What an Amazing finish to the F1 Season

Thanks to the rain god, we could see one of the most entertaining F1 race in recent history. The title changed hands couple of time in last 30 seconds. Hamilton to Massa and back to Hamilton!! Wow!! I'm not a fan of Hamilton or Massa (no way!), but I have less disrespect for Hamilton than for Massa. So in the end I was reasonably happy that Hamilton won. I'm big fan of Aryaton Senna, but with all due respect to Brazilian fans, I don't like any of the current Brazilian drivers.  May be Brunno Senna will change my view next year. My disrespect for Massa is because of the fact that he drives for Ferrari (I hate the team) and that he was happily playing second fiddle to Schumacher. Just like what Barrichello did for years. How can a guy who plays second fiddle to anyone can be a deserving world champion? On the other hand Hamilton from day one refused to play second fiddle to Alonso in Mclaren. But at the same time he possesses the same attitude and character because of which I hate Shumacher - If you need to cheat to win, cheat. For me the best driver on the grid is still Alonso by long way, especially after Kimi's racing instincts has been fully domesticated by Ferrari team by making him follow stupid orders each and every race. Alonso by driving the car, which used to be backmarker till mid-season, to the top step of the podium twice has proved that he is easily the best in the current crop.

Anyways, congratulations to Hamilton and looking forward to next season and hoping that Renault will have competitive car!

Looking forward to my Vacation!

After months of planning, four friends (including me!) are going to have two weeks of Golf Vacation. Its like dream come true for me as we have been talking about having this vacation for over two years now. Its finally happening next week.

We decided to make Detroit as base of our Golfing Adventure because Tiger - "The God of Golf", was supposed to appear in Buick Open and we little mortals from India wanted to pay our homage to him. Just today I heard that he is out of Golfing action for rest of the year. Sad! He has hurt his surgically repaired knee ligament during the 91 holes of play in US Open. He and everybody said this is Tiger's one of the greatest victories. I say the best is yet to come. In pain, limping through the rounds, he wins a Major. I think even he does not know what he is capable of. The US Open was moment of truth for other golfers. They have got glimpse of the gap that is there between them and Tiger. Its extremely unfortunate for us that we are not going to see him.

Still, I'm more than excited about the vacation for number of reasons. Firstly, it will be two weeks dedicated to Golf with my close friends. All my friends are extremely competitive and nobody likes to loose, which makes the game interesting. The rounds of golf between us are full of sarcasm, threats, and appreciation. We also enjoy company of each other a lot. So it will fun all through the vacation. Secondly and more importantly, no worries of finishing the round fast and get back to home.  I can't wait for it! 

I'm going to miss my family a lot. Especially, my two little angels. I have setup my home computer with camera and microphone, so that we can meet @Skype. I will try to do it everyday.

After the vacation I have to attend a conference at Denver. Which, again is a very important conference for my job and I look forward to it every year. Its conference of Global Vodafone account team and persons handling Vodafone account in many different parts of the world will assemble under one roof. Lot of information exchanges happen about wins, losses and strategy for the account. Then it has other events for fun and enjoyment. The event is always planned very well and is always one of the best conference that one could attend. It always makes the visit worth.

America here I come......

Ignorant World & Aware India

This is about couple of incidents that happened with me few days ago. I was playing Poker on Facebook and all the playing partners were from US and Canada. One guy out of them started badmouthing and abusing India. Then one guy joined the chorus. A third guy said actually its a nice place and asked these two guys have they ever visited India and both said no. He said I have been in India and really liked the place. I actually sympathize with the two guys who were abusing India. Because its their ignorance which is driving their behavior and these type of people will make fool of themselves more often than not.

On the flip side  - I was waiting at Railway station to receive my Mom. I took out my phone (iPhone, of course Unlocked) to call my Mom to check how far is the train. This guy, who was sitting beside me, immediately asked me, is it Apple's Phone? I was surprised because this guy was surely was not related to IT industry and didn't knew english as well. How come he was so aware? Apple is not a very big brand in India. Very few people use Mac's out here and iPod is also not that popular to reach the lower rung of the India society. Without taking much credit away from him for his awareness I think there are two things that have contributed in this. First the mobile revolution and second the phone itself. This the best phone or PDA I have ever used. Hats off to Apple for creating this masterpiece, which has conquered the imagination of not so rich people of India!!! 

Horrible Umpiring, Shameless Cheating and Spineless Batting!!!

The title of the blog says it all. Yes I'm talking about the 2nd Cricket test match between India and Australia. First of all let me admit that it was a spineless batting by India on the fifth and final day. With only 2 overs to go and 3 wickets remaining we should have saved the test match. But that situation came only because of some horrible umpiring. Through the entire test match it seemed umpires forgot all the rules and were wearing spectacles with wrong power when it came to give decisions for India. 

Ricky Ponting wanted to win at any cost and he did win at the cost of integrity and honesty. On two occasions he did that and whole world watched it. On first occasion he grounded the ball and appealed (for what!!). When, for a change, umpire did not obliged him. He had this surprised look on his face...Come on, you are on my side!!! All five days of the test match it seemed the only thing Australians needed to get an Indian batsman out was to appeal. The umpires were bound to oblige. On the contrary many Australian batsmen refuge to leave the field even if they were clearly out. As if umpire will declare the ball as No Ball to save them. 

Harbhajan is now paying the price of getting Ricky Ponting out 3 times in two tests. He has been banned for three test matches. The punish was imposed because allegedely he called Symonds a Monkey. Nobody except two good friends of Sysmonds heard that Still Bhajji was handed out two match ban.

What next Ricky? Don't worry if you can't break Sachin's record you can always get him implicated in some drug case and get his record erased from the books!! 

I'm sure Indian team have enough talent and courage to give it back to Australians on the field!!!

Reason to Blog

Although lot has happened in all my favorite topics of F1, Football and Golf, I haven't blogged for a month. That's because I never felt Kimi's championship victory in the last race of the season was something I should have blogged. He deserved the championship more than Alonso and Hamilton but I still feel he was not a worthy champion. My golf game is getting from bad to worse, which is good reason not to blog.

However, today I got a good reason to blog! My friend Santhosh has risen to the esteemed rank of "Principal Engineer" within our organization. If any person, that I know, was more worthy of this recognition, it was him. I feel extremely happy for him. I'm sure there is more to come for him because he deserves much more!

There is a lot that I can write about him but I think I should mention this one which as per me stands out- 

"There is so much to do and life is so short. I want to live for hundred years and the only way I can do that is by not sleeping".

CEC 2007 - Las Vegas

Sun Customer Engineering Conference was in Las Vegas this year. The sin city was swarmed by 4000 Sun engineers and partners.

Its said that "everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". Not this time though. I will cherish the memories of CEC 2007 for long time to come. Especially because it was my first CEC. Every experience, hearing great minds live, breakout sessions, atmosphere and meeting new people, was great. I was also co-speaker for one of the sessions in the conference with my colleague from Germany, Olaf Schnapauff. We spoke about how India has become a Red Shifting nation and compared the Indian telecom with that of more established markets like Europe. It was a good seesion but we could have done better in terms of adding more technological factors for the two markets.

My friend Ashish, who lives in Indianpolis, joined me at Vegas after the conference. Me, Ashish and my colleague Malhar, drove to Grand Canyon. We first went to the Western rin of the Canyon and experienced the Skywalk. This walk is over a transparent glass bridge over the rim. You have to take this walk to believe how terrifying it is to see 4000 feet down straight through the glass. It took us more than couple of minutes to gather strength to take the first step over the bridge. We watched the beautiful sight of sun going down at western rim. Then we drove near the northern rim and spent the night at a motel. We had heard so much about the sunrise at the northern rim that it took little effort to wake up at 4 AM and drive to the sunrise view point (Mather Point) at the northern rim. Although it was very beautiful sunrise but I was expecting something more. May be my expectations were set higher than the normal. We visited couple of more viewing points at the norther rim. The canyon was the most majestic thing I have ever seen in my life. This trip will live in my memory forever. Thanks to ashish, without him it was not possible. i'm sure Malhar (our official photographer for the trip) will be posting the pictures that he has taken. I will post a link to it when it comes!!

Fossil named after Indian sceintist Dr. S B Misra

Misra's discovery, acclaimed as the oldest record of multi-cellular life on earth, shall now be called 'Fractofusus Misrai'.

Dr. S B Misra discovered this fossil in Portugal Cove South near Newfoundland (Canada). It has since been declared a protected area by the Canadian government. This fossil (one of many discovered by him) is 565 million years old.

I'm more moved by the fact that he gave up his North American career to build a school in a village near Lucknow in India. It was his childhood dream of building a school in his village. I have no words to explain his courage and greatness. It will be debatable that how he would have served humanity better by continuing his good work or by making a school in his village. I only hope that he produces many more like him from the school he has built. Sad part is we would have not known about him if the fossil was not named after him.

India definitely need many more Dr. S B Misra!!