The harder the route..

Ever so often, we are out to achieve a goal, fulfill an ambition, flat out want to realize our potential. And just as certain as the sun will rise from the east tomorrow morning, we encounter difficulties enroute. Fate throws a curveball at you, or you swing and miss badly on a fastball in the strike zone, or you just simply make it tough on yourself, or it simply is hard just because life can be like that.

So, do you give up because you stumbled into these road-blocks? Do you accept defeat and say that you are not capable of doing the things that you set out to achieve? Or do you plod on and say to yourself, the harder the route is, the sweeter the success at the end of the journey will be. The tougher the route, the more pleasant the conclusion of the journey will be.

Green Bay and its Packers

So, the question to me goes - "You're not even from America by birth, so how is it that your favorite National Football League team is the Packers from remote Green Bay"? And mind you, this is not a one-off question, but rather has been the norm with almost anyone that I talk American Football(for all the fact that I am a fan of the NFL, Football to me is still the game where the play is with the foot!).

The usual off-the-cuff answer has been that I like Brett Favre, their gun-slinger of a QB. Well I have umpteen reasons to like him, mostly that he makes bone-headed mistakes just like I am prone to. Anyways, I fend off that question saying that Brett Favre is my favorite QB in the league.

But inwardly I began to think, so why is it that I really like the Green Bay Packers? So much that I even made a pilgrimage to legendary Lambeau Field in the summer of 2003, when I went to visit a friend in Madison, WI. It came down to just one simple thing - they are the one professional league team in the United States, that is publicly owned. Can you really believe that? In the midst of the greed and riches story that is organized professional sport, the Packers are owned by people, who paid to own a share of the team. At a time when we see the likes of Bill Bidwill and his kind swindle the genteel people of Arizona into trusting them to make them Arizona Cardinals a competitive team just on the sheer strength of a new stadium, when we see the likes of Wayne Huzienga and his infamous dismantling of the 1997 Florida Marlin team just days after the team had captured an improbably MLB title, it is refreshing to see a team so tied with the public that it is supposed to entertain.

Managed in much the same way a publicly-owned company is, the one major difference is that none of the share holders receive any dividends for their share holdings. In effect, it is a "contribution" from the share holding public to the welfare of their beloved team, a privilege that seems to be equally recognized by both parties.

Skeptics, amongst them a certain ex-boss of mine, have called Green Bay a one-horse town and implied that its sheerly coincidental that the Packers receive so much support - there is nothing much else to do in northern Wisconsin anyway. All I can say to them is, shame on you. Shame on you that you cannot recognize the spirit for what it really is - a sense of ownership and participation in the team that is unique in pro-sports.

Consider the following facts/figures for a moment and draw your own conclusions
1. The Lambeau Field, the home of the Packers, has been sold out on a season-ticket basis for well over 30 years and running. This has to be a sort of parallel record along with the Irish Fans of the "Touchdown Jesus" at University of Notre Dame.

2. The organization renewed/refurbished/face-lifted the Lambeau Field from a simple edifice to a modern, sleek, brick and glass edifice. And to achieve that, they did not raze the old stadium and build a new one - instead they worked around the old structure and just provided props on the exterior. The result - re-dedication to the fans of the Packers, by maintaining the interior bowl seating arrangement with aluminum bleachers, as it has been for these past many years.

3. The current season ticket waiting list - a tad over 60,000 - amounts to a wait time of just over 30 years from today. Imagine, if I applied to the Packers today to obtain season tickets, I am not likely to get them until my kids will be as old as I am now.

4. For the second year in a row, an NFL team that had the Packers visiting them for a regular season game, tried to dissuade avid Packer fans from buying up tickets, by clubbing the single game tickets in a package deal with tickets to a meaningless pre-season game. If it was the Minnesota Vikings in 2003, it was the Indianapolis Colts in 2004. And boy did they succeed. Just about 15000 Packer fans were in attendence at each of those games.

All that can be said in this is that, it is my privilege to be a fan of such a distinguished team - afterall, no other team has won as many league championships as the Packers have. So distinguished, Green Bay is referred to as Titletown, USA.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter..

Brett Favre, Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (American Football's biggest stage) hurt his right thumb (the throwing hand) during a game at the Track Meet stadium (Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, if you insist on knowing the real name) and yet managed to play through injury, finishing the game with impressive (for him) statistics for an indoor game.

He went on to play the rest of the season as well with that injured thumb. Asked how he was able to do it, he answered simply - If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. It is really just a simple case of mind over matter!.

Self Pity

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A bird will fall frozen-dead from a bough without ever feeling sorry for itself

Self Pity

A poem by D.H.Lawrence

And a poignant piece in that women-power movie G.I.Jane

Oh..the sheer joy of watching tennis at its fluid best

Roger Federer stood about six feet inside the baseline on the right half of the court, waiting patiently for his opponent Lleyton Hewitt to fire a return to his side of the court. Then like a tiger waiting to attack, he pounced upon it, planting his legs so his body gave him the perfect angle he desired and fired a forehand winner, which curved a steep left and danced away from Hewitt. "Obscene angle", one of the commentators called it.

You would call it obscene too if you were watching it. All you could do then was to stare in awe and disbelief that the "artist in motion on a tennis court" Federer can even launch such winners. Hewitt, the ever so gracious runner-up to Federer conceded - his shot selection is impeccable, and he has superb reach and can make almost any shot.

Watching him play the Wimbledon and US Open finals has given me a new hope that tennis would be a worthwhile sport to follow again. Afterall, for someone who grew up watching another artist-on-court Becker and the ever gentle Swede serve-volleyer Edberg, it was getting oh-so-boring to watch baseline duels where the players would slug it out from six to eight feet behind the baseline, and points were decided by not deft movements at the net or a flick of wrist passing shot or a delicate volley, but by stupid forehand/backhand errors or shots sailing wide due to sheer pace from an opponents return. Sampras and Agassi provided a wonderful watch, but with Sampras retiring, and Agassi in the sunset of his career, tennis was getting boring.

And then, Along Came Federer..he who was a wild kid with immense potential...he who suddenly woke up and said, I can do this...he who is one of the fortunate few who has realized his potential and started acting upto and beyond it.

What is even more amazing is that Federer's amazing 2004 run at the ATP Tour has come at a time while he is his own coach. And how successful is he in being his own coach? Look no further than his performance in the Championship match at the All-England Club to capture the Wimbledon Men's Singles title. A rain delay forced the players to take a 40 minute breather, and when play resumed, he had talked himself into mounting aggressive challenges to the challenge thrown at him by Andy Roddick. Said Roddick in the presentation ceremony, "I threw the sink at him, and he went in and got the bath-tub!".

The gentle Swiss, who loves to watch the play of another artist on the football pitch, Zinedine Zidane, has the knack for that cliched term - making something out of nothing. Time and again, both against Agassi in the Quarter-finals and Hewitt in the finals, you would see him make a shot, where, when the ball left his racquet, it seemed to be headed long, only to have it drop just inches inside the baseline.

He has been gracious enough to accept the cow presented to him at the 03 Swiss Open in Gstaad. And he was gracious enough to accept the Alp-horn presented to him at this years Swiss Open. And he is appreciative enough of people's goodwill that he is raising the cow at a pasture, and also learning to play the alp-horn. I guess he is doing that so in the 05 Swiss Open, he can entrall the home-crowd to a dual symphony - tennis on-court, and music on the alp-horn.

For now though, what is here is the simple fact that Roger Federer has given milllions of us tennis fans a glimpse at the glorious past of tennis, when artistry and skill of play ruled over the brute power of serves and returns. Nothing against people who rely on their huge serves and booming forehands but I would rather watch a sledge-hammer at work rather than watch robot-machine like serves.

Good luck Roger Federer. You are already a great champion, and may you also find a way to win that elusive title on the red-clay of Roland Garros.

A Season of Faith's Perfection..

A Season of Faith's Perfection...a wonderful title to an article in a wonderful movie - Finding Forrester. So why is it stuck in my mind like an impression etched on the rocky sides of the Grand Canyon by the raging torrents of the Colorado River.

If you have not watched that movie, find some time to go rent the video and watch the movie. I promise you, it is going to get on your nerves initially, probably even bore you. But I will also promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that it is worth your while to sit and watch the entire movie in one sitting.

Endearing in its own way, the movie taught me the concept of soup questions. As Sean Connery's William Forrester so eloquently puts it, the object of a question is to elicit information that matters to the person asking and no one else. So the next time I pop a question whose answer is irrelevant to me, you can rap me on my head and say, thats not exactly a soup question is it :)

More important though to me is the depiction of friendship between two of the rather strangest people - one an aspiring writer who would rather keep his talent under wraps rather than risk being not "cool" with his crowd, the other, a decorated (once, exactly) writer who stopped writing because of some personal tragedy and now lives coccooned in his apartment.

A Season of Faith's Perfection...the movie, to me, is the season, where there is perfection in the faith of friendship. Being the sentimental mush-prone geek that I am, I fell hook-line-sinker for the mush. But wait, thats not necassarily what this movie is all about. It is about sagely advise from a sage to a young kid....

"The key to a woman's heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time"

"The first key to writing..is to write, not to think"

"You write your first draft with your heart..you rewrite with your head"

Sentimental mush aside, this movie reinforces the concept of how first impressions are not always correct...and how friends and friendship can never grow old or tired

Have a wonderful time....

You're either very bad or I am underestimating your ability...

So said the greatest whiner in sports this week, Andy Roddick.

While in Rome to play the Italian Open, a fire broke out in the hotel he was staying, and whether it was out of really good intentions or to cash in on the free publicity (and for the sake of giving him the benefit of doubt, I will accept good intentions) he helped rescue people, at the expense of his progressing beyond the first round at the tournament. And we all read about his exploits in the media, and I for one, appreciated his being a good human being.

And now it has come to this...in a second round match against a random 18-year old kid (I think Rafael Nadal it was), the chair umpire called a let when he saw a ball had slipped out of the pockets of Roddick. Yes, the umpire noticed it after about a shot or two were played. Yes, the umpire could have let it slide. Yet, he called a let...and that was enough to start Roddick going off on the umpire in the most unsportsmanlike conduct I have seen at the US Open 2004 so far.

If you are still miffed at Justine Henin-Hardenne for her controversial point against Serena Williams in the French Open 2003 semi-finals, consider this...Roddick started to whine and berate against the umpire in a match that he was "leading" and was well on his way to winning as well. I mean come on, it was not like he was freakin losing...he was manhandling that kid, serving up 152 mph bombs that sometimes smacked the kid in the face or had that kid dancing away just to dodge getting hit by those serves. And yet, Roddick chose to whine.

Thank goodness he did because his power game never appealed to me, and now he has given me a legitimate reason to root against him.

What is so painful is that he is a successor to the great tennis lineage of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Well, good for us...we will never have to confuse abilities with being great human beings. The Roman helpfulness that he displayed notwithstanding, Roddick has proven once and for all to me that he is not worth my support.

Thank you Roddick for saving me my precious time..and have a happy career whining away at chair umpires while serving for the match at 6-1, 6-2, 5-3 40-0.

Good luck!

It's all in the mind silly..

You are prone to getting tickled easy? You feel pain even from the smallest of pin-pricks? You think you like to pick up soft cushy things but hate to even touch slimy creepy things?

Guess what? Its all in the mind silly.

Tests conducted on volunteers at a pain-sensation study bore out the fact that pain is all in the mind of the beholder. Subjects were first given a moderate electric shock through electrodes in their forehands and asked to assess their sensation of pain on a scale of 1 to 10.

Then the subjects were either given a pain-enhancing drug or a pain-killer, and then the test was performed again. Voila...the folks given the pain-enhancing drug felt more pain when administered the test again, whereas the folks with the pain-killers didn't feel as much pain even when the shock threshold was raised.

Guess what though...the pills were dummies...just candy of sugar and flour with vegetable coloring. It just happens the people that were given the so-called pain-enhancing drug went into the test "expecting" to feel enhanced pain and presto..they did...And the folks that expected to feel less pain ended up feeling that way.

Further proof of pain and it being just in the mind can be seen in hypnosis experiments.

Nigel Marven, host of a BBC/Discovery co-produced program on the incredible senses, was subject to what could be a potentially painful experiment - having a hollow concrete block smashed on his bare-chest with a sledgehammer, while lying down on a bed comprising of 4 swords...and he walked away from the experiment unharmed. How did he do it?

He just imagined he was swimming in a warm temperature-controlled pool on a glorious spring day..and the fact that he was not expecting to feel pain while expecting the actions, combined with his mind thinking of something pleasant and pleasurable meant he walked away from the experiment with just a small pressure-impression of a blade on his back.

So the next time you think you are more prone to be tickled than the person next door or are susceptible to pain more than your friend, just remember...its all in your mind.

Tall Decaf Cappuccino

It's 8.45 am and you are on your way to work. You stop by your favorite kiosk to pick up a local newspaper (which is alright as long as it is not an ass-wipe rag like the NY Post or the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. But then, I digress..)

Then comes the ritual of the day..paying what has become to millions of people, a homage to their favorite Starbucks store. Ritual, because Starbucks is perhaps the most glamorous seller of the world's most effective addictive/stimulant, the wonderbean called Coffee. Ritual because you are programmed (almost to a fault, you start to resemble a clock-work robot) to pick up that coffee at that point in time every working day.

More importantly a ritual because, you have formed that invisible bond with that barista who knows your order even before you have ordered it.

Reviled, ridiculed and otherwise made fun of in movies and in the press (remember Tom Hanks, You've Got Mail! - "The whole purpose of a place like Starbucks is for a man with no decision making abilities whatsoever, to have to make six decisions just to by a $2.95 cup of coffee...dark/light lowfat/nonfat caf/decaf...."). I dont care to remember the entire sequence of dialog, but it has me in side-splitting laughter whenever I see that sequence in that movie and then see that nerdy-looking guy order a "Tall decaf cappuccino" for himself :). Yet another instance of recent harmless fun was in Shrek2, when the crowd runs from one Starbucks to another, right across the street.

Which brings us to another of Starbucks quirks - the seemingly endless intent to have its franchises poach on each others customers. Case-in-point, in the neighborhood where I live, there are 8 Starbucks stores (6 of them full-fledged nothing-held-back stores). Of course its a densely populated urban area, yet having three stores in a mile-long strech makes me wonder..are they out for global domination or are they trying to make us all lazy?

Ok, so Starbucks is that giant corporation which probably rakes in millions in profits every year and maybe is from big bad Seattle. But some of my best customer service experiences in this country have been at Starbucks. And now look at the oodles of free publicity they are getting. :)

What do I order at Starbucks? Depending on my mood, a Grande Drip Coffee (especially if they have the breakfast-blend or the lightnote blend on the brew) or a Grande Latte (Hot), or a Venti Coffee Frappucino..

And yet, for all the lavishness of my praise toward Starbucks it is my second favorite coffee. Nothing can replace my special "South-Indian" filter coffee with its jolt of taste and stimulation. So much for Starbucks' promotions :)