Welcome to the Hotel California... Part 3

The next day we set off to Mystery spot, a nice mysterious place located near Santa Cruz. It was a 1 hour drive through hilly winding roads with nice picturesque sceneries and amazing roads - all of which I had captured on the cam. Mystery spot is a hilly area where gravity laws are defied - no perfect scientifc explanation has been given so far. A person taller than me appeared shorter than me and I could walk slantingly etc etc. It was a nice experience, I did take the photos and the video. When we returned, I was all tired and sis took me to a nice mexican restaurant - Chipotle's. Nice tacos stuffed with Black beans, Guacomela sauce (again the spelling!!) and also some rice item with corn, sauce, beans etc filled my tummy - my GOD that was a meal! I have to take Deepthi to such restaurant some day - she will enjoy it a lot.

I had a nice dinner and set back on the return journey, only to learn at the Oakland airport that the pilot had not turned up!!! After listening to my complaint that my first ever trip within US was being ruined, the United guy offered me a direct flight trip from San Francisco till Philly the next day morning along with accommodation in a nice hotel called Westin. The hotel was good, but the experience was unwanted. I had to take time off on monday and probably will have to compensate by working on a saturday. Neways, that was about the journey. It was great and I am all tired. I returned to my hotel to find my Dell Lappy delivered :-)! I love it!

Welcome to the Hotel California... Continued

We set off to San Francisco on train. I captured the train journey on the handycam. Nice journey with a 15 minute travel over the pacific bay. we got onto a tram in San Francisco - looks like the trams are a trademark of the city. I captured even that on my cam. Then we reached the 'Fishermen's wharf' from where we set on a Bay cruise that took us through the bay area of the pacific ocean around the golden gate bridge - that is a historical bridge which had opened up trade in San Francisco some centuries ago. The boat then took us through the Alcatraz - which is an island in the ocean. Alcatraz is a prison where dangerous criminals are jailed. It is next to impossible to escape from the prison because of the security there and also because noone can swim 1.5 miles through the cold water to reach the city. Only 2 tried to escape long time ago, one of whom died and the other only survived bcos he was captured by the coast guards.

Then, we spent the entire day walking through the streets of San Francisco - we visited Madame Tussaud's museum over there. The wax idols there were not exact replicas - not the quality ones they have in London and Los Angeles - but they were good all the same. Srikanth took a picture of mine with Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Salma Hayek, Marilyn Monroe and Angelina Jolie. We bought some ghirardeli's chocolates (did I spell it right?!) and set back to Fremont. It was a tiresome night and I had a good night's sleep. Ankith was in a good mood and sang danced for several rhymes he has been learning nowadays.

Welcome to the Hotel California...

Hi,

I had been to California over the weekend. It was a long journey - a 6 hour long flight and another 1 hour long flight. United was the airlines I flew by. the operations were bad, I had to run for the connecting flight in Los Angeles with a transit time of 15 minutes only to learn that it has been delayed. And the gate number had been changed 3 times, before they finally flew us through a small flight where even the cockpit was visible to the passengers. The good thing was I met a Japanese guy there who started talking about India. I was wearing a kurta that time and he said it was looking good. He asked me for all the info about India - where do you find the people with turbans, where do you find those guys in mela doing all the tricks with fire, ropes etc. I had to tell him that the cities do not have such population. He was even interested in meeting fakirs. I was amazed at the knowledge he has on the Indian culture, but had to correct him several times of the perception he has. He was so afraid of catching flu over there, etc etc.

The air hostess in the first flight was a 50+ year old lady :(, but she had nice sense of humour which made the travel enjoyable. I got down at Oakland airport to find Srikanth, my brother in law waiting for me. I cannot tell you how happy I felt that time. Here I am in an alien country and for more than a month have not met a relative in person. It was really a great moment to see him and we headed straight to fremont. Fremont was a nice city with a fine weather and wonderful residential localities. I found my sister's residence beautiful. Ankith, my nephew was sleeping and my sis gave me some nice home made chapatis to satiate my hunger. I had a nice sleep. I woke up in the morning and had nice andhra food cooked my sis - rice, donda kaaya curry and mamidikaaya pappu. It was gr8!!!

American Gangster

Hi,

I have been to a theater for the first time in USA and luckily I have chosen a wonderful movie with 2 great actors and a nice script. We had booked the tickets online and picked them up from the kiosk at the theater - nothing different from PVR or INOX or IMAX theaters in India. The corridor we had to pass through to go to the Audi was not that great and there was nothing to buy - at least I did not come across any pop corn stall or anything like that. Probably bcos it was 10 30 in the night, all of them were closed. You will feel, there is better night life in India than in USA - of course NY, Las Vegas, LA and all have amazing night life here. But, in general, US guys' concept of working is 8 AM to 5 PM and go to bed by 10 PM or so. But, one thing to be noted here is - the staff that greets you always has a lot of energy. The guy who checked our tickets - wished us good evening and showed us the way and waved saying, "I hope you enjoy the movie!" This gives you a good feel.

The inside of the theater was very much similar to PVR or INOX, probably they are better. Bcos it was a night show, there were only some 10-15 guys in the theater all stretching their legs on the seats in front.

Now, coming to the movie, the movie starts at a slow pace with a typical screenplay of a gangster movie. There are hints of the affect of 'God Father' on the screenplay. But, Denzel Washington is one great actor. He completely got into the character of Frank Lucas. Russel Crowe on the other hand, played in a very subdues role, which is very admirable considering the fact that he is a great actor too. He basically lets Denzel run the show and Denzel has no problems with it. Some people may not like the screenplay that much and also - maybe the end. But this is a real life story, so I think the screenplay does justice to it. You tend to appreciate the business mindedness of Frank Lucas. He basically manages his supply chain so well to make millions. In all, it is a great movie and Denzel was superb. Don't miss it!

Bidding site

Hi,

This time I visited a Free gifts link. This is a link where 'after you become a member' you can play a simple game to win the Sweepstake. The game is pretty simple even for a first time user. The lowest 'unique' number entered will win the Cash prize. You may enter 0. But if another person enters 0, it is no longer unique. Quite an interesting game.

I like their billing method. The membership fee will be deducted in your mobile bill. Well, I really do't know how safe it is to give away such rights to such websites. In any case, people in US who are used to the casino culture may not find it that tough.

The membership fee is a bit costly. But, overall I like the UI design and the simplicity of the game :-)

Insurance site

Hi,

I was going through a life insurance link this time. Well, since I am in USA currently on business purpose, I thought I should choose one here. The site is decently user friendly but there is too much text for a first time user to go through. There is a form on the right hand side which when you fill out gives your insurance quote, but the website design needs a lot of work to make it "user-friendly".

I was once discussing the concept of structured data with a product manager at a reputed website company in India. You basically structure the data so that the search can be done in an organized fashion and also a first time user of the website knows where he needs to go for the information relevant to him/her. The above link may take a hint from this concept and add some structure to the data on their website.

The resultant page will be something where a user enters the site, you ask him/her a set of questions - What are you looking for? What is your age? Would you want to choose A or B and then at the end display the specific information that best matches the interests of the user. Well, just an idea and makes a lot of sense for insurance websites like this one. They do the same at the call centers to optimise the time a caller spends while trying to get assistance from their call center. Why not do the same on the websites to make the user's time spent more valuable?

Blogsvertise

Hi,

I like the title Blogsvertise chosen by this link. Although there is not much creativity involved - It is made from the two words - Blogs and Advertise - it conveys the meaning easily to anyone who hears of it for the first time. Although the site offers monetary benefits to the bloggers, they need to publicise their business in a much better manner. Basically, whosoever likes to earn money through this site should feel it is happening in a systematic manner and doesn't play around with the terms and conditions of the blog server they are using.

Neways, I have taken the task of going through some random websites and writing my reviews about them. How do you like the idea?

Cracker of a cricket match

Hi,

If an American finds the news of India winning a world cricket tournament interesting and sends a congratulation mail to his Indian colleagues, I am sure you should accept that Twenty20, the new format of cricket started with the same purpose, has been successful. I spoke to my American manager and he was all inquisitive about the kind of effect India-Pakistan matches have on the cricket fans. I am sure, I have sold the concept of cricket to him. All praise should go to ICC for introducing the format that binds people to the game.

Now coming to the match, I am a big believer in body language and other psychological factors that affect the result of a game, and since the toss, I could see that India, though nervous, had the belief that this was going to be their day. The way Dhoni spoke immediately after the toss showed that even 'captain courageous' could get nervous, but something in his voice conveyed that they were going to pull it through. Shoaib Malik tried to put on a casual tone dismissing any pressure India-Pakistan match can have on his team, but the tension that he had beneath the surface was evident.

India did not have the best of the starts, but Indian batsmen have matured in the way they are handling innings. They are no longer giving any importance to reputations and are believing in the age old wisdom of building partnerships. The partnership between Yuvraj and Gambhir was actually a good one. Though Yuvraj did not fire, Gambhir kept going and made sure that India had a good platform for a decent score. Rohit Sharma utilised this platform to push the scoreboard just beyond a respectable score. While Gambhir controlled his risky shots, Rohit Sharma impressed everyone with his cool head.

With the runs on the board, Dhoni's men always believed they had a chance and applied pressure the way they had done in the previous matches. After Azharuddin, I feel Dhoni is the only captain who has succeeded in pressurizing the opponent teams. I am not saying anything against Saurav or Dravid - they both were excellent captains, but their captaincy styles were different. Saurav and Dravid lead their teams by setting an example whereas Dhoni's style is that of bringing the best out of his mates and making the right tactical moves to put pressure on the opponent team.

Anyways, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan took crucial wickets for India and the match was almost over before Misbah showed some real guts. Again it was Irfan and RP that pulled back the game with 2 important wickets. Dhoni's decision to give the ball to Joginder Sharma in the final over can be debated till the end of this milennium but the only thing the decision shows is 'Dhoni knows tactics'. It definitely was a surprise for Misbah and he was tempted to go for an uncoventional shot and failed miserably.

The post match euphoria was evident the most in Harbhajan Singh's actions. The way he was shouting and the way he was jumping and dancing just showed how much the victory meant to India. The last catch taken by Sreesanth set the nation on fire. Deepthi and I could not believe it for a second, particularly after witnessing Misbah's batting, and we both were jumping for the next 5 minutes. The tournament has costed me a lot of mobile bill, as I was constantly on phone with my Dad and Vivek Chauhan discussing every wicket, every sixer. Never in my life have I enjoyed a cricket tournament this much. Hope to see more of such tournaments and more wins for India. Chak De...

Indians get past the chokers

Hi,

I liked Sunil Gavasakar's song at the end of the Thursday match between India and South Africa - 'Chak De, Chak De India! Choke De Choke De South Africa!'

So very true. India batted like men and bowled superbly (except for the umpteen wides given away) and fielded like lions and made sure there was no chance they could not qualify. South Africa never ever believed they could even qualify to the semis (let alone winning against India).

The comment made by Dhoni, "The team believed that they can beat SA even on a pitch as tough as the Kingsmead's and the belief got them through" and the comment made by Shastri, "SA have always looked at the figure 126 rather than the figure 154 and believed that there was a possibility of them getting knocked out. That belief did them in" sum up the mood in the two camps.

I also liked the comment made by Graeme Smith, "We seem to be inventing ways to get ourselves knocked out of World Cup tournaments". I actually felt sympathetic towards the SA camp when they started panicking to qualify for the semi finals. But at the end of it, there is just one statement you can make. THEY DID NOT DESERVE A SEMI FINAL BERTH.

I had watched all the world cup exits of SA:
1. 1992 - Only their 1999 exit was as tragic as the 1992 one. In the semi final encounter against England, their target was revised from 22 runs to win in 13 balls to 22 runs to win in 1 ball - by a stupid rain rule.
2. 1996 - SA having won all their league matches was on a song only to face wounded Windies in the quarter finals. West Indies, having suffered a humiliating loss in the hands of the Kenyans, gave it all they had to defeat the South Africans. Lara's 111 in the match was a world class innings.
3. 1999 - The tragic exit where SA almost scraped it through with Klusener in deadly form. His 2 boundaries off the first 2 balls of the last over just rocketed past the fielders who stood helpless and then Aussies tightened the field to get Donald run out and a first ever tie in a semi final match in the World Cup took Aussies through because they were rated better than SA in the Super Six stage.
4. 2003 - None was as stupid as the 2003 exit where they mis-read the Duckworth Lewis system and ended up with a tie (which knocked them out). Boucher playing a defensive shot off the last ball will make him grimace at himself every morning when he wakes up from sleep.

True that the players' psyche gets affected due to such losses. But the fact remains - If they can't play under pressure they can't win the world cup.

A match to learn from

Hi,

The India Vs New Zealand match in the Super Eights was a match for the Indian cricketers to learn from their mistakes. Firstly, Dhoni has to realise that Agarkar is not the best bowler to be reserved for the final overs. I understand that during the early overs, he is getting tempted to use the spinners and other slow bowlers which is leaving him with Agarkar as the only option towards the end. But in this match, Dhoni had 2 overs of Pathan left and still he opted for Agarkar.

My sympathies are with Dhoni because he expected him to bowl with the same economy after yielding somewhere around 15 runs in his first 2 overs. Same with Yuvraj. Yuvraj is a kind of bowler who can be given only 1 or 2 overs just to break partnerships. He cannot bowl better than that. The batting lacked the maturity after an explosive start given by the openers. Batsmen just had to stay there to get runs, but they panicked.

And Dinesh Karthik was a culprit in the match. He had dropped the catch of Jacob Oram when New Zealand were batting. Then, he got Dhoni run out and he himself tried to hit too much off Vittori who was bowling amazingly well that too the immediate ball after he got dropped (the last ball of Vittori's spell) - he committed too many blunders and looks like he is praised by everyone because he looks athletic. True he looks athletic and saves some runs in the field once in a while, but he lacks some basic skills to play longer for India. Let us hope he learns soon and the team too learns after its mistakes in the match.