Cricket

I have always been a big fan of Indian Cricket. But I also spent a couple of years in the caribbean, where I saw that the sport had a small fraction of the money Indian Cricket boasts of. I saw first hand that the players played the game for the passion of it, at around the same time when the matchfixing scandal was unfolding in India. Plus, there was the Brian Lara factor (he is undoubtedly the most elegant batter I have seen in my life). Naturally, I started liking the West Indian team as well from those years in late 90's.

My two favorite teams took on the two biggies in Cricket in their respective Boxing day tests. I was very disappointed with the performance of the Indian team. But I kinda expected it. It is very rare that our team rises up to the expectations. I guess I still had hopes in some corner of my mind. And more were kindled by Kumble's performance on day one. But the team flattered only to deceive. We lost very badly, and I do not expect us to turn it around in this series. On the other hand, The Windies played like they were possessed! They defeated South Africa in under four days, turning in a better performance than the proteas pretty much in every session of the match. That was really nice to read about. The bowlers did their job and the batters did theirs. They kept it simple, and it seemed like they had turned a corner. I hope they really continue from this start. It is good not only for the caribbean criket, but also for the world of cricket.

Lazy Week

December is the best month of the year, just to see all the festive lights, colors and to hear the Christmas carols. I'm kinda sad that the season is pretty much over already. I was too busy till the 21st to be able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. I did not get a chance to visit the Rockefeller Center this year to see the tree :-(

The last week has been expectedly slow, but for a hecitc Friday this past week. I have just taken it easy over the last week. I have been quietly planning and preparing for some of the upcoming work over the next couple of weeks. Other than that, I have been spending time with my friends and family, watching movies (I have seen Cars a few dozen times) and catching up on all the sleep I lost over the course of the year! I still have a couple of slow days to go before things heat up all over again. And I plan to laze around as long as I can. I do have a lot of phone calls to make over the next couple of days to wish my friends a Happy New Year!

Winter!

It wasn't until late in January last winter, that we got to see some real snow. It is just the second week of December this season, and we have seen quite a bit already. The temperatures are in teens or less, and my wife's 4WD SUV has already got stuck in snow/ice on our driveway thrice. While I have no complaints with the weather, others around me can't stop blaming it for all the problems under the sun (whom we haven't seem much of, recently). I have only one complaint. I tried to flex my muscles over the weekend, trying to shovel all of 1.5 ft of snow that had accumulated on my deck. And my back really hurts! I never knew my deck was that big!

Mitchell Report

Everyone knew that the use of performance enhancing drugs was rampant in MLB. So, what does MLB do? It goes and hires an attorney (and former senator) who is on the board of Red Sox to investigate the issue. And what a surprise does he deliver! He frames a bunch of former Yankees in his report. Are there any prominent Red Sox players in the list? Hell, No! Half of Boston expected Manny to be on the list, but no, Mitchell could not find even a single big Red Sox name to put on the list. He based his entire list off two people who confessed. One of them was a fitness coordinator with the Yankees and the other one was in a similar position with the Mets. Makes me wonder if he really tried to investigate non-NYC teams at all. Yes, I am a big Yankees fan. But I am a baseball fan first. And I really appreciated the way Red Sox played this year, and honestly tipped my hat to them. Somehow, I just cannot buy that Mitchell was unbiased in his investigation/report.

Mastercard Moment!

Daytrip to Indy: $547
Excellent Thai dinner: $20
Waking up to see my son jumping all over me: Priceless!

Couldn't help but think along those lines this morning!

Indy

I had never visited the state of Indiana. Two days ago, I had to plan a day-trip to Indianapolis for business. I was very surprised to see that NWA had direct flights between Hartford and Indy. My flight was at 7:00 AM, and I had planned to wake up at 4:00 AM. But as usual, I woke up at 1:00 AM, worked a bit and got to the airport well in time.

Indy had received a good amount of snow over the last couple of days. The white blanket seemed like a continuation of the clouds from up above. The pilot announced that the temperature was 12 degrees. The elderly gentleman sitting next to me, could not help but grin and remind me that he was on his way to FL, where it was 81 degrees. I told him politely that I was not very greedy, and that I would be content with 12, while he could enjoy all of his 80+ degrees. Oh, Indy 500 racetrack was visible just before landing.

The roads were a little messy. Speed limit was just 55, which kinda irritated me. Cops were all over the highway, making it difficult to ignore the limit. Anyway, I had a good day with the prospective client. Just when I was planning to have a good meal before getting to the airport, my cell phone got an SMS from Orbitz. The flight was delayed by a couple of hours. I took my time to google for a good Thai restaurant. I found something about 30 miles away. Since I had time to kill, I went all the way there. I had had some bad Thai food in Cali, NYC and in Vegas over the last month. And it was nice to taste some good Thai food after all that. By the time I finished my dinner, my phone buzzed again. The flight was delayed till 11:24 PM.

I am at the airport gate right now, hoping that there are no more delays. I may get home by 2:00 AM, if I am lucky.

Yawn, yawn... zzzzzzzz....

Car Rentals

I used to rent cars very frequently up to about 4 years ago, given how much I used to travel on business. Then I cut down my travel and rarely needed a rental car. But over the last month or so, I have rented a few times and the recent experiences have been totally different compared to what they used to be, earlier this decade.

First of all, the rental car companies aggressively market their "low prices" on their website and on other sites like Hotwire and Priceline. You end up feeling happy about the deals. But when you get to the rental car counter, you will notice that the rental car company reps are very aggressive in trying to make you spend money on additional insurance, a tank of gas and such things. Earlier, they used to ask "Would you like any insurance coverage, sir?". The straightforward question used to usually get a straightforward answer, "No, thanks". Now, they ask "What type of coverage would you like, sir - Basic or Comprehensive?". They make you feel as if those are the only two options available. Now, if you do not realize how they are trying to fool you, you end up spending 20-30 bucks a day, easily. When I mentioned this morning that I did not want any coverage (since I already have my insurance), the guy started talking about how I would be responsible for damages. He tried his best to scare me about the potential damages. The tone of speech makes you feel as if you are committing a big mistake. And I had heard the same spiel at least four other times over the last month, from different rental companies in different cities. I told him to just give me what I wanted.

Then he wanted me to buy a tank of gas. If I bought it from them, I could return the car with any amount of gas. If not, they would charge me at $6 a gallon. The fineprint is that if you buy a full tank of gas from them, and if you return the car with any amount of gas in it, you do not get any credit. I am yet to see an airport car rental return center, which is far from a gas station. Why would anyone buy a full tank from these morons?

My point is not really about the money that I saved by not accepting any of those options, but the way in which these companies are trying to take advantage of innocent customers. I see that people do not understand these traps, more often than not. It seems like customers have to be very careful to just hold on to their money!

Sweetbread

It had been a very long day. I had had a few meetings, quite a bit of driving in the bay area and a cocktail networking event. Plus, I was in the PST zone, which meant it was already about midnight my time. Paul, Mark, George and I went to this fancy restaurant called Boulevard (http://www.boulevardrestaurant.com/) for dinner.

I was more than hungry and was looking for a good meal before hitting the bed. The menu offered not much respite. Everything was heavy on meat. I eat poultry, sometimes, and nothing more than that. This menu did not have chicken on it. I decided to order lamb, which I had tasted once, a few years back. The appetizers section, however, threw me an option - Sweetbreads. the description did not talk of any meat. It contained terms like eggplant parmigiana and some vegetables. I was more than happy to order it. A few minutes later, George asked me what I had ordered. Once I told him of my choices, here's how it went -

George: "Wow, that was brave of you!"
Me: "Why's that?"
George: "You know what sweetbread is made of, right?"
Me: "Well, Uhhh... What is it made of?"
George: "I think it is either the brain or pancreas or something like that, of either a cow or a pig"

I could sense my appetite vanishing really fast. Our extremely friendly waiter was nearby. So, we asked him about it. He looked at me and said - "Sorry, man. I should have told you. It is made from the neck portion of a veal". Thankfully, we were having this conversation before the food had arrived. I let Paul and George take it once it arrived, while I played with the veggies. I was not really in mood to try out the entree either. But I did well enough to participate. The others did enjoy the dinner. I enjoyed the lively atmosphere.

Later, I looked up my appetizer (or, was it my de-appetizer?) on Wiki, and here's the definition - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetbread.

Moral of the story: There's something new to be learned every single day!

Nice November

I always approach the last quarter of the year cautiously. Traditionally, Q4 tends to be slow, what with the unavailability of budgets and the holidays. But I perpetually end up getting those out-of-the-blue phone calls/emails in Q4, which end up leading to big opportunities. While it is too early to say, this November gave me so many such calls/emails, that it looks like another big Q4. I wish every quarter was like Q4!

Home Sweet Home!!!

I got back home late last night, after two hectic weeks of traveling. Even though the second week was a vacation, I realized that it was a bit too much for me. It had been quite a while since I had been away from home for this long at a stretch. I guess I am getting old! I do not feel like doing this any more!

$100/barrel

It is still very fresh in my memory. It was the last week of the year 2000. I was driving a rented Ford Mustang from Virginia to Florida. We stopped near Savannah, GA for the night. I filled gas at a gas station right off the highway for 93c a gallon. I told myself that it was the lowest I had paid for gas, till that date. I had been in the US for about a year and was accustomed to paying about 99c per gallon. I wish I had preserved that receipt! I could have shown it to my son at a later date. Little did I realize that the prices were going to go only north from that point. Nowadays, I pay about $3.20 per gallon. I have seen the price go up by about 50c over the last three weeks. Price of crude oil is set to cross $100 per barrel tomorrow, having risen by $35 per barrel in about six months. How this is going to affect other aspects of our life, is anyone's guess. Welcome to economy 2.0!!!

LinkedIn

I had heard of LinkedIn from several friends, but stayed away from it for the fear of getting spammed. I resisted despite the fact that it was one of the top ten sites in terms of traffic (even myspace and facebook are on the list, but I am not on them). I gave in and subscribed to LinkedIn after a few of my respected acquaintances spoke about it. I like it very much, and I realize the business value of it. Many people use it as an important tool, integral part of how they do their business. But for me, the biggest value from LinkedIn was that it helped me trace a few of my old friends from my school days. These are the guys that have meant a lot to me - they were there when my father needed blood after his cancer surgery. Getting back in touch with these buddies has been a big highlight of the last month. I do owe something to LinkedIn.

Don't Worry!

I took my son out this evening. I was lost in my thoughts as usual, pushing the shopping cart in the supermarket. And my son, who was sitting on the cart, looked at me with an innocent face and went "Don't Worry, Papa"! I started laughing uncontrollably without knowing what to tell him. It was one of those magic moments for me. I knew for sure that I would not forget this day!

Oh, my new phone arrived today. I miss the touch screen that I had with my earlier phone. But you know, I now have a phone that works at home and in my office! I realized that I only had a PDA till now... I am still fighting with it to set up the subscription to my mail server. Hopefully, I will have it done tomorrow.

Yankee Fan at the Fenway Park

I finished my dinner last Thursday with a bunch of executives from four different large companies in Boston. My friend/client George (from Fidelity) was excited that the Red Sox were playing the Rockies in the World Series, a few miles from the Seaport hotel where we were staying/dining. He had this idea of going to the Fenway Park to hang around there and enjoy the atmosphere. We knew that there was no way we could get into the stadium, but it still sounded like a good idea. I decided to go, instead of working for a couple more hours. Five of us took a cab and went to the stadium. The atmosphere was electric! There were long lines to even get into the bars around the ballpark. We got into an Uno's, a couple of blocks away, after going around the stadium once. We watched the game till about the 7th inning in there. In spite of being a die-hard Yankee fan, I enjoyed the time I spent around the Fenway park. We hung around there till about midnight. And George took us on a guided tour of Boston on our way back to the hotel in a cab! It ended up being a strange but a very pleasant evening, after all!

Hectic Week...

I cannot believe that a new week is here already. The whole past week flew by me in a hurry. There was so much happening that I did not get a chance to pause and look back at anything :-(

The weekend was a totally different thing, though. I got to talk to two of my old friends from my engineering school days. It is such a pleasure to find old, treasured contacts on LinkedIn and getting back in touch with them. That pretty much made my weekend. And I got a chance to plan for the week ahead. Now I am really looking forward to my two weeks away - starting 11/10. I know that the first week away is going to be hectic in San Francisco. But I am off on vacation from 11/16 till 11/23, in Vegas and Grand Canyon. That should be fun. I just completed making all the reservations.

Intriguing thoughts...

I guess the next couple of years are going be very interesting, considering the following factors:

• The dollar seems to be enjoying the freefall, and doesn't seem like it wants to open the parachute anytime soon!
• Oil prices are reaching new highs every single day.
• The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are draining money on the other hand.
• Mortgage companies are closing shop as if they were dotcoms in 2001/02!
• Grocery prices have doubled in the last few years.
• Jobs are difficult to come by for most of the average population.
• People continue to work harder to earn less money.
• Chinese government and Chinese companies are buying stakes in large western firms.
• Western world is starting to boycott "Made in China" products (is that ever possible?!)
• IT and BPO businesses in India are starting to feel the heat. Some are closing doors.
• Hurricanes and wildfires keep hitting US below the belt.
• Earthquakes and tsunamis keep hurting Asia.
• Let us not even think about Africa. If even 1% of what they showed in Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond are true, natural disasters are probably a relief for them.
• Life seems to be cheap in certain Asian countries. And death is cheaper, with hundreds dying due to bomb blasts and other horrendous acts on a daily basis.
• And we have Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

What a wonderful world!!!

Blackberry Curve

Alright, I ultimately decided to divorce MS Mobile based Smartphones. After using four of them over the last three years, I convinced my wife to take my TMobile Wing. I just ordered a Blackberry Curve to use the HotSpot @Home feature. I can't wait to get my hands on it for a set of reasons. Firstly, it will be a change from what I have been using over the last three years. And secondly, this phone is rated very high by CNET (a few notches higher than my earlier phones). And finally, when have I been NOT excited to get my hands on a new gadget?! I will surely post my review here within a week.

Siddarth turns two

The weekend was spent in celebrating my son's second birthday. We had a couple of parties, and had a lot of fun. I took him out this morning, trying to snap some pictures with the foliage in the background. The wind two nights back really killed the colorful leaves, unfortunately. Anyway, here's the two-year old dude with his proud papa!

BTW, I have lost 9 lbs over the last four weeks. I do not think I will be able to hit the target of 10 lbs in a month, as I have been feasting myself with cakes, sweets, etc., over the last two days!

Global Warming

I have been watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in bits and pieces this week. I have never been a big fan of Al Gore, but the movie/documentary is really hard-hitting. I would strongly recommend it to anyone that cares about how our children will inherit this planet from us.

Indian Cricket

I ended up watching a cricket match after a long gap. I stayed up all night to watch the 6th one-dayer between India and Australia. My first observation was that the pace of the game had gotten much faster. Bowlers took less time between balls, and the teams in general took less time between overs. I had expected the opposite, given the ever-increasing need for TV commercials between the overs.

I fail to understand what the veterans are still doing in the team. Of course, there were a few dropped catches which made the difference in the end result. But I felt India still had a good chance to chase down the total. Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid seemed to play as if we needed to retain wickets till the 50th over, and get all the needed runs in one over. And Ganguly, of course, is the ultimate expert at converting two's to a single! I felt really bad for the kids, as they had to endure a loss in spite of fighting hard. It was really refreshing to see Uthappa and Dhoni play their hearts out trying to compensate for the way oldies played. I sincerely hope Dhoni develops the guts someday to tell these old players that their shelf life is over and that they are being dropped!

BMW's Navigation System

I went on a short ride recently in a friend's new BMW 5-series car. I have always thought that Lexus and Acura offer better value for money compared to BMW. And this ride more than vindicated my thoughts. One thing I just could not ignore in the car was its navigation system. I just could not believe that a premier brand luxury car could have such a navigation system. It is so difficult to use that I could not help but laugh at it. Luckily, my friend was not offended. Apparently his wife shouts at him everyday for getting her that car - just because of its navigation system!

To start with, it does not have a touch screen. It has a dial knob, which you can use to scroll through the alphabets to select each letter of the destination address. I had seen it in an X5, way back in 2000. It looked cool on the first generation of navigation systems back then. But now, it just is a big irritant. My SUV's navigation system is a 100 times better, thought it is about four years older! I tried to google for any reviews of this engineering wonder. I found one review - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2929,00.asp, and I think the language used in it is highly diplomatic!

Google Vs Microsoft

I have been using Vista ever since they rolled out the beta version. Same holds good with Office 2007. I used to get excited to try out new technology and gadgets. But when I ordered my latest laptop, I realized that I cared a damn about the OS on it. My analysis shows me that the browser and Outlook are the platforms for my computer usage, more than 90% of the time. And I would guess that an average consumer does not even need Outlook. I recently tried Google Docs, and it impressed me. It has the bare essentials at this point in time, but I am sure it will get the bells and whistles in due time. More than anything, I like the fact that I do not need to get a new license every time I buy a new computer. I would rather pay 50 bucks a year, and be able to use the applications through all of my machines - even through my Mac!

With the OS and Office licenses contributing to a major portion of MSFT's revenue, I wonder where MS is headed...

More than $200M payroll...

...and the Yankees lose again the first round of the playoffs. Really a shame. But I think I took it easier this year, compared to the last two. Nuff said.

I have to bring my workout schedule back in line. I am still down only by 5 lbs. But I have had a chance to jog just once over the last week. Maybe with no more baseball to watch till April, I will have more time to workout more often.

Adrenaline

I have been very fortunate in my career to be doing something different every 3-4 years. Given how much of a child I still am, it kinda gets difficult to maintain an attention span of anything more than that type of time frame. While I have been very happy doing what I am doing, I guess I needed a dose of adrenaline to spice things up a bit. And I got two doses within a week! The opportunity to acquire a company came along, and has kept me busy doing something I have never done before. To add to it, executives from one of the biggest software product companies (probably the biggest) in the world got excited by our product, and how I positioned it to work with theirs. So, with two hot things going on right now, I couldn't be more enthusiastic!

Yankees kick off their postseason today. I hope all goes well with their quest for their 27th world series championship and that they are the last team standing at the end of this month! Go Yankees!

Fall

A couple of maple trees in my backyard have been trying to tell me for a couple of weeks that it is the peak of fall. I have refused to believe them, as the rest of the trees have still been flauting green, and the temperature had still been in the 80's. I took a 3-mile walk/jog this morning along the lake behind our development. On the way back, I was running against the fresh breeze, and all I could say was Oh... My... God! The smell of apples ripe in the trees, and a temperature in the low 70's - reinvigorated me, leaving me with enough energy for the whole week! Yes, my favorite season of the year is right around the corner! And I felt proud for the 1000th time of my decision to leave the busy life of NYC and come to where I am. Thank you, God!

I should plan a drive next weekend to Vermont or New Hampshire to see the foliage.

HotSpot @Home

TMobile has come up with a new feature, using which you can use your cell phone at home to make calls via your internet connection. While I don't care so much about making calls, I am excited because I might finally be able to receive calls on my cell phone at home! I have tried Cingular, Verizon, Sprint and TMobile so far, and NONE of them really work inside my house! So much for living in the country that leads the rest of the world in technology!

Oh, did I mention that cell phones do not work in my office building either, unless they are close to a window?

You can guess how I feel when I see those Verizon Wireless "Can you hear me now?" commercials on TV!

Yankees make the playoff!

I decided to create a blog, at last. And it so happens that the Yankees made the playoff last night! They sure gave me (and a lot of others) enough heartburn over the last 5+ months, and it was really nice to see them reach the playoff in what has been a tumultuous season. Needless to say, it has left me in a very good frame of mind since last evening!

The diet (and the exercise) seem to be paying off. I have lost 3 lbs over the last five days. My goal is to cut 10 lbs over a month. Let us see if it does happen!