Sport vs. Entertainment

Many many years ago during a world cup cricket game, I was in a heated argument with my dad that the game was fixed. There was no explanation for what we saw on the screen including the "thiruttu muzhi" of Azharuddin which was there for everyone to see. He did not even do a good job of faking regret at losing a very easy catch. My father, a die hard fan of cricket and countrymen did not agree. In fact we did not speak for a few hours after that argument. 

Years later, I was proved right when the whole match fixing scandal came to light and that very game was included in the list of games that was fixed. While it felt like vindication, I had stopped watching cricket. Occasionally I would come back and catch something that was genuine or go to Youtube and watch recorded videos of some truly great bowling or batting performances where you knew the chances of it being rigged were low or none. This was mostly limited to watching a select few videos which I can pretty much list here :

Sehwag and Tendulkar hitting double hundreds in ODI's

Sehwag's 195 against Australia

Sachin and Sehwag in the 2003 Durban World cup match against Pakistan

Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram bowling reverse swing and deadly yorkers on infinite loop

Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh getting batsman out clean bowled 

Shane Warne and Muthaih Muralidharan at their great moments

The occasional Benson and Hedges games in Australia and the ICC games also in Australia which bring back old memories from my middle and high school.

But, to be honest .. mostly Waqar Younis and the yorkers. 

Money or not, no one could have played those balls even if they were offered a jillion dollars.

That said, I stopped watching football for a different reason. Everytime I watched, my favorite teams lost. It was a superstition of sorts that would make any statistician jump up. Even San decided it was best for me to not watch any game that involved our favorite team(s). It was also because I thought the football games were rigged as well. Where there is money involved there is corruption and if Cricket can have that level of deceit, I concluded "what chance did football have?". Was told many times by my friends that "No, football is above all that."

Today I got to watch the second half of the Niners game with Seattle. I could not help think that it was rigged! It was just a feeeling, after watching the player's and coach's body language as well as some of the calls made by the referees with today's abiilty to do high tech action replays. 

Today my folks in India tell me "we now know it is all fixed. We just watch it for pure entertainment! There is no sports in it anymore!" 

So if there is a match fixing scandal that breaks loose 5-10 years from now and this match gets mentioned.. this time I am putting it on the record! 

Just saying..

What is in a resolution?

Last years resolution was to go do Bikram Yoga once a day! Within a few days the resolution had been given an amendment that said "exclusing travel days" and that meant the goal went down from 365 already.

The plan was to also document how this resoluton was taking shape over time in hopes of seeing trends. It is very hard to kill my inner nerd! 

There was also something else at stake. Made a deal with Sangeetha that if we paid for a "one year unlimited" pass, will get at least 8$ or less a class to justify the pass. That was the lowest cost on any deal with BYSJ in the previous years when you bought class cards based on number of classes (like a 30 class card or 100 class card). If If I did better than $8/class, it would warrant buying the same thing for 2014!

So between 12/26/12 and 12/26/13 here is what happened..

56% attendance, far from the 100 dream. There were 80 travel days. That still makes it 68% attendane.

The green line shows number of classes without a break. It was great going with the 60 day challenge at the beginning of the year and then it was always a break here or there. 

Looks like that funny graph on exercise patterns that criculated in Facebook, doesn't it? Well most of September and early October was a rout because of the misdiagnosed tooth infection and Jaw locking which ended up pretty badly. Made it a point to get back in the hot room in November all weak after taking powerful antibiotics.  

Also started tracking how many complete poses I sat out in each class because of feeling dizzy, nauseous or for losing my breath or not being able to control my heartrate. There are 26 poses in class. So technically, 26 is like missing an entire class. I had missed the equivalent of almost 6 classes out of the 194 just by sitting out. There are trends within this by teacher, by time of class, by number of people in the room, etc. But that is not going up in the blog.

To say I like all my teachers classes the same, would not be fair. Definitely have my favorites, but this list is not represenative of that. It just reflects times of day I happened to take classes at on certain days of the week.

Somehow the teachers who have themselves gone through some adversity and have used Bikram Yoga to change their lifes appeal to me more than the ones that have been lucky enough to discover Yoga in their teens!

Also recorded my weight after coming home from yoga class. There is definitely a trend there between summer and winter and it will be interesting to see how this goes on continued tracking. Weighed myself only on days of Yoga class and that is why it is not a smooth line. The weight is stable no matter how much I eat and that says a lot about Yoga and "weight control"!

Last but not least, the Sangeetha challenge..

This graph is 950$ / number of classes as the number of classes increased. In other words, if I had been hit by a truck after class 1, it would have been one expensive class!  I got it down to $4.90/class which was way better than the goal of $8/class. 

All is well that ends well or has a new beginning. In this case it is a new beginning. Got the next one year annual unlimited pass started as of today! 

Now if you are wondering if Bikram Yoga made a difference for me in 2013, the answer is an emphatic yes. I had less than 5 sick days in the last year (minus the tooth episode, which could have been fixed with a visit to a good dentist in a day) and inspite of all that travel, managed to keep my sanity and was able to get back on my feet fast. 

There is one complaint from San all the time and that is "If you do Yoga why are you getting angry?". As far as I have checked, there is nothing that says people who do yoga cannot get angry. I can go from zero to angry in 4 seconds, but I can also come back from angry to zero in the same 4 seconds. That is the only difference after doing Yoga and that is a big deal! I am able to go on long hikes with ease and in general my ability to handle difficult situations has not become any worse. So all that credit goes to Yoga.

Wish me luck in bettering last year's attempt!

A visit to the Melbourne Zoo

One of the first spots we visited as a group in Melbourne was the Zoo. With 5 little kids in the group of 13, it was the obvious first choice for the kids.

I have visited the same zoo 10 years ago with my FIL and Jr. on a cold May winter day in Australia and the Animals did not come out. This time being summer, they were all out!

The day started off with some doubts as it was raining heavily, but the forecast said "cloudy and clear skies" for the later part of the day. We took a chance and went into the Zoo when it was still raining heavily. The weathermen were almost right. There was an occasional drizzle or two but for the most part, no downpours.

Got to capture the native animals including a baby elephant which had just been born, a baby kangaroo that was recently born and a couple of Wombats that came out.

There were no Kiwi's in the Zoo that we could see, but caught three Emu's! We had to go to a special place another day to see Kiwi's. There was no photography allowed there, but the sight of those Kiwi birds feeding will stay with us forever. It is a shame that we make creatures go to the brink of extinction!

Caught the elephants kissing and wanted to go give them some advice. "It starts off as a harmless kiss and before you know it, you have a 300 pound baby that you have to deal with!" 

Then I saw the baby play and thought that the advice would have been a very bad one. 

The baby elephant is adorable! The kids simply did not want to leave the place.

We then met the reason we went to the Zoo in the first place. See the Kangaroo's and Koala's. 

The baby Joey is large, but it squeezes itself into its mother's pouch every 5 minutes or so or when the noise level of the kids gets too high. 

The Koalas are not that big. They look larger than life in pictures, but in reality are quite small. 

They also have a fantastic lion enclosure that is large enough to make it look like a safari! Got a lot of pictures which are in the galleries in this website but here are a few I love the most..

The one below needs some editing to get rid of edge fringes. Should be called "Portrait of a Lion"!

Where they have lions, you expect to see Tigers. We saw one Tiger and the kids guess after seeing it pace up and down was "It must have constipation!" 

This thing that looks like a cross between a bear and a pig is a "wombat"!

Now for the other animals not so specific to Australia that were very Photogenic!

Could not resist a black and white shot of the Zebra!

and finally, the Oranguatans that were in a very playful mood.

It was a yawn!

If you happen to go to Melbourne in summer, this is the place to be if you want to entertain your kids! Gorgeously set up zoo with lots of rest rooms, comfortable stop areas where you can eat in the shade, nice directions , minimal walking to see the most animals so the kids and older folks do not tire out so easily.. I can go on, but was a world class Zoo.

One of the best we have visited to date!