Some pics from our trip last weekend.

Enjoy!

Last weekend was Fort Bragg/Mendocino to see the Giant Redwood trees and now it is up to the Pacific Northwest. Well, not really. Only Seattle.

Meanwhile the paper work gets piled up. :-)

From http://www.roger-waters.com/live8.html:




And what a rocking few numbers they promise to be. Fingers crossed that Waters and Gilmour actually make it to the stage :-)

Called a cousin last night to wish her on her birthday. Among other things I asked her what she had planned for the day and she said she was in mourning.

I asked her why and she said that it was because she turned 30 yesterday! She said she thought she has entered the world of the oldies and so she was not too excited.

Having passed that milestone a while back (a few years ;-) ), I started putting some positive spin on it by saying it is the start of a different life and such, but it did not help much. It was hardly motivational. Of course, I quickly ended the conversation by handing the phone over to the wife :-)

But it puts an interesting thought in my mind. Am I considered an ‘oldie’ already? I don’t think so, really speaking. But take for example music. I love the 80’s music and some evergreen rock bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. I don’t think any of my ‘younger’ cousins or nieces like that music. Consider going out. I love to go to pubs, possibly with live music, sit and chat and have a good time with friends and/or family. Ask any of the younger cousins or even nieces and they’ll say they want to go to crowded night clubs and dance all night. Totally not my cup of tea.

Are these signs of ‘oldieness’? I know my taste matches people of my age that I hang out with. But what about the younger folks? I also know that in a few years' time, when they are 30-somethings, our tastes may match again. But what am I to do in the twilight period?

He had to switch engines and thus he loses 10 positions on the grid.

Damn. That’s a bummer. That means Alonso is going to get a HUGE advantage this race.

Not sure if he ‘got’ or if he ‘took it and never returned’.

Bottomline is that he has a Superbowl ring! :-)

Pics from Wimbledon.Org - Venus pic and Sharapova pic.

I did not expect this result, forget the apparent one-sidedness. I really thought Sharapova would eat up Venus. But it was quite a match, looks like. The headlines on Wimbledon.Org (where I got the pics from) were Venus Blasts Past Sharapova.

Davenport is on top in the other semi, after a roller coaster 2 sets. There were huge leads and big breaks of serve, but in the end I think Mauresmo was overcome by nerves more than anything else. It is not over yet, and given the way things have gone in that match, I would not put my money on Davenport yet, but I think she has more control on the match now than Mauresmo has.

I downloaded and played with Google Earth yesterday. I must say, it is fantastic. Once they texturize the images of the buildings, it would be virtually a tour of the various cities they have mapped. I did a fly-by tour of downtown San Francisco and could feel it.

Way to go. But how are they going to make money off it?

Update: Looks like they have stopped downloads of the application … luckily I saw it before they shut everyone out.

Michelin has announced that even though they were not legally asked to do so, they are going to refund all the tickets for this year’s Indiananpolis GP. And in addition they are going to give 20K tickets to next year’s race.

I think this is a wonderful gesture from the company to pre-emptively refund the tickets. They obviously know that they were the main reason the cars pulled out of the race. Rather than wait for the legal push-pull, they decided to go for it and regain some of the fans.

I think this step has made me take a lot of my anger towards Michelin away. I still think they are the ones to blame mainly for the fiasco, but what they have done has made me give them some respect. They are hurting right now with the potential losses and perhaps losing out the battle for tire supplies to F-1 if and when it becomes a single-tire championship.

It is always great to admit your faults and step up and apologize and do what is necessary to get the other party’s respect. They have mine. Good job, Michelin.

And that’s the proof, or whatever you make of it.

Of course, this is the ‘easy’ version but now that I have done that easy one, I will move on to the next levels :-)

Not sure if I missed it earlier, but for some reason, the new rules that the ICC pushed out recently are going to change the strategies of captains and teams all over.

Sachin Tendulkar recently said the same thing.

1. Fielding restrictions will be on for 20 overs now, but in chunks of 10 (compulsory at the beginning), 5 and 5. I guess from the spectators' perspective, it will make the middle overs exciting if the fielding captain decides to use the chunks say from 25-30 and 35-40 overs.

2. Substitutes like soccer. You can replace a player, and that replacement will be permanent for that match. So possibly you could use up a bowler’s 10 overs at the beginning and throw him out and get a new bat. Or if the opposition has scored big, you can bring in an extra bat at the half time. If the pitch seems to be turning square, a pace bowler could be replaced with one of the backup spinners. A lot of possibilities.

Can’t wait to see the Aussies and the Kiwis use these rules as part of the strategy. They are the best in expoiting such rules. India will lag behind, but who knows, Greg Chappell may have already starting chalking out some plans.

Yea, right!

Australia crushed Bangladesh, as was originally expected.

And the matches where Symonds has played, he has shown how critical he is to the side. But what made his lose it at the beginning of the tournament??

His team was one of the teams that ran the race and now he is starting to act like a socialist, with threats of strikes and further boycotts.

What is his agenda? He is at the bottom of the pile and no matter what he does, his budget is not going to come close to the upper echelon teams. He has to find a way to get more interest in his team and make sure he gets the job done for the team.

Threatening to boycott more races is just not the way F-1 is going to increase its popularity.

And if he wants Max Mosley’s job, he needs to maybe try some other angle and not let the sport be harmed because of his desires.

Shame on you, Paul.

I check Blogger Buzz all the time. And after I made my post, I saw the post on Blogger Buzz announcing the new feature.

Phew. I thought I was not paying attention to what is on the screen! :-)

–photo from nba.com

Alright!

Now I will talk. I loved it. It was such a beautiful second half performance by the Spurs. And Tim Duncan was phenomenal in this game, and most importantly, in the second half. His dominant performance in the third quarter brought the crowd back into the game and got the Spurs fired up for closing it out.

Robery Horry got yet another ring. He is so good and such a clutch player at all levels, he was probably the most underrated in this year’s finals.

Well played Detroit Pistons. I am not going to call your last year’s win a fluke, and I feel we will see a few more SA/Det finals in the next few years.

Good luck, Coach Brown. Hope your health gets better and you come back to the game in one way or the other.

I have not noticed the toolbar much because I usually type straight and maybe put some links. I noticed this morning that there is an ‘Add Image’ button on the toolbar within the compose post window.

Looks like I don’t need Hello necessarily to post an image to the blog post. That would be nice. Haven’t tried it out though.

It was long expected, what with all the pushing and pulling between Williams and BMW.

Vill is lucky to get BMW next year, but is he lucky enough to be with them next year?

Not sure if Williams will continue using BMW. If not, who else is willing to step up?

From BBC Sport.

He makes a point that I keep making in his defense:

“The problem was some teams had brought the wrong tyres. It would be like making all the athletes in a 100m sprint run barefoot because some had forgotten their shoes."

Borrowing the term from jiblog, another blog I read, I wanted to let everyone know that it has been a long but eventful year for me.

I can’t believe what started out to be a dibble-dabble in the world of blogging has turned out to be such an enjoyable journey.

Thanks to all the readers who keep coming by and dropping comments here and there. I am at 10,000 hits for the year and am really proud of that. I did not really think it would have been possible because I did not intend to continue for so long.

Thank you all once again. I hope to put links to some classic conversations of the past year. No time right now, unfortunately. :-(

What was that at the end of the 4th quarter? It was going well till the end when the Spurs just collapsed and gave in.

By the way, I must tip my hat to Detroit Pistons. Much as I hate the team, they just keep coming back. They don’t give up at all and you can NEVER write them off.

The Spurs now have to crawl back out of the hole. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Thanks to anti, whose blog I frequently read, I was pointed to a great article on planetf1 which made me change my mind a little bit about who is to blame for the farce at Indy.

Looks like there was in fact a precedent to such a situation. At Interlagos. The race was delayed because of rain and that some cars did not have full wet tires.

If that were the case, then changing some other ‘race rule’ should not have been a problem. I don’t quite agree with the article writer who thinks it was a Ferrari agenda to get 18 quick points, but I do agree that something could have been done to let everyone race.

So even though it is mostly Michelin’s fault for not having the right tire, Max Mosley is to blame somewhat too.

I have tried twice in the past two weeks to have Red Bull an hour before playing. I must say, the first two games were quite good. The heart was pumping and I felt that I was working out well. But as soon as the caeffine (or is it the sugar?) effect dies down, it gets very sucky. You suddenly slow down and you don’t like it because you get whooped.

And getting whooped twice is worse.

No more Red Bull before squash. Maybe after ;-)

Over the weekend, the wife and I went to Cinema Savers and saw movies back-to-back.

The Interpreter was actually quite good. I was not expecting it to be that gripping or anything, but it turned out to be quite alright.

Kicking & Screaming was not as funny as I thought it would be.

Overall, not a bad deal @$3.50 per movie per person.

First of all, Michelin’s stock takes a beating.

The teams are called for disrepute.

And of course, like everything US, there are lawsuits coming.

Who is going to pay?

1. FIA
2. Indianapolis Speedway
3. Bernie
4. The teams that pulled out
5. Michelin
6. The cars that ran (!)

Whatever be the case, I am not sure if Indy is going to welcome Formula 1 in the future. And that is sad.

If you want to tease your brain a bit, try Sudoku. I had not heard of it, but looks like it is becoming quite popular all over.