Monthly Archives: September 2004

Cricket Classics

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The weekends cricket games were awesome. It was the first time that I was officially leading the Drexel Cricket Club, and I’m happy to report a winning percentage of 100.

Saturdays game was against UPENN, at Temple. After losing the toss, we bowled pretty well. Gave a few too many runs, but thats normal at Temple where the outfield is incredibly quick. I bowled my entire quota of 6 overs, for 2 wickets. I had two more catches dropped, and one of which was UPENN’s main batsman who was on about 40 at the time. He went on to score 81*. Anyway, we ended up needeing to chase 205 to win, in 30 overs. We managed it in 21, with nine wickets still in hand. With two batsman scoring 80’s in very quick time.

Sunday’s game was at Richard Stockton college, against them. It was a matting wicket, with a grass outfield. I did win the toss this time, and put them into field. We batted well, scoring 172 in our 30 overs. At this ground, that was a good total, seeing as how the outfield was grassy and slow. I did get to the wicket in the last three overs, ran hard, and hit a few to get us to our total. The bowling was a whole differnt story. It seemed almost too easy. We had a new opening bowler and he struck early with 4 wickets. Then our batsman who’d been our mainstay, came in and took 3 wickets in one over (clean bowling all three). He took a fourth soon, and by then the game was more than over.

It was a tiring, and busy weekend. Expensive too, since I spent a lot for the team on my account. But it was fun. And I think being busy like this enables me to forget other things that bother me. Which is what I’m striving to achieve. So looks like I’ll be keeping myself busy as much as possible over the next few weeks.

Freedom

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I’m desperate for a free weekend.

Sep 11-12: Move from I-house to Univ Crossings
Sep 18-19: Potentially three cricket games, on the heals of tons of practice
Sep 25-26: Two more cricket games and an umpiring assignment
Oct 02-03: Move again, and get settled in The Courts
Oct 09-10: Drexel Cricket tournament + friendly game

And by this time, midterms will already be upon me. The Thanksgiving break can’t come too soon. Mind you, this is only the weekends. The work week is going to be splattered with classes, DUST and the usual term-time madness.

Odds and Ends

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My absence here has been mostly due to not having more than a few minutes for myself over the last few weeks. Cricket season seems to have come with a bang, and has taken up so much of my time. I’m glad for it. In the two weekend games I had figures of 3-30 in 6, and 1-4 in 4. I’m pretty pleased. Not with the end results of the games though.

Living out of boxes and suitcases is not for me. Especially if it my entire life. I can handle the planned trip, where I pack everything I need and take it with me. But packing everything I own and taking that everywhere I go is extremely cumbersome. Another 10 days of that, then I’ve got to move again, and settle down for another 9 months. As much as I love to travel and see new places, I despise this nomadic life-style.

A few things I wanted to note down earlier, but never did involved:
1) A conversation I overheard between a hair-dresser and a very-obviously republican customer. Parts of it made me laugh, and other parts angry enough to make me want to smack that fellow in the back of the head. The only thing that kept me in my chair was the pretty hair-dresser cutting my hair.
2) Some thoughts about the BCCI-ESPN Start-Zee TV tussle going on. This is very obviously a case of prices being inflated way beyond what the market can handle. My forecast is that sooner, rather than later, just like any other market in this situation, there is going to be a crash. And who will suffer? The hard-core cricket enthusiast such as myself.

I had a lot more to say about all of this, but I can’t remember the mental outline I had made up for the entries.

Cricket Time

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If the weather holds off, and we play well, there ought to be 3 cricket games this weekend. I’m looking forward to it!

But who ever thought that just running a club can get so hectic. Even with Sameer and myself splitting the work load, it is hard to remember everything that there is to do. Trying to participate in 2 tournaments and plan a third one simultaneouly isn’t easy. E-mails and phone calls have been flying back on forth at such high speeds. How did anything ever get done in the old days, where instant communication was a myth?

First Stage

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I’ve moved out of the I-House and into a friends place. Now I suffer here for 3 weeks, living out of suitcases and boxes. I can’t wait for October, althought the prospect of having to move again isn’t pleasant, atleast I’ll be done after that.

And it goes on…

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It’s been an off couple of days. I’ve been pretty busy – the slack at work has picked up again, I’ve been packing for my two imminent moves, meeting old friends, making new ones, organising cricket games, and winning ping-pong tournaments.

Thats right! Hao and I are the Pong ’04 Champions, defeating Bill and Binoy 3 games to 1. Thats $30 in my pockets, which feels very good. The weekend is going to be pretty busy too, with a game against Temple U. tomorrow and doing the actual moving on Saturday and Sunday.

There have been tons of thoughts I want to put down here, mostly either relating to the American election or Indian sports. Maybe I’ll have time next week.

Janmashtami

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According to the Hindu religious calendar, September 07, 2004 is Janmashtami or Krsna (Krishna) Jayanthi. Outlook India has an article that dates the birth of Lord Krishna to July 21, 3228 BC. Funnily, this is only 7 days away from my own birthday. It is not all that much of a coincidence, I know, but it still gives me a stronger feeling of spirituality and connection.

Quote from the article: Krishna was born in the Rohini nakshatra, in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, on the 8th day of the waning moon at midnight. Working backward from Krishna’s date of death drawn from the Shrimad Bhagwat, the Vishnu Puranas and the Mahabharata, July 21, 3228 BC satisfies all conditions of Krishna’s birth.

I’ve always contended that I’m not much of a religious person, but I’ve also maintained that it’s only because I’ve not had the time (or not given myself the time) to explore religion. But I have, in the last few years, learnt a lot more about various world religions. I guess the time is opportune to explore my own religious feelings a little more.

Too Much Blue

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Anyone reading this is requested to peruse through the site (there isn’t really much to peruse…) and comment on whether they think I’ve over-used blue in the design. Other comments/suggestions are welcome.

More changes to the site

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Because of Sameers incessant whining, I’ve made changes to the website, such that it should display fine on monitors with resolutions as low at 800 pixels wide. Also did some general houskeeping, in my effort to build/maintain the site decently. I’ve also added links to blogs/personal websites of friends, who either update often or I’m hoping will update often. All this, when I should be studying for a Corporate Finance final that I have tomorrow.

The site has been tested in both MSIE/6.0 and Mozilla/5.0. It reads better in Mozilla, which ofcourse comfirms better to the W3C standards. I recomend everyone use Firefox!