdowns last season, using many of the mechanics Martinez taught him in California as the veteran quarterback was in high school, preparing for his collegiate career at Michigan. Martinez didn't coach Brady exclusively, of course. In fact, he also mentored John Elway and JaMarcus Russell over the years, and he followed Bill Walsh and John Madden at the College of San Mateo before being forced to retire due to health concerns.

"I have to rely on what he's taught me over the years. I have a lot of stuff written down of things we've talked about and things that I've learned, and I have a great understanding of mechanically what I need to be able to do. It's just a matter of seeing it and being able to correct it. Hopefully, you can correct it between series sometimes," Brady said. "You don't always have the fortune to wait until Monday to figure things out. Sometimes you have to figure them out in the middle of the third quarter. That's something where I have to rely on what he's taught me over the years."

One thing Martinez always stressed ? and Brady has done a good job of on his own ? is to take care of his body. Brady had his minicamp weigh-in on Wednesday, and checked in at 228 pounds.

"I feel really good," Brady said. "I feel great. I'm right about where I always am, to tell you the truth. I'm right where coach wants me at. I think you really refine what you do over the course of years because you realize what works for you and what you need to do to be prepared for the football season.

"I think there are things you do when you're younger I haven't necessarily done in a while because I don't think it really correlates well to being a better football player. And ultimately, we're trying to be the best football player we can be, not necessarily the best weight-lifter, or the best sprinter.

"You need to be the best football player."

At times, Brady's been that in the NFL. He is, after all, a three-time Super Bowl champion and two-time league MVP, a seven-time Pro Bowl selection and a two-time Super Bowl MVP. And a lot of that has to do with staying in game shape, which he said is easier now than it was when he came into the NFL in 2000.

"A lot," Brady said. "And every year it seems to be little different. So, I'm always looking for little ways to improve. Certainly, eat healthier, which is actually easier to do now than it used to be when I was young. I eat pretty good."

As for the minicamp and the end of the offseason training activities, Brady said he and the team covered a lot of ground. This is a club coming off a 13-3 regular-season record and an AFC championship, of course.

"It's been a lot of fun, being back on the field, having a chance to work with a lot of the new guys," Brady said. "Some of those guys we've worked with and there's a lot of familiarity with. They've already done our offense, so it's been good. We've had 12 practices."

The Patriots are now off until July 26, when they report to training camp. The key between then and now for Brady & Company? Do not treat the next five weeks as vacation.

"We're in full preparation mode. This is the point where things really start getting ramped up. There's no breaks. We had our vacation," he said. "We had a lot of time off and now it's time to really focus in on what we need to do because we're going to blink and the first game is going to be here. You have about five weeks and everyone should use it really wisely, get in better shape, better football shape, have a better understanding of what we're doing so that we can go out there and when training camp starts, you can really get off to a great start.

"I've got a long way to go ? a long way to go ? nowhere near where I want to be or need to be."

He'll get there, of course.

Martinez wouldn't have had it any other way.

Associated Press

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UN suspends Syria monitoring due to rising violence

The suspension of activity inside Syria by U.N. observers may signal the chance for a peaceful resolution to the country's conflicts is slipping away.

By NBC News and news services

Updated at 12:55 p.m. ET: United Nations monitors in Syria have suspended operations because of the increasing violence over the last 10 days by President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels seeking his overthrow, the head of the observer mission said on Saturday.

"The observers will not be conducting patrols and will stay in their locations until further notice," General Robert Mood said in a statement.

Mood said the intensification in violence was impeding the 300 unarmed U.N. monitors from carrying out their mandate to observe an April 12 ceasefire deal, which has failed to halt the violence.


US official: Russia sending troops to Syria

"This suspension will be reviewed on a daily basis. Operations will resume when we see the situation fit for us to carry out our mandated activities," Mood said.

The White House called?again on the Syrian regime to uphold its commitments under the Annan Plan, including the full implementation of a ceasefire, NBC News reported.

"At this critical juncture, we are consulting with our international partners regarding next steps toward a Syrian-led political transition ...?The sooner this transition takes place, the greater the chance of averting a lengthy and bloody sectarian civil war," the White House said in a prepared statement obtained by NBC News.

Many hundreds of people, including civilians, rebels and government forces, have been killed in the two months since international mediator Kofi Annan's ceasefire deal was supposed to come into effect.

Last week shots were fired at a car carrying U.N. observers after they were turned away from the town of Haffeh by angry Assad supporters who threw stones and metal rods at their convoy, a spokeswoman for the monitors said.

Washington and its Western allies have shown no appetite for a Libya-style military intervention even as Moscow has helped shield Assad from tougher U.N. measures.

Diplomats said Mood is expected to brief the U.N. Security Council on Monday or Tuesday about the unrest in Syria.

President Barack Obama will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Mexico, but expectations are low for any significant progress for breaking the deadlock on Syria.

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

?

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Utah students take fourth in national auto repair competition | The ...

(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Riverton High School students Jordan Kearns and Chandler Adkins stand next to a Ford Fusion as their work is judged during the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition at the Salt Lake Community College MIller Campus in Sandy on April 26, 2012. After winning the state competition, they competed and placed fourth at the recent national competition.

Riverton High School students Jordan Kearns and Chandler Adkins captured fourth place in the National Ford/AAA Auto Skills Competition in Dearborn, Mich., this week.

The competition pitted two-person teams from all 50 states against one another as they rushed to solve "real world" automotive repair challenges.

Kearns and Adkins and their instructor Jay Hales won the Utah competition earlier this year and earned the right to compete in the national contest held at the Ford world headquarters.

At the start of the competition, the student teams raced to their vehicles to review a work order that challenged them to diagnose and repair a number of purposefully placed "bugs," ranging from digital to mechanical and electrical.

The same bugs were placed on each team?s vehicle.

Once the repairs were completed, it was a race to shut the hood, start the engine and steer the vehicle across the finish line to where judges waited to scrutinize their efforts. The time and thoroughness of the repairs combined with the results of a written examination determined the winners.

Nearly $12 million in scholarships were awarded in the state and national competitions this year.

Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Policer: Ohio woman drove into crowd, injured dozens

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Free Tattoo Designs - The Infofile.Com

Each and every single 1 of us is often on the lookout for wonderful deals and any way to save cash that we can find. With the Web becoming so popular these days, many individuals typically turn to the World wide web for totally free tattoo styles. For most of us, free of charge is always the way to go. When you quit and think about it, a free tattoo design sounds a lot better than paying as much as $150.00 for one particular at a tattoo studio. The fact about it is straightforward - someone could just as easily draw their tattoo design themselves and then pay the tattoo artist to put the tattoo on them. If you give it some thought, you may possibly begin to wonder if totally free tattoo styles are actually worth it in the finish. The fact of them becoming free of charge is constantly great, though you might wonder if the design is some thing you would like to display permanently on your body. When you show your new tattoo to pals, they could feel negative thoughts when you tell them that you got the style free off the Internet. Every single and every single time you show your tattoo individuals will want to know about the message and the style, which youll almost certainly need to think about. All of us are familiar with the old saying you get what you pay for, and its genuinely no diverse in this scenario. Despite the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of websites on the Internet that provide free tattoo designs, few of them are really worth the interest. Most of the free of charge styles out there on the Web are very poor quality. Consequently, it would be in your best interest to wait and have a specialist tattoo artist make the design for you. Those who select to go with cost-free tattoo designs will tell you that tattoos are very costly and they cant afford to have a professional tattoo artists draw up the design. Some individuals, when dealing with custom tattoo styles, will say that their tattoo artist doesnt do custom designs or that he just dont want to do theirs. Although most of this could be true to an extent, there truly is no much better way to get a tattoo than using a design produced by a professional tattoo artist. As most currently know, free tattoo designs are generally created by those who know next to nothing about tattoo designing. In most cases, these designs are made by somebody who is searching to make a rapid profit instead of a true specialist tattoo artist. You can very easily tell that they arent expert quality simply by looking at them. Most totally free designs have poor good quality, poor lines, and often times the operate appears to be created on a personal personal computer. You surely wouldnt want to use one thing like this with your tattoo merely simply because you will be showing it the rest of your life. If you invest a lot of time looking on the World wide web for cost-free tattoo styles, you may be able to come across a few with great good quality. There are some good quality designs out there, though youll possibly have to search quite a bit to locate them. Its very best to have an idea in mind about the tattoo you want then appear for it that way. Although it may possibly take you some time, you could quite well find it. If you do come across it as a free tattoo style you really should always triple check the high quality ahead of you choose to have it done. PPPPP (word count 587)

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Taiwan's China Steel Drops Plan to Invest in Australia Coal Mine

China Steel Corp. (2002.TW) said Friday that it has dropped a plan to invest in an Australian coal mine owned by MCG after one of the mine's shareholders exercised a right to increase its stake.

China Steel, Taiwan's biggest steelmaker by revenue, said in February that it approved an investment of 102 million Australian dollars (US$95.03 million) in the MCG mine--A$50 million to buy a 10% stake and A$52 million for capital expenditure.

It was unable to complete the deal after MCG shareholder Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) exercised its priority right, it said in a statement after its board meeting. It had not made any payment toward the acquisition, it said.

China Steel will continue seeking stakes in overseas mines as part of a plan to boost its self-sufficiency ratio in iron ore and coking coal to 9% this year, Lee said.

"We are still in talks with five to six acquisition targets in Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Canada," Executive Vice President Steve Lee said, but he declined to reveal more details.

Chairman Tsou Jo-chi told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting earlier Friday that it will continue to invest in iron ore and coal mines abroad to cut feedstock expenses.

As part of its overseas acquisition drive, China Steel agreed in late April to buy a 2.5% stake in the Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia from South Korea's Posco for A$305.2 million.

Copyright ? 2012 Dow Jones Newswires

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New 'Prometheus' Photo Reveals Unused Character

With all of the controversy that "Prometheus" has drummed up since its release a week ago, the last thing Ridley Scott's most recent movie needs is more mystery. But last week, John O'Connor from Creatures, Inc., the effects shop behind some of the extraterrestrials in "Prometheus," posted some behind-the-scenes photos to his Facebook page that [...]

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How to mirror iphone on monitor to demo mvc4 mobile app?

Thank you for the links.? All of these are good for testing.? I really like and use electricplum.? But...these don't actually mirror my IPhone on my computer monitor so I can demo how to set up the bookmark, add to the home screen, etc.

I ended up just Jailbreaking my IPhone and using iDemo with the Cydia ScreenSpltr app. Total Cost $17.00 for iDemo.

I initially researched some products called Reflection and AirServer, but they required that I use AirPlay (which I believe required me to purchase an Apple TV, and then to purchase Reflection or AirServer).? Total Cost over $100.

Many thanks for the links.

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