jealous

Monday night and what did i do? I hung out with Kev and Tai in their apartment and then we all went over to Etch's place to see his new condo. Man, it's so cool to live downtown and definitely awesome to be around everything and all your buddies. My time will come and my plans for the future are going in a certain direction so I have to steer clear to that path but dang, seeing their places totally makes me wanna be down there too. Etch, you condo is awesome dude! Definitely gonna look awesome when you're done. I'm totally stoked to see how you set it up. I think it's gonna be great. The bed frame looks slick too man.

Oh to live downtown. Wouldn't that be nice? Some day I will have that chance. Everything happens when it needs to and my plans will come together nicely when they are destined.

Speaks of plans coming together, shoutouts go out to Ruth who is embarking on a life changing journey in Uganda. She left Toronto last Friday and is currently in training in BC. She'll be headed to Uganda soon and is working on a number of projects. The quick and dirty explanation is as follows. She'll be "assessing villagers habits and routines with respect to providing them with daily sustenance and developing existing projects or creating new projects that deal with increasing their nutritional intake." Definitely something I'll learn more about as the days, weeks, months go by. Ruth - I'm really proud of you doing this and think it's an awesome endeavour. Best of luck for a fun and safe journey!

Good night all...

Athletic Prowess

I used to be a guy that could play just about any sport and do relatively well. Lately, I'm finding that my athletic prowess just isn't the same as it used to be. I played squash with Sach yesterday and got my ass kicked. Mind you, I haven't played squash in close to 2 years and Sach plays monthly but damn, I really sucked. Then, over the past few weeks I've played tennis from time to time with Kdot or Ashwat and both times they beat me. Not handily but my serving was sucking and there was just no consistency. I'm sure that the next time I play basketball, I will suck too. And hockey as well. This past summer, I played LOTS of vball and know that my game is improving there but man, I still can't spike well. And I'm pretty sure my dragonboat stroke regressed as the season went on. I ran twice last week. Monday was awesome - I felt like I could go for hours. Friday however was a different story - I ran the same route but I was dead so much quicker. Not sure what happened.

So, what's the reason for all this? Probably the fact that I'm out of shape. I have my days but most of the time - man, I need some work. Time to change up the routine and start to actually do something cause I can't keep going like this. Just not satisfying at all.

In other news regarding bettering myself - Etch, Kris and I went to the David Bach personal finance seminar last week. It was pretty good to listen to and definitely interesting to hear what he had to say. At times though, it was a little over the top - as if the guy is some musical superstar or something. The big takeaway though was that all of the stuff he said is so basic. It's stuff we should be doing without any question. I am part way there. Just gotta work on my RRSP some more and actually invest it properly.

In other news, Etch officially lives downtown now. Last night was his first sleep in the new condo. Congrats Bro!!! That is wicked.

So, I've been growing a beard for the past week. It looks ok. I like it at times but not so much at other times. I try to trim it with my razor but man, that is difficult - I think I gots to get a trimmer if I wanna keep it longer. It's probably going soon though cause I can't really go and see any customers with this wonderful accesory. On Saturday, my mom did say "you know, it actually looks okay". That's after she's been seeing it for about 6 days so maybe she was just getting used to it.

Ravo is in India right now and I was just catching up on his blog. Man, I am jealous of his experiences working there. It sounds so great and it would be awesome to be so close to family and have the opportunity to learn so much about our culture. Some day maybe that'll be me...

Long Overdue

I keep putting this off and now finally, without further adiou (spelling?) I will write about the last 10 days. Where do I begin? First of - last weekend was the LAST dragonboat race of the year. My team, the Komodo Dragons finished 4th in the C Final - so we were something like 23rd overall out of about 150 teams. I guess that was good overall. Dang rules of the stupid race though. We were the second fastest team in the C division (by 100ths of a second) but we ended up seeded 4th in the C final race cause we finished 2nd in our qualifying race. As a result, we were in one of the slowest lanes (lanes 4) and got screwed and finished 4th. So, the season is done for another year. Wow - it was quite a long series but overall, I'd say that we were pretty happy with our results. Definitely improved and got more competitive this year.

Last weekend was also Sachin and Medini's wedding reception which was loads of fun. Good times for sure and it was great to hear Backbone during the dance - definitely a staple at Marathi weddings. Great job MC-ing Reva and Sonu. Good time for sure. Defintiely hurting the following morning when I had to get up early and head back to my races.

The week went by - my first 5 day work week in almost 2 monthes. Totally weird. I just took many Fridays or Mondays so I had tonnes of long weekends this summer. It was definitely a blast. But wow, last week felt like it went on for SSSOOOO long, man oh man.

Friday night was a potluck for Tai's birthday which was a lot of fun. Tonnes of peeps came out and we had so much food - actually I still have lots of leftovers from my 2 dishes in the fridge. It was probably the first time that Goks Guacamole was leftover. I think cause there was dualing guac this time around. And the Blind Taste test says...? Tai, hope you like the ice cream maker. Definitely a fun gift. We'll have to come by when you perfect the method and recipes. I'm looking forward to it.

Today, played tennis with Ketan. He beat me. I sucked today. Couldn't serve worth $hit. Man, I gotta work on my game. I think I need a new racquet. Or I at least gotta get rid of my ratty hot pink grip tape that is no longer grippy. Not at all.

This evening, I went to the Leafs - Senators Preseason Hockey game. I got tickets from work and we were sitting in the Platinums. 7 rows from the Ottawa bench. It was pretty awesome. Totally cool to be so close and hear everything going on and see just how big and fast those guys really are. We were sitting two rows behind the newest Canadian Idol and the runner up. I had no idea who they were but then, they were put on the big screen with their names written. Actually, come to think of it - before the game started, when we were just sitting around waiting and watching the pregame. They were playing Roxanne and other songs on the stereo system in the ACC. Both of the "idolists" were singing along really loud and I remember thinking " wow, those guys are off key - who do they think they are?" Now, I'm not any Andrea Bocelli or anything but I thought that was quite amusing.

There you go, now your caught up.
Talk soon...

WOW

I just watched the Andre Agassi vs. James Blake quarterfinal US Open match. WOW - that was an AWESOME match. Blake won the first 2 sets 6-3, 6-3 and then Agassi stormed back and one the next 2 sets 6-3, 6-3. The fifth and final set went to a tie brake and Agassi finally won it 8 - 6 so he won the match 3 sets to 2. It was so incredible to watch. Point after point were just grueling. It ended at 1:15 am in the morning and over 3/4 of the crowd were still in the stadium in New York. It was totally unbelievable. Both Agassi and Blake were so tired and gracious in the post game interviews too. Totally poised. It was incredible to see.

Incidentally, James Blake has been a truly remarkable story throughout this US Open. He beat highly ranked Rafael Nadal in the Quarterfinals. However, in the past year and a bit, he suffered an almost career ending injury where he broke his neck after ramming into the net pole while diving for a ball. Then, while he was recovering, his father passed away and finally, he had this debilitating virus that was taking away all of his energy.

Tennis is truly an awesome sport. I totally wanna play more and get better. Let's see if that happens. First off, I think I gotta re-grip my racquet and get rid of that pink ish that I've got on it right now.

The end is here

And just like that, summer is over. Tomorrow the traffic starts again in full force. Everyone will be back to school and back to work. No more lazy summer. This past weekend, I took Thursday afternoon and all day Friday off so I had a wonderful 4.5 day vacation. I went to Darien Lake with some friends (just outside of Buffalo) for the Coldplay concert on Thursday night. It was a GREAT show. I'm not a huge fan of the band and don't know all of their music but damn, it was awesome and everything sounded so close to CD quality - that was definitely a treat. The only downside was this one ANNOYING couple. Every few minutes, they would let out this scream that was utterly disgusting. I'm sure I lost some hearing capabilities in my righ ear. The chick especially was terrible - such a shrilly yell - it was so annoying.

I watched a bunch of movies this weekend and they were all quite different.
1. Napolean Dynamite - actually, I didn't watch the whole thing but from what I did see - all I kept thinking was "what is the deal with this movie? why does everyone love it?" I just don't think that i get it.
2. Mad Hot Ballroom - AWESOME and so CUTE. watching little 11 and 12 year olds from NYC learning how to ballroom dance was really a treat and totally entertaining. The kids were so funny especiallly when talking off the cuff for the camera.
3. The Ring 2 - first of all, I HATE HORROR MOVIES. I am the BIGGEST WIMP IN THE WORLD. I was somehow convinced to watch this movie with some of my closest friends Ashwat, Kdot and Raquel). Needless to say, I watched it and I wasn't actually that scared. My buddies told me though that the first one was totally crazy and spooky. I was especting that about this one but it just didn't live up to the hype. Probably a good thing for me though.
4. The Original Kings of Comedy - Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer and the gang do standup routines in Charlotte, NC. Totally going for the black vs. white humour which was absolutely hilarious.

Today, I played nearly 4 hours of beach vball at Ashbridges and now, I am quite tired and sore. Tomorrow, I've got DB practice and our final race of the year is next weekend (Sept 10-11) at Ontario Place so I'm sure it'll be a tough practice.

Guess it's time for bed.
Gotta actually get up early tomorrow.
:o(

The lowest of the low

This morning on the news, I heard that conditions in New Orleans are definitely not getting better at all. In fact, they will only get worse. No water. No food. No shelter. No sewage treatment. No hope. But there is something going around...

#$%$@#$))%##$$ ASSHOLES!!!

That's right. Organized gangs of looters are now going around and robbing people at gunpoint. They are actually going into people's homes and stealing from them. Also, they are stopping delivery trucks with supplies for the needy and stealing from them too. This is absolutely ludacris! Apparently several of these "gangs" are using guns they already had and ones they've looted from stores. Walmart in fact has been ransacked and all the guns that they sell have been taken. Maybe the US will start thinking twice about their gun control laws.

Anyway, I really hope that authorities and emergency personnel can do their job. It's really scary to think that they are up against this idiocy in addition to the natural disaster they are trying to cope with. Apparently it'll take at least a month to get the water out of New Orleans and a month at minimum to let people back into their homes (or whatever is left of them).

Donating money is pretty much the only thing I can do from this vantage point so that will be my contribution. I hope that as many as possible are saved...

Old Skool Reunion

So, I just saw a guy tonight that I havne't seen since (we think) Grade 3. That is about 19 years by my calculations. Crazyness for sure. His name is Jigar and he used to live close to me. We were in JK, SK and Grade 1 together. I don't remember Grade 2 and then he left the school in Grade 3. We reconnected through Friendster last year. And have been messaging since cause he lives in Scottsdale, Arizona and was doing a lot of travel for work (but not to all the glamourous places that I get to go to). Actually, I think it's kinda the opposite...

In any case, he know works for the same company as me in a Healthcare Consulting role and we now know many of the same people which is hilarious. It was totally good to reconnect with him tonight. Completely out of the blue.

I think I may try to head out to Arizona at some point this Fall or Winter - it seems like it is quite beautiful out that way and there will definitely be tonnes of outdoors stuff to do.

I'm out. Gotta rest up for a busy weekend.
And I can't wait cause it's an EXTRA long one for me this time around...

p.s. One last thing - all the looters in New Orleans and the surrounding area should be hung. They are absolutely scum of the earth preying on people when they are down. Actually, i'll qualify this. People who are stealing water and food for survival - i can sympathize with for sure. But those @#@$#@!@##%$@!#$#@!$! that are taking TV's, jewllery, clothes, furniture, etc - WHAT THE HECK FOR??? Also, if you are able bodied enough to carry around all that, why don't you actually go and try and save/help people who are stranded or who have experienced some trauma.