As weird as it might sound, none of the men’s team from my school, Michigan Tech, had ever beaten a men’s team from our arch rivals, Northern Michigan, when I was part of the audience. I thought it had to do with my physical presence in the gym but apparently watching them over the internet [...]

For those that have known me for last six years or so, my obsession with softball is nothing new. I love this game so much so that holy spirits have been taking a back seat from early Spring till late Fall for the last couple years (thanks to a dear someone who solved the mystery [...]

The Days (Years) Leading Up To The Day
It was the mid 90s - while much of our community was enjoying the new found concept of Satellite TV (Star Sports, BBC, CNN and Chinese Entertainment were the only satellite channels on the menu), the concept of TV itself - as was everything else that [...]

As much of the human kind (at least those who follow NFL - a.k.a. the American Football) has come to learn, the New England Patriots became the first team (since the league went to the current 16 game format in 1978) to go undefeated during a regular season. Except for folks in the New England [...]

Did someone say History repeats? Almost a year after to-date, things shaped up in such a way that I got an opportunity to be 1265 Lombardi Avenue in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Wondering what this address refers to? It’s The Holy Lambeau Field - the home of Green Bay Packers. What brought me here again is [...]

It was in March 2005; while walking back from Day #1 of APS Meeting I told my advisor that I had declined a $70 ticket for a Lakers-Sonics game at Staples Center. He wasn’t too happy about my decision and since then, I had been planning on making amends for it…. My fanatic affiliation to [...]

OK - only 5 of my 11 picks for the ongoing NFL Playoff season turned out to be right, and more importantly, my favorite team - New England Patriots - played uncharacteristically to loose another Super Bowl appearance. But no regrets - Colts played really really well in the second half to win the game. [...]

Hmm… Well, this NFL regular season flew past in a jiffy and play offs begin in just a few hours from now. Following is something I have never done before, at least not in this format. There is some football logic behind what you see below, and needless to mention, there is some favorism involved [...]

I am not so sure if you read my previous entry. If you did, you know where I have been. If you did not, please be notified that I have been lost in compilation… Colloquially speaking, I did not see any light anywhere in the tunnel and instead of resorting to some bar (and alcohol), [...]

Warning
OK, before I go on to write anything about my experience on this day, I am obligated to warn you that the much (or almost all of the material) contained pertains to National Football League (a.k.a. American Football, Pile-Up Game, or whatever else you may know it as…) and that you may not appreciate the [...]

After a very blistering start to the regular season, to winning the division with about 15 games left, to loosing the division to the Twins on the last day of regular season, to beating Yankees and Athletics in the first two rounds of MLB PlayOffs, Detroit Tigers had a hell of a season and gave [...]

Much of preparations from my side for the upcoming trip to India - tickets, I-94, travel letters, transcripts, proof of Fall semester enrollment, and of course some packing - are done. That leaves me to do one last thing - keep counting days. Less than two and half days to go before first leg of [...]

I did mention in my last week’s entry that our team (in Church as well as Grad leagues) needed to work lot harder (and play lot smarter) to perform better. Being a double-elimination scheme, we lost our second game in the Church league play-offs after a tough fight. Score was 6-7 and it was pretty [...]

It was very hard, sports-wise, to wait few more days to play the first softball game of Summer 2006. Worst thing was that whenever we planned to have a practice session, weather-gods played spoilsport. Finally, my waiting times came to an end on Tuesday as Grace Lutheran faced Houghton Baptist in the Church League opener. [...]

What should I begin with? Keeping with my own old tradition, let me start school and research related things. School’s been going pretty fine and let me repeat - having no classes to take is really a great feeling. Part of Tuesday was spent in tryiing to compile ICECAP on Räma - it didn’t work, [...]

Last seven days or so have been quite busy and most of the busyness had to do with school/research work. After exchanging few emails and reading few manuals, I finally managed to run Atomistix Tool Kit (v2.0) on our beowulf cluster. It wasn’t easy by any means and I still have some work to do [...]

If you did read my previous entry, I had quite a few things on my weekend’s ToDo list - most important being to prepare myself (laptop, camera, lenses, batteries,…) for Saturday’s game. It has been a while since I got out of bed before 6 am on a Saturday and it felt good getting up [...]

I do not remember attending so many parties in a row - Malaysian Monday, BBQ Wednesday (both at Leroy’s) were only the beginning. Thursday was the culmination of a great softball season for our Team FIZIKS - we have been undefeated in the league stage - defeated MSE in a fighting game (Semi Finals) [...]

For those of you who don’t know what Räma is, it’s a dedicated beowulf linux cluster that we built in our group. We started working on it around second week of January and it took nearly six months for it to work (currently in 32 bit mode) under its own front-end. The very concept of [...]

I have been on this Fiziks team for about three years, played nearly 50 games, watched another 50 or so but had never seen something like this before - An Intentional Walk! Game was between Fiziks and School of Business - what had been termed as the clash of titans by many (lot of other [...]

This is something that I had never experienced since I started playing softball, thanks mostly due to the people who introduced me to this wonderful, democratic game and taught me to be patient. While I still was bragging about my in-field home-run, this strike-out, in my 100th plate appearance, against a not-so-powerful team brought me [...]

I have been trying to hit a home-run (in-field, not over the fence) for last three seasons and I did it at last. It was one of the Church League games and I charged towards third-base (while my base-coach was shouting to stop at second). Throw from outfield was wild, helping me get an extra [...]

Semi-Finals, against MSE : Lots of people, players and supporters alike, showed up at the ball-park and my throwing arm felt lot better. After a brief warm-up session, the much awaited semi-finals started off, with Metallurgy scoring 4 in the first innings. We replied equally well, scoring 8, with 7 coming after we were two-down! [...]

Well known (since last season) for nail-biting finishes, this game against Metallurgy was no different. We got off to a great start but defence left much to be desired. It was a neck to neck race till the very end, with plenty of electrifying hits, heart-breaking fielding from both teams and not to forget, some [...]