How to Light Up Your Backyard Basketball Court

Passionate about basketball! Why not install a basketball court in your backyard? The good news is that it is one of the simplest backyard courts that can be installed. And, after installing it, you can enjoy endless hours of basketball fun in the comfort of your home. To avoid interruptions to your game, why not install backyard basketball court lighting so that you can play as and when you feel like!

However, while lighting a backyard basketball court, certain factors need to be borne in mind:

Building codes

There are specific building codes such as height restrictions, proximity to the border, foot candle limitations, etc. The building code may set a limit on the height of the light pole.

Light Spillage

This is when light spills to areas such as your neighbor’s premises and causes a disturbance to them. Light spillage can be controlled by limiting the foot candles of your light.


This is also an important factor to be considered while the installation of lights for the court. The various expenses involved are the cost of the fixture, installation cost, maintenance expenses, and operating costs. It is vital to choose the lighting from a reliable supplier so that you can reduce your operating and maintenance expenses.

Let me explain how to plan the lighting:

• Sport lighting standards are measured in “foot candles” which implies the illumination per square foot. A backyard basketball court is 30’*35′ in dimensions. For this size of the court, the lighting required is 10-19 foot candles.
• The lighting requirements for an outdoor court are different from that of an indoor court.
• The lighting required is also dependent on the audience watching. Obviously, a backyard court will have a limited audience. So you can install a lower intensity of light.
• The lighting required by the basketball court also depends on the size of the court.
• Lighting should also be sufficient for the sidelines as well.

After this, we come to the choice of lights.

Options for lighting used for a backyard basketball court:

Luminaires: They are made of cast aluminum and use the lighting technology Pulse Start Metal Halide(PSMH) which ensures a long life and low energy consumption.

LED lighting: LED lighting has become more prevalent now. This type of lighting has a high initial cost but proves economical in the long run. This is because of low power consumption and long life.

With all the information, what are you waiting for? Install a backyard basketball court to enjoy endless hours of fun!

Sportscapers is a leading company based in Houston that provides equipment and installation of backyard sports courts. To know more visit here

5 Top Reasons to Invest in Lifting Shoes

Lifting shoes are purpose-built to provide a solid and reliable platform. They are very effective at helping the lifter produce more force and push through the floor to get the weight in the desired position. The proper shoes are essential for those involved in regular deadlift or heavy squats. Let’s take a look at five of the major benefits of the lifting shoes:

Elevated heel

A basic feature of the lifting shoes is the elevated heel which helps to hold the right posture when weight lifting. The ability to maintain posture is not only beneficial for the person lifting the weights, but the proper posture in a lift is essential in a professional environment. The height of the heels can vary with the different shoes. The preferred height will make it possible to achieve the right power position and maintain balance.

Solid base

Many of the lifting shoes are built with a solid base consisting of wood, hard plastic, or a mixture of these materials. A solid platform to make a lift is essential. Trying to lift on an unstable surface can be very dangerous. However, the firm base of the lifting shoes makes it a lot easier to maintain the proper posture.

Ankle support

The majority of the lifting shoes are made with a rubber, leather or plastic-like material. The entire shoe is created with firmness in all areas to create a very secure feeling for the foot and ankle. Also, the shoes can feature extra straps to further help in an effort to provide support.


The solid base, elevated heel and support are designed to give all-round mobility while performing the lifts. The shoes are particularly helpful for giving proper mobility for the hips, knees and ankles. Proper hip and ankle flexion is essential to help achieve the desired burst of power and the ability to maintain a hold for the appropriate time. If the hips and ankles aren’t in a position to give the desired power production, it will be a lot more difficult to produce the proper power.


The proper shoes must be worn when weightlifting to help lower the risk of injuries. Lifting heavy weights or performing complex movements have the potential to lead to injury if a solid base and support isn’t in place. Any shoes that lack support can put the body in poor alignment, which has a much greater risk of injury.

Innovative Mindset in Society Is America Losing the Edge in Innovation?

Is America losing the edge in innovation? How can this be? Where did we go wrong? What happened? Could it be that we’ve changed our education system and society in a way that gives less incentive to innovators? That would be a travesty since our entire national identity is in part founded on the ‘can do attitude’. Let’s discuss this briefly and you tell me if you see it too.

Are we losing our ability to think creatively and innovatively solve problems? I believe so. We also seem to be losing self-reliance, no need to solve problems – all the problems have already been solved. No need to think, just look up the answer on Google. Suddenly, there is no accountability or integrity – passing off copied ideas and plagiarism for innovation.

Look, I am not Luddite, and I don’t live in a cave, I know there is innovation out there – it’s just that I see an ocean of imitation and very few pearls of innovation in comparison. Everyone is busy liking, friending and forwarding – searching online for the daily highlighted viral original concepts rather than coming up with new ideas themselves. Maybe that instant gratification of a dopamine blast is as good as that “Ah-Ha Moment” when you solve a problem or when the light-bulb of innovation dings that bell inside your brain?

There seems to be a deep desire among members of our society to be creative and innovative, just as companies know there is a distinct advantage to the having a robust Research and Development Department and maintaining an innovative edge in their sector. Perhaps that’s why everyone and their brother claims to be an Innovation Expert Consultant. It’s rather hilarious how many of these ‘innovation coaches’ promise to teach us how to innovate, yet, I dare to ask; how many of them have original thoughts themselves. Is this yet another case of; ‘those who can’t teach’.

As an innovator myself, I find it amazing what is passed off as creative or innovative in this day and age. I guess we all have free speech in America and one is free to call themselves an innovator if they wish without any proof or examples of creativity of innovative attributes – but that doesn’t make it so. There is no honor in continuing this façade, we are only hurting ourselves and we cannot fix the problem until we address the reality and the problem here. Do you see it too? What should we do? Please consider all this and think on it.

Fight Off Enemies by Becoming More Successful

If you have a great reputation in your community how can you protect it from those who wish to defame you? Success is hard to get and the last thing you want is for some person to take it from you. If someone attacks you with a negative statement to make you look bad how do you fight back? There is a simple solution to this problem.

What you can do is wait for the attacker to stop attacking. Then go on the offensive. This works very well when something bad happens to the person who attacked you. This is when you let them have it. However there is a better solution to this problem.

Instead of attacking the person back directly or indirectly what you can do is simply become more successful at what you do. You have to be better than
the competition. You have to be bigger than the enemies who wish to destroy you. If your reputation is larger than your rivals then their voice does not matter as much as yours. You have to defeat your enemies by becoming more successful at what you do than your enemies are at what they do.

You have to push yourself out there so far ahead of your enemies that they cannot catch up with you. By becoming more successful a large number of people know about you as a highly successful person. Your enemies cannot keep up with you because they are way too small to persuade the public against you. When you grow bigger your enemies will look small and petty.

There is board game called go. It is different from the game chess. In the game go the objective is to dominate the board by taking up the most space on the game board. In life successful people dominate the public perception of them. The more success a person has and the more well-known the successful person is the more protected this person is from their enemies.

Have you noticed how hard it is to criticize a highly successful and popular person and get away with it. Some people have such a good reputation that you would look like a fool criticizing this person. That’s The Power of success and a big reputation. Superstars are more well-known than critics. A critic tries to make a name for himself by attacking someone who is highly successful.

Like the old saying goes, there has never been a statute erected to a critic. So keep on pushing and keep on striving for higher Heights. That way you will leave your enemies in the dust.

How Publishing Agencies Can Scale New Heights in 2018

Digital publishing has come a long way with thousands of books being published for devices of all form factors. Even though the digital platform is flooded with all kinds of reading material, journals can bring in a lot of revenue through a variety of channels. Journal publishing services in particular have a lot to contribute to the spectrum of content distribution this year.

Why Journals for 2018?

Looking at journals as a medium of content propagation and educational publishing, there are many benefits. First of all the feasibility of sending journals in a subscription based business model to audiences is very high. Subscription based businesses are quite the trend nowadays owing to their economical aspect and direct delivery to subscribers.

Another advantage of having journals is that they can make use of ads more effective. As per Hubspot, “67% of digital magazine readers actually want to buy directly from magazine ads.” Journals ads can be easily personalizable and ideal to use ads for targeting audiences.

Choosing suitable distribution channels

If a publisher chooses the retail distribution way as opposed to email, which is ideal in case of educational publishing, the subscription material has to be optimized to meet the requirements of the different eBook publishing platforms like Kindle, Kobo and Google play etc. It requires converting manuscripts into the suitable format for each such platform which can be easily managed with journal publishing services.

Email can be used to distribute journals and target audiences to make further purchases with personalized ads. Other ways to distribute journals can be through secure links or cloud storage platforms.

Making your publications available for all devices

One has to aim to provide an easily navigable user friendly experience across all platforms. All distribution platforms must get sufficient amount of attention as the aim should be to reach more audiences irrespective of devices and platforms.

Creating customized content for various distribution purposes

Depending on one’s content distribution need, there are many ways journal publishing services can be of aid. In case of educational publishing, one can have custom content created suited to MOOCs and online tutorials. Depending on the niche, with help of experienced professionals one can manage to roll out different customized content journals to keep readers from various backgrounds engaged, and expand reach to wider segments of readers.

Thorough testing prior to publishing

Prior to proceeding with your publication, it has to be tried and tested, because if there are any major issues, it might not go down well with the audience and result In negative reviews. It requires to be tested on multiple platforms and devices to make certain that the output is tangible and user friendly.

Your chosen journal publishing services company must put your products through a rigorous testing process, before release.