for the weirdest of all reasons, i woke up at 4 in the morning on a Sunday, probably the first time in my life and this may not occur for the next 112 years like the solar eclipse. After browsing the regular sites to keep myself updated on all the important status updates of my friends in facebook and twitter (which by the way is more important these days than the news in new york times) , i realized while everyones sleeping their ass off, am awake and counting each second pass by. With no regrets of waking up so early, i moved my ass to the bean bag and slipped in the FRIENDS DVD. After couple of episodes, i din't want to slip this once in a blue moon opportunity of having breakfast in Subway. Anddd whyyy is it once in a blue moon?..damn it. they don't serve breakfast after 11, which is when i wake up normally on Sundays.
Listening to Bryan Adams (the music is growing on me) , i was driving as slow as possible to kill time and increase the possibilities of Subway being open when i get there . As i parked my car, i noticed it was open. Now i can peacefully shut my engine off. With not too many choices in the breakfast menu ( bf in subway started recently in Hyderabad), i ordered the western egg n cheese on a parmesan oregano. While the kitchen and the table were getting set, i read each and every thing written inside the restaurant. I had nothing else to do but to scroll my blackberry wheel a few times in either direction checking if the president of united states had called. He obviously didn't. One of the many things i read in subway was "ten reasons why one should eat at subway". i now have one reason why we shouldn't. the service sucked. Recollecting some of my memories of sunday morning breakfasts in hoboken after hanging out with friends on late saturday night, i couldn't stop myself from comparing this one with those in hoboken. Pretty much everything was same. The lazy morning feeling, egg n cheese, hot coffee, people jogging etc. One thing for sure was different. The telugu songs from the FM channel in Subway. It sure didn't go well with egg n cheese. Its likely to gel well and make a good listening with some idly, vada, sambar and pesarattu.
So far it has been the perfect sunday. Awaiting some college friends for lunch who came from bangalore to attend a wedding at 1 in the night (they are just ignorant about the fact that telugu weddings happen only when most of the population is asleep). The fact that I had so much time to write about nothing proves that my sunday is indeed perfect and now we understand why god created a day and called it a rest day.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
Beware of the ides of Jan
My friend was cautioning me the other day about a possible surge in the number of people coming to the gym in the early part of January. He was telling me about the unavailability of tread-mills and other gym equipments and was sharing his experiences of how he had to reschedule his gym timings every year.
You know what? He is damn right. As a regular gym goer last year, I noticed this trend too. The gym is unusually crowded. Many people with new tracksuits, walker shoes, new adidas/reebok gymwear were found shedding their carbs and flexing their muscles. No prizes for guessing the reasons for this unusual trend. Its not unusual anymore. Its the New year resolutions that people have committed to themselves to visit the gym. While I appreciate and encourage them to be fit and keep their resolutions alive, it is a little incovenience to the regulars. Is it my fault. Obviously no. Is it their fault? Neither theirs. I shouldn't be irritated, for I was once an irritation to someone. :-)
But this made me look at the meaning of the word resolution in the dictionary and few different entries showed up based on different contexts. Quite interesting. I'll quote a few and leave you to interpret the one that you like :-)
1. the act or process of resolving - (does this one suit the above context of resolution?)
2. the subsidence of a pathological state - (am not getting into this one)
3. something that is resolved - (may be this one. But what are we resolving by going to gym? You need a problem to resolve. May be health is a problem here )
and few other irrelevant terms.
The funny part of the dictionary results for the word "resolution" is that the synonym for "resolution" came up as "COURAGE". You definitely need lot of it isn't ? To keep it alive till the end of the year, especially after you reveal your resolutions to your friends.
My message: Don't worry folks. If you broke your resolutions already, then the Chinese New year is coming at the end of Jan. You can make a new one. If you break it again, the financial new year comes in the month of April. We have some of the Indian New years coming in mid April if you miss the financial one. If you still broke it, Fiscal year starts in July. Worst comes next Jan is just around the corner..
You know what? He is damn right. As a regular gym goer last year, I noticed this trend too. The gym is unusually crowded. Many people with new tracksuits, walker shoes, new adidas/reebok gymwear were found shedding their carbs and flexing their muscles. No prizes for guessing the reasons for this unusual trend. Its not unusual anymore. Its the New year resolutions that people have committed to themselves to visit the gym. While I appreciate and encourage them to be fit and keep their resolutions alive, it is a little incovenience to the regulars. Is it my fault. Obviously no. Is it their fault? Neither theirs. I shouldn't be irritated, for I was once an irritation to someone. :-)
But this made me look at the meaning of the word resolution in the dictionary and few different entries showed up based on different contexts. Quite interesting. I'll quote a few and leave you to interpret the one that you like :-)
1. the act or process of resolving - (does this one suit the above context of resolution?)
2. the subsidence of a pathological state - (am not getting into this one)
3. something that is resolved - (may be this one. But what are we resolving by going to gym? You need a problem to resolve. May be health is a problem here )
and few other irrelevant terms.
The funny part of the dictionary results for the word "resolution" is that the synonym for "resolution" came up as "COURAGE". You definitely need lot of it isn't ? To keep it alive till the end of the year, especially after you reveal your resolutions to your friends.
My message: Don't worry folks. If you broke your resolutions already, then the Chinese New year is coming at the end of Jan. You can make a new one. If you break it again, the financial new year comes in the month of April. We have some of the Indian New years coming in mid April if you miss the financial one. If you still broke it, Fiscal year starts in July. Worst comes next Jan is just around the corner..
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Is Ox going to be better than the Rat?
Is Ox going to be better than the Rat? Well, we all have to wait and see.
Oh cmon!!! I hate this waiting game. I wish I can quickly zip forward in time to Dec 31, 2009 and see if all my wishes came true, all my New Year resolutions were still intact, am I still healthy and breathing alive. It's very unfortunate I can't do that. Nobody can. All I can hope is that it turns out better for me and for the entire human race (not that I ignore animals, birds and plants. They know how to take care of themselves and they don't have resolutions to keep it intact or wish lists to tick off and feel happy or sad about it).
So did 2008, the year of the Rat according to the Chinese, go smooth for you? May be it did. May be not. If it did, thank the Almighty. If it didn't, lower your expectations next year. I'm not going to ask you to work hard and meet your expectations. You probably did work hard last year too.
Was it a smooth ride for me? Ahemmm...I don't know. I had events to remember, events to forget, things to share, secrets to keep it to myself, tears of joy, tears of sorrow. But I really don't know if I had a good 2008.
The trail of events in my life in 2008 has been sinusoidal. The year started with a rough wave. Lakshmi & I lost a baby boy before he was born. The joy of being a father and mother was denied (rather postponed I would say optimistically). It was very hard to take it. We shared dreams with each other. We even had names chosen. God gave us a gift and took it back. Can't argue with Him. It was His gift and He decided to take it. May be it was for the good. This is only going to make us treasure the next baby more. I'll be lying if I said I moved on from this incident. It did make a dent. I was very moved to see this little stone carved with a message outside a church in a village called Lambertville, NJ.May his soul rest in peace!!!!
In this whole episode there is one person to whom am infinitely indebted to. My sweet wife. She took all the pain on herself and continues her life as if nothing ever happened. The pain was not just physical, but emotional and psychological too. I wasn't even with her when she handled all these. I know I've been a bad husband this year and I feel guilty for that. But she brushed it aside and continues to shower love on me the way she did for the last 12 years. What a character she is in my life!!! Thank you dear.
Then all the good things happened. My dad and mom visited me in the US. I remember when I was a child my dad used to tell me how much he wanted to go to the US to pursue his Masters in Chemistry and poverty denied his aspirations. He once said he wanted to see Niagara falls before he died. Not sure if he remembers this. He did see Niagara falls. We visited Washington DC, Times Square, Camden, Philadelphia, Liberty statue, Empire State building, downtown Manhattan, wax museum, Hoboken, restaurants, malls, supermarkets, churches, dollar shops, gift shops and everything possible in those 3 months. I feel so relieved and happy to provide them the experience of touring the United States. A small way of thanking them for all the big things, sacrifices and selflessness that they showed in bringing me up. Thank you dad. Thank you mom.
Many of my good times this year were with my dear friends. Trips to Cape May, Atlantic city, Albany, Vermont, Point Pleasant beach, Lake George were fantastic. I enjoyed the time spent with them more than the places. Numerous get-togethers, movies, shopping, long drives, short drives, dinners, drinks, coffees, drags, discussions that often turn into arguements and arguments that often turn into laughters. I cant forget my 30th Bday. It was a week day and everyone was there to wish and cheer me up. I know they all would've had better things to do that day. They did sacrifice some time for me. Some of these friends are longstanding friends who continue to value friendship and give it a shine the way they did many many years ago. I dint see and meet some of the friends for a year. They still surprise me with emails and chats every now and then. All these friends whom I met and whom I dint are the only people to whom I can be myself. They always bring a smile on my face. Money, pride, ego, jealousy, selfish, greed are some of the words that don't get a place of mention in these friendships. Thanks guys. You all made my year.
So all the good things happened to me. All the good people were with me. I learnt to play 8 ball pool like a pro, I learnt typewriting, I lost weight, I can run 8 miles at a stretch, I'm fitter than how I was last year, all my friends are still friends, I had yet another birthday to celebrate and am still living and healthily breathing. Do I still have the same question? Was 2008 a good year for me? It isn't a tough call any more to decide whether I had a good year or not. Yes I had that single disappointment in the begining, but there were so many good things to cheer up and say aloud - 'Yes 2008 was a GREAT year' . Thank God for the 2008 he gave me.
Is 2009, the year of the Ox according to Chinese, going to better than the Rat? Well same question and same answer. I don't know. May be I can define the success criteria (Sh*t, I hate this office jargons that stuck onto me like leach)
At the end of the year,
If I can be a good son to my parents,
If I can continue to win the love of my wife,
If I can be a good mentor and friend to my brother,
If I can still be friends with all my friends,
If I can read bible every day and spend some time with God every Sunday,
If I can do charity without letting anyone know of it,
If I can be fit to run a marathon,
If I can speak lesser words than I did in 2008, and at last
If I lived to read this blog
then I will be saying aloud on Dec 31st 2009 that Ox was better than the Rat. It doesn't matter whether I earned money or not, whether I got promoted or not, whether my career progressed or not, whether I bought a car or not, whether i owned a house or not - If I achieved what I mentioned in the list above - I would've had a successful year.
Oh cmon!!! I hate this waiting game. I wish I can quickly zip forward in time to Dec 31, 2009 and see if all my wishes came true, all my New Year resolutions were still intact, am I still healthy and breathing alive. It's very unfortunate I can't do that. Nobody can. All I can hope is that it turns out better for me and for the entire human race (not that I ignore animals, birds and plants. They know how to take care of themselves and they don't have resolutions to keep it intact or wish lists to tick off and feel happy or sad about it).
So did 2008, the year of the Rat according to the Chinese, go smooth for you? May be it did. May be not. If it did, thank the Almighty. If it didn't, lower your expectations next year. I'm not going to ask you to work hard and meet your expectations. You probably did work hard last year too.
Was it a smooth ride for me? Ahemmm...I don't know. I had events to remember, events to forget, things to share, secrets to keep it to myself, tears of joy, tears of sorrow. But I really don't know if I had a good 2008.
The trail of events in my life in 2008 has been sinusoidal. The year started with a rough wave. Lakshmi & I lost a baby boy before he was born. The joy of being a father and mother was denied (rather postponed I would say optimistically). It was very hard to take it. We shared dreams with each other. We even had names chosen. God gave us a gift and took it back. Can't argue with Him. It was His gift and He decided to take it. May be it was for the good. This is only going to make us treasure the next baby more. I'll be lying if I said I moved on from this incident. It did make a dent. I was very moved to see this little stone carved with a message outside a church in a village called Lambertville, NJ.May his soul rest in peace!!!!
In this whole episode there is one person to whom am infinitely indebted to. My sweet wife. She took all the pain on herself and continues her life as if nothing ever happened. The pain was not just physical, but emotional and psychological too. I wasn't even with her when she handled all these. I know I've been a bad husband this year and I feel guilty for that. But she brushed it aside and continues to shower love on me the way she did for the last 12 years. What a character she is in my life!!! Thank you dear.
Then all the good things happened. My dad and mom visited me in the US. I remember when I was a child my dad used to tell me how much he wanted to go to the US to pursue his Masters in Chemistry and poverty denied his aspirations. He once said he wanted to see Niagara falls before he died. Not sure if he remembers this. He did see Niagara falls. We visited Washington DC, Times Square, Camden, Philadelphia, Liberty statue, Empire State building, downtown Manhattan, wax museum, Hoboken, restaurants, malls, supermarkets, churches, dollar shops, gift shops and everything possible in those 3 months. I feel so relieved and happy to provide them the experience of touring the United States. A small way of thanking them for all the big things, sacrifices and selflessness that they showed in bringing me up. Thank you dad. Thank you mom.
Many of my good times this year were with my dear friends. Trips to Cape May, Atlantic city, Albany, Vermont, Point Pleasant beach, Lake George were fantastic. I enjoyed the time spent with them more than the places. Numerous get-togethers, movies, shopping, long drives, short drives, dinners, drinks, coffees, drags, discussions that often turn into arguements and arguments that often turn into laughters. I cant forget my 30th Bday. It was a week day and everyone was there to wish and cheer me up. I know they all would've had better things to do that day. They did sacrifice some time for me. Some of these friends are longstanding friends who continue to value friendship and give it a shine the way they did many many years ago. I dint see and meet some of the friends for a year. They still surprise me with emails and chats every now and then. All these friends whom I met and whom I dint are the only people to whom I can be myself. They always bring a smile on my face. Money, pride, ego, jealousy, selfish, greed are some of the words that don't get a place of mention in these friendships. Thanks guys. You all made my year.
So all the good things happened to me. All the good people were with me. I learnt to play 8 ball pool like a pro, I learnt typewriting, I lost weight, I can run 8 miles at a stretch, I'm fitter than how I was last year, all my friends are still friends, I had yet another birthday to celebrate and am still living and healthily breathing. Do I still have the same question? Was 2008 a good year for me? It isn't a tough call any more to decide whether I had a good year or not. Yes I had that single disappointment in the begining, but there were so many good things to cheer up and say aloud - 'Yes 2008 was a GREAT year' . Thank God for the 2008 he gave me.
Is 2009, the year of the Ox according to Chinese, going to better than the Rat? Well same question and same answer. I don't know. May be I can define the success criteria (Sh*t, I hate this office jargons that stuck onto me like leach)
At the end of the year,
If I can be a good son to my parents,
If I can continue to win the love of my wife,
If I can be a good mentor and friend to my brother,
If I can still be friends with all my friends,
If I can read bible every day and spend some time with God every Sunday,
If I can do charity without letting anyone know of it,
If I can be fit to run a marathon,
If I can speak lesser words than I did in 2008, and at last
If I lived to read this blog
then I will be saying aloud on Dec 31st 2009 that Ox was better than the Rat. It doesn't matter whether I earned money or not, whether I got promoted or not, whether my career progressed or not, whether I bought a car or not, whether i owned a house or not - If I achieved what I mentioned in the list above - I would've had a successful year.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
....a broom stick on "The Floor"
If you ask me to rate the top 3 important days in my life, I would rate today April the 16th, 2008 as one among them. (The other 2 are probably my wedding day and my graduation day, but am still figuring out the order of importance :-). Hopefully by the end of my life I'll have the order sorted out)
So what the hell did I do today? No ..I did not do lunch with Pope.
I entered this old white building with pillars in the front , flashed my ID, walked couple of dark narrow aisles where people of historic importance, presidents of many countries, CEOs of many multi million dollar companies have walked before. (Infact today the president of Republic of South Korea walked out of that building a few minutes before I walked in. No, he wasn't lucky to meet me). After walking through those dark narrow aisles they opened to a tumultuous floor. Guess where I am? It’s the Mecca of Brokerage Industry - The New York Stock Exchange's trading floor (The NYSE, fondly pronounced as 'Naisee') . Hey how easy was it to get there? Isn't cool? You thought its like getting into a mall or a grocery shop or something.
Believe me, this place is the epicenter of the financial universe. Vigintillions of dollars are moved through this floor and I wont be able to put a value for the amount of money traded since it was established.(For those who are scratching their heads to know what Vignitillion is, it’s 10 ^ 63 only). I was told that this exchange was started 216 years back. Yeah you read that number right and there is no typo. Two centuries have passed by and life still goes on.
I was taken for a tour of the entire floor by a gentleman who represent our company in the floor as a floor broker (Let me fondly call this character as Mr. Donald Duck). He has been doing floor trading for 35 years and he knows every screw of the floor. Let me try and give a quick textual tour of what I experienced today. The first thing he showed us was an LED panel full of numbers and letters which everyone on the floor will be constantly looking at. These are nothing but indices. He specifically showed us the Dow Jones index and how it kept changing each second. Along with that there we other indices, current Gold price, Oil price etc. One wouldn't realize how these numbers are important, but they directly reflect the economy of U.S.A at a macro level and to some extent reflects and drives the economies to most of the countries in the world. To me and to many others it was just a 5 digit number.
An interesting criticality of looking at those number standing inside the floor is that these are live figures which the rest of the world gets to know after 20 mins. Yeah - outside that building, everyone gets to see the quote with a 20 minute delay. No wonder they banned cell phone inside the floor. If I had one I can make few millions within 20 mins or make some a millionaire within few mins by giving critical information before the rest of the world gets to know. The proud fact for me is that we brought some luck with us to the exchange. Dow was not doing well for a while and was down most of the week and when we were there, we saw it shooting skywards. The market's open & close points for today is Open: 12371.51 / Close: 12670.56 / Change : +256.80 / Volume 279.74 Million shares. I'll definitely remember these numbers and will tell everyone that I was there in NYSE when Dow went up 256 points
There were about 1300 brokers in a small floor with so many TV scrolling random numbers which god knows what that means. So many cameras, wires, press people, laptops etc were all over the place. This one is definitely the highlight of the day. As Mr. Duck was guiding us through the floor, Fox news was giving a live update to its news channel and we were standing right behind the press person showing our teeth and we were on TV for 5 seconds.:-). Not bad isn't. I felt as if am reporting live from NYSE floor to Fox news. Am trying hard to get a video clip from Fox news website. It was weird and funny to see TV anchor's doing make up in the middle of a highly business centric environment and the floor brokers found time to pass a whistle or two amidst their work.
We then visited our company's booth, which I was imagining a big cubicle-type office. Holy shit, it was literally a 2 feet by 2 feet area with couple of systems, communication lines, an order printer and a whole lot of other things required to do their work with no chairs to sit. If they get time to sit, then they are literally out of business and we all whine about our chairs, cubicles and dustbin.
Then Mr. Duck went on to show the place where the NYSE's famous bell is. I've seen that in TV when CEOs of companies ring them when their stock gets listed. It gives an illusion that the bell podium is present as high as pope's podium in St. Petersburg in Vatican. In reality its just a small and disordered place which gets it fame for few seconds when the market opens. All the exterior glass windows were bullet proof. There was a huge titanium mesh surrounding the entire building. I was told that any rockets or moving objects targeted towards the building will be detonated outside the building due to these meshes. When I asked Mr. Duck whether aircrafts will also be detonated outside, he humorously said "We haven't tested that yet" :-). Mr.Duck even showed us the phone which directly connects to Mr.President in the White House. In the event of any mishaps, one can reach him and say "Hey Wazzup buddy". Mr.Duck is such a seasoned bloke on the floor that he din't forget to show us an old broom which is used to clean the trading floors. There were other funny instances which as a micro stake holder of the industry I can't share it to public. You go inside and figure it out yourself :-).
As we were doing a tour, remember the business cannot stop for a milli second and so Mr. Duck was executing trades and demonstrating his work with his handled instrument which runs on Microsoft windows (it hung up couple of times and as usual he reboot it and everything was OK. As a 60 year old veteran he accepted that things do work when restarted)
After almost two hours of excitement, we reached the inevitable exit of the floor. Time to say bye to Mr. Duck, who I thought was very committed and ethical to his work with a pinch of humour. These 2 hours definitely go down as time well spent and a life time experience for me. At minimum I have another 1 GB of text to write about my visit, but I have to end this.
As I continue to boast about my visit to the NYSE trading floor, there were 5 other work friends of mine who came with me (Rags,Jazz, Vasu, Shant & Praz). They are going to boast about today in the same capacity as I did, may be little more. They saw the bell & the broom too, they were on fox news too and it’s a lifetime experience for them too.
Although am so proud of this day, its definitely not something that I deserve because of my hardwork or achievement. There were many people behind this who made this happen and I should thank a few of them (JH,JB,LV,MA,JK,NR) who made this happen to me. They have lots of hope on us and they made us feel so excited and gave this wonderful opportunity. We will definitely return them the favour and make each one of them feel equally excited one day.
Am going to make a call to my dad, mom & my wife and bore them with my visit story, but at the end of the call my wife's going to ask me if I bought any dresses for her in NYSE. After my futile attempts to explain that it’s a trading floor for shares and not dresses, am going to admit that I did indeed buy few dresses from 'Naisee'. Now I'll have to go to Macy's this weekend.
When I narrate this experience to many of my friends and relatives, they are going to brush it aside and say "You visited NYSE. So what?"….. But as I said, to me its one of the top 3 important days in my life.
So what the hell did I do today? No ..I did not do lunch with Pope.
I entered this old white building with pillars in the front , flashed my ID, walked couple of dark narrow aisles where people of historic importance, presidents of many countries, CEOs of many multi million dollar companies have walked before. (Infact today the president of Republic of South Korea walked out of that building a few minutes before I walked in. No, he wasn't lucky to meet me). After walking through those dark narrow aisles they opened to a tumultuous floor. Guess where I am? It’s the Mecca of Brokerage Industry - The New York Stock Exchange's trading floor (The NYSE, fondly pronounced as 'Naisee') . Hey how easy was it to get there? Isn't cool? You thought its like getting into a mall or a grocery shop or something.
Believe me, this place is the epicenter of the financial universe. Vigintillions of dollars are moved through this floor and I wont be able to put a value for the amount of money traded since it was established.(For those who are scratching their heads to know what Vignitillion is, it’s 10 ^ 63 only). I was told that this exchange was started 216 years back. Yeah you read that number right and there is no typo. Two centuries have passed by and life still goes on.
I was taken for a tour of the entire floor by a gentleman who represent our company in the floor as a floor broker (Let me fondly call this character as Mr. Donald Duck). He has been doing floor trading for 35 years and he knows every screw of the floor. Let me try and give a quick textual tour of what I experienced today. The first thing he showed us was an LED panel full of numbers and letters which everyone on the floor will be constantly looking at. These are nothing but indices. He specifically showed us the Dow Jones index and how it kept changing each second. Along with that there we other indices, current Gold price, Oil price etc. One wouldn't realize how these numbers are important, but they directly reflect the economy of U.S.A at a macro level and to some extent reflects and drives the economies to most of the countries in the world. To me and to many others it was just a 5 digit number.
An interesting criticality of looking at those number standing inside the floor is that these are live figures which the rest of the world gets to know after 20 mins. Yeah - outside that building, everyone gets to see the quote with a 20 minute delay. No wonder they banned cell phone inside the floor. If I had one I can make few millions within 20 mins or make some a millionaire within few mins by giving critical information before the rest of the world gets to know. The proud fact for me is that we brought some luck with us to the exchange. Dow was not doing well for a while and was down most of the week and when we were there, we saw it shooting skywards. The market's open & close points for today is Open: 12371.51 / Close: 12670.56 / Change : +256.80 / Volume 279.74 Million shares. I'll definitely remember these numbers and will tell everyone that I was there in NYSE when Dow went up 256 points
There were about 1300 brokers in a small floor with so many TV scrolling random numbers which god knows what that means. So many cameras, wires, press people, laptops etc were all over the place. This one is definitely the highlight of the day. As Mr. Duck was guiding us through the floor, Fox news was giving a live update to its news channel and we were standing right behind the press person showing our teeth and we were on TV for 5 seconds.:-). Not bad isn't. I felt as if am reporting live from NYSE floor to Fox news. Am trying hard to get a video clip from Fox news website. It was weird and funny to see TV anchor's doing make up in the middle of a highly business centric environment and the floor brokers found time to pass a whistle or two amidst their work.
We then visited our company's booth, which I was imagining a big cubicle-type office. Holy shit, it was literally a 2 feet by 2 feet area with couple of systems, communication lines, an order printer and a whole lot of other things required to do their work with no chairs to sit. If they get time to sit, then they are literally out of business and we all whine about our chairs, cubicles and dustbin.
Then Mr. Duck went on to show the place where the NYSE's famous bell is. I've seen that in TV when CEOs of companies ring them when their stock gets listed. It gives an illusion that the bell podium is present as high as pope's podium in St. Petersburg in Vatican. In reality its just a small and disordered place which gets it fame for few seconds when the market opens. All the exterior glass windows were bullet proof. There was a huge titanium mesh surrounding the entire building. I was told that any rockets or moving objects targeted towards the building will be detonated outside the building due to these meshes. When I asked Mr. Duck whether aircrafts will also be detonated outside, he humorously said "We haven't tested that yet" :-). Mr.Duck even showed us the phone which directly connects to Mr.President in the White House. In the event of any mishaps, one can reach him and say "Hey Wazzup buddy". Mr.Duck is such a seasoned bloke on the floor that he din't forget to show us an old broom which is used to clean the trading floors. There were other funny instances which as a micro stake holder of the industry I can't share it to public. You go inside and figure it out yourself :-).
As we were doing a tour, remember the business cannot stop for a milli second and so Mr. Duck was executing trades and demonstrating his work with his handled instrument which runs on Microsoft windows (it hung up couple of times and as usual he reboot it and everything was OK. As a 60 year old veteran he accepted that things do work when restarted)
After almost two hours of excitement, we reached the inevitable exit of the floor. Time to say bye to Mr. Duck, who I thought was very committed and ethical to his work with a pinch of humour. These 2 hours definitely go down as time well spent and a life time experience for me. At minimum I have another 1 GB of text to write about my visit, but I have to end this.
As I continue to boast about my visit to the NYSE trading floor, there were 5 other work friends of mine who came with me (Rags,Jazz, Vasu, Shant & Praz). They are going to boast about today in the same capacity as I did, may be little more. They saw the bell & the broom too, they were on fox news too and it’s a lifetime experience for them too.
Although am so proud of this day, its definitely not something that I deserve because of my hardwork or achievement. There were many people behind this who made this happen and I should thank a few of them (JH,JB,LV,MA,JK,NR) who made this happen to me. They have lots of hope on us and they made us feel so excited and gave this wonderful opportunity. We will definitely return them the favour and make each one of them feel equally excited one day.
Am going to make a call to my dad, mom & my wife and bore them with my visit story, but at the end of the call my wife's going to ask me if I bought any dresses for her in NYSE. After my futile attempts to explain that it’s a trading floor for shares and not dresses, am going to admit that I did indeed buy few dresses from 'Naisee'. Now I'll have to go to Macy's this weekend.
When I narrate this experience to many of my friends and relatives, they are going to brush it aside and say "You visited NYSE. So what?"….. But as I said, to me its one of the top 3 important days in my life.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Wimbledon Rulez, ofcourse with more Rules
How many times have we seen the British crowd on one side of the stadium, sitting pretty in the stands of Lords and rejoicing in a very orderly manner with no emotions but just appreciating the game of Cricket and the skill of a player no matter who they extend their support for.
On the other side, we have this half naked ugly Barmy Army showing off their uglier Beer belly with a mug of beer in their hands and cheering their heart out even when Freddie is hit for a six by a tail end Australian Batsmen. That Cricket for you.
On the contrary, the behaviourial science is strictly followed in the All England Lawn tennis and Croquet club during the tennis-holy sesaon of the year. I was reading the times of India today and was surprised to see more behaviourial rules for the spectators.
The one that caught my attention is "Do not cheer for a net chord or for a double fault". I appreciate the essence of the rule that manifests that one should not cheer for a point won by a player which he did not earn through his display of skill or which he earned by his opponent's misfortune.
I stopped reading the article and my focus of attention immediately went to the following amorphic what-ifs?
What if - the same rule is extended to all unforced errors, which also in a way follws suite of the above mentioned rule. Now, do the spectators know the game well enough to immediately categorize the point as either a winner or an unforced error and then decide to cheer or be quiet? More vague thoughts - may be a special referee, like the line umpire (i'll call him as the "Cheer decider") will be deployed who will judge the point won by a player as either a "winner" or an "unforced error" and will signal to the crowd. The crowd will eagerly wait for his decision and then burst to cheer.
What if - the Cheer decider makes a mistake? Can the chair umpire overrule? In which case, the situation becomes funny. Cheer decider says "Cheer" and the crowds start to cheer and then the chair umpire overrules. All wimbledon crowd shift from a huge uproar to pin drop silence within a fraction of a second. Imagine the other way too ;-)
What if - the player can challenge the decision like the way they challenge line calls and he is proved right that it is indeed a point won and not an unforced error. Really don't want to illustrate with an example for this scenerio.
What if - the Championship point of the Gentlemen's final of Wimbledon end up in a net chord. Will the entire crowd stay quiet and walk out of the stands. Can't imagine that:-)
What if - this rule is implemented in India and in Cricket for a Hit wicket or run out effected in the non striker's end when the batsman hits the ball and the bowler gets a finger to it and the non striker is out of crease when the ball crashes the stumps. Will the entire crowd of Eden garden's stay quiet, especially when the fielding team is India? Can't keep imagining..have to get back to work :-(
If you have more "What ifs" post as comment.
On the other side, we have this half naked ugly Barmy Army showing off their uglier Beer belly with a mug of beer in their hands and cheering their heart out even when Freddie is hit for a six by a tail end Australian Batsmen. That Cricket for you.
On the contrary, the behaviourial science is strictly followed in the All England Lawn tennis and Croquet club during the tennis-holy sesaon of the year. I was reading the times of India today and was surprised to see more behaviourial rules for the spectators.
The one that caught my attention is "Do not cheer for a net chord or for a double fault". I appreciate the essence of the rule that manifests that one should not cheer for a point won by a player which he did not earn through his display of skill or which he earned by his opponent's misfortune.
I stopped reading the article and my focus of attention immediately went to the following amorphic what-ifs?
What if - the same rule is extended to all unforced errors, which also in a way follws suite of the above mentioned rule. Now, do the spectators know the game well enough to immediately categorize the point as either a winner or an unforced error and then decide to cheer or be quiet? More vague thoughts - may be a special referee, like the line umpire (i'll call him as the "Cheer decider") will be deployed who will judge the point won by a player as either a "winner" or an "unforced error" and will signal to the crowd. The crowd will eagerly wait for his decision and then burst to cheer.
What if - the Cheer decider makes a mistake? Can the chair umpire overrule? In which case, the situation becomes funny. Cheer decider says "Cheer" and the crowds start to cheer and then the chair umpire overrules. All wimbledon crowd shift from a huge uproar to pin drop silence within a fraction of a second. Imagine the other way too ;-)
What if - the player can challenge the decision like the way they challenge line calls and he is proved right that it is indeed a point won and not an unforced error. Really don't want to illustrate with an example for this scenerio.
What if - the Championship point of the Gentlemen's final of Wimbledon end up in a net chord. Will the entire crowd stay quiet and walk out of the stands. Can't imagine that:-)
What if - this rule is implemented in India and in Cricket for a Hit wicket or run out effected in the non striker's end when the batsman hits the ball and the bowler gets a finger to it and the non striker is out of crease when the ball crashes the stumps. Will the entire crowd of Eden garden's stay quiet, especially when the fielding team is India? Can't keep imagining..have to get back to work :-(
If you have more "What ifs" post as comment.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Eazy Dreamz
Dreams and ambitions are becoming easy for each one of us as days pass by. I saw the IMAX adventure documentary on a bunch of people climbing mount Everest a couple of years back. Although am not into any sort of adventures like climbing mount Everest on my own and suffer from all the cramps and pneumonia, i did wonder if i will ever see such natural wonders. Am sure my thoughts are same as someone else's too.
I read the new paper today and the headlines read ..."China is planning to make a highway to the peak of Mount Everest". Soon India will and the documentary showing all the efforts put in by the bunch of people to climb mount everest will become this century's biggest joke in near future.
I read the new paper today and the headlines read ..."China is planning to make a highway to the peak of Mount Everest". Soon India will and the documentary showing all the efforts put in by the bunch of people to climb mount everest will become this century's biggest joke in near future.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Mind reading....made very easy by this strip :-)
Couldn't stop laughing after reading this funny strip. Although its funny, i bet thats the reality ;-). Am sure each one of you whoz either married or having girl friend (or emotionally acquainted with a girl) will relate this strip to their own (recent) past :-)
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