For heaven sake go for the ball

For the quality of the opposition team, the game what we played on Tuesday night was really good. Opponent team played in 4:2 combination with 4 hitters and 2 setters, our team has only one hitter and setter with others acting as receivers for the ball. My setting was awful yesterday with most of the balls going too wide or too close to the net and was easily blocked. While practicing (“taking touch” in volleyball slang) before the match we use heavy beach volleyball. The ball used in the match is very light compared with the practicing ball, which may be one of the reasons for my setting going bad in the match. Setting is more about control of the ball and strategy. We took lot of points in service, I was happy with the way I served. The guy who introduced us for playing in the league is around 60 years old, he also plays along with us in the team (with someone changing as sub-in). Age is supposed to slow down the reflex, but I don’t think it will slow down your attitude to go for the ball. There are few old people who play with me in the Dunmore Community Center, I admire there flexibility at that age. They are simply too good. I am not going to crib about the old guy, but when he is in the court the mistakes what he makes brings the moral of whole team down. I am not asking for all good players to play in the same team, but players who make an attempt to go for the drop falling in front of their legs.

Another Monday and got to go for office again :(

I am generally enthusiastic about going to office on Monday, but not today. There was too much of physical activity as such this weekend. I played volleyball on Saturday and Sunday for 3 hours a day and was feeling really tired after yesterday night’s game. I didn’t feel like getting up from my couch today morning, but suddenly stuck that I have a meeting in different office location today morning, dint even get an extra hour sleep. I woke up at 7 in the morning got ready and rushed to the meeting at 8.15 A.M.

Valentines Day a Day to remember!!!!!!

Feb 14th 2008 is definitely a day to remember, don’t run your crooked mind in all directions ( karapannai kuthirai inneram thati vitu irrupingalai). This is when we won the first match in Weston Hall Volleyball League in Scranton. It is a co-ed league, a team should have 4 men and 2 women. We were having our fingers crossed for 1 our team women player to come at the correct time. Finally she made it up, after all the initial hiccups the game started. We had a smooth sailing in the first set with us winning the set 21-15. Lethargic attitude started setting in at the end of the first set, which made us to lose the 2nd set 20-22. We made lot of mistakes with me being the main culprit with some awful setting. Things fell in place nicely for the 3rd set, some good hits and serves made us to win the set 21-17. We were all happy after winning the first game in the league. Our team has a game against the top notch team in the league on Tuesday 8.00 P.M. We are hoping to play well against that team too.

Car in the Ditch???????

That is what could have happened to my car today morning. As usual the weather in Scranton sucked, with freezing rain, sleet, snow and ice (finally a slushy mix was in the road). As a good practice (they call it best practice) had my car switched on 20 mins before I started to office, cleaned all the icy wintry mix on top of my car. The drive from my house to office is not much of a problem. I give ride to my office colleague whose house is in a steep hill, for which I have to take a small de-tour from my office route.

I have had problems before in the snow and ice mixture driving up the hill and was really skeptical to drive up this time too. I thought lucky me, since I did not have any problem in driving up the steep hill. I was sort of confident that I have made it but there lied the final touch. There is an adage that life is not always smooth, but the problem today morning when I was taking U turn was that the road was too smooth. There is no worst place to do a 180 than this one. With me staring down the hill, it is a forest with trees and not a road (sema pallam) and my car front tires are deep inside more than 1 feet of snow.

Only after getting down the car to look at the conditions, I realized how slippery it was. It was at least 2 inches of ice on the road and I could not walk there, I could have fell down and hurt myself easily. I shoveled the snow below the front tires in my car and with combination of reverse gear and drive mode, I struggled( rather the car struggled) for about 15-20 mins to come out of the snow. Now I am more experienced in driving in snow :) and know who will come to help you when you are really struggling.

Amount of Opportunities and Facilities

I played volleyball for High school and College in India (at a competitive level). I was playing volleyball for clubs in Chennai after passing out of college. After coming to Scranton in December 2005, I played in the summer of 2007 in my apartment complex. I was looking at getting a team into YMCA Power League Volleyball for sometime, but wasn’t lucky though. YMCA Power League volleyball co-ordinator gave me another contact for playing in Dunmore Community Center, in which I am playing for past 3 weekends. Players who played there in Dunmore Community center saw me and my friend playing and invited us to play at 2 more places one on Thursday evening and another one on Sunday evening. I was seriously amazed at the amount of volleyball going around in Scranton and the kind of facilities what they have, all are properly furnished heated indoor sports floor courts.

I was bit early for the Saturday night game in Dunmore community center and got an opportunity to see Dunmore girl’s high school team (probably the girls were around 10-14 years old) was practicing (playing a game within themselves) with a head coach and 2 other assistant coaches watching them. They were observing there game and correcting them after the game on what mistakes they did and where they should improve. When I started playing volleyball at 7^th standard, there was none to teach us the basics of the game. The mistakes what we started doing at that age with respect to basics is still with me in the game, my physical education teacher (sweety jeya mary) for 2 years 11^th -12^th standard coached us really well but still the mistakes what we learned to do during the first few years are still with me. It is very very difficult to correct those basic mistakes you do in the game for e.g. while receiving the pass, the receiver should stand with the dominant foot slightly forward rather than just standing with the legs apart, it helps you to go for the ball which can drop in front of you and I still receive the pass with me standing with legs apart :(.

I always had a feeling that the amount of importance what we give to cricket kills peoples interest in other games. Don’t mistake me I am an avid cricket fan and I follow up and watch every match India plays(when I get time). I started playing volleyball only after my dad insisted (though there were other petty reasons too), the conditions what he laid in front of me for taking up a game are very simple

1) Game should keep you fit and active.
2) Should not take lot of time away from my studies.
3) Should not have physical contact between players

For the facilities what I had in school and what suited for my dad’s requirements was volleyball. My school Shri Anand Jain Vidyalaya had a volleyball court (that is the only play area we had in school) in the center with the school building covering the court in a “U” shape. We have groups/houses in school, since it was a jain school the houses were in the name of Ruby, Emerald, Diamond and Sapphire and me being in Sapphire for last 4 years of my school life. Playing volleyball in front of the whole cheering school for the house matches was really interesting and are real good memories.

I have never played volleyball in an indoor court before coming to Scranton (though my college had an indoor court which they used for basket ball), the amount of facilities here and the kind of organized coaching the provide bound to produce atleast 1 good player in 1000. Comparing the talent pool what I see here to what I saw in India, India is way way up in the amount and the quality of talent. With proper facilities and a good coaching at young age will definitely produce players far better than what we have seen. . Infact India were the runners up in 2003 edition of world youth volleyball and Kamraj( comes from Loyola college in Chennai) was awarded the best setter award for the 2003 youth edition. Facilities and quality of coaching are definitely improving, but we still have a long way to go.

Robin Hood Men in Tights

I became a fan of Director and actor Mel Brooks (see link for more information regarding Melbrooks) after watching his movies History of World Part I and Robin Hood Men in Tights. His famous dialogue being “Its good to be the king”. I liked Robin Hood Men in Tights, it was like some one taking lollu sabha 15 years back making spoof of English movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Movie starts with the Hero(Cary Elwes) escaping from the prison in Jerusalem and returning back to England to claim his fathers land from the evil Prince John( who took the throne from King Richard when he was on crusade). Hero tries recruiting an army for fighting prince john, ends up meeting little john ( namm oor bayilvan ranganathan) over a small bridge. Hero and Bayilvan ranganthan( athanga little john) will try to fight for crossing the bridge( water will be running from two taps below the bridge sema nakkal) . As usual in all movies the hero wins and Bayilvan ranganthan will fall into the small stream of water running from two small taps and will fight for life( lollu sabha nakkalakum). There will be an archery contest before the climax of the movie in which Hero loses the archery contest, he remarks that he's not supposed to lose. Hero will produce a copy of the script from behind his back, and comes to the conclusion that he indeed gets another shot. Prince John and the Sheriff, also check their scripts and admit that, according to what's written, Hero does indeed get another shot. I don’t think I am doing justice by describing the events in the movie, the movie has to be seen to be enjoyed. If you are a fan of Lollu Sabha, trust me you will enjoy the movie.

Yaaruku Yaaro???? Poor Erode Sukumari

Universal Cine Arts Presents, Erode Sukumari Produces and in Joe Stanleys Direction..Yaaruku Yaaro. Introducing the next Keanu Reeves(matrix fame) of tamil cinema..Sam Anderson and Next Jo Lopez of tamil cinema varnika. I got this video link from my friend,

man from then i have watched the video atleast 10 times and i beg you all to watch this. I havent laughed so heartily forgetting about every damn bug my code is going to create. Watch the movie with your friends, it is 2 hours of non stop entertainment. Movie starts with the pretty dame Varnika singing a so called melody song( the female singer who sang the song is really crass and loud) , the hero listens to the song and he is really impressed. Next some lollu-sabha fame actors ( I don’t know why they took up a movie like this to demean themselves) snatches the chain of the heroine( Varnika), this where the directorial touch of Joe Stanley comes in. What will we expect (after watching lot of tamil cinema), the hero to beat the chain snatchers and recover the chain but in this movie hero will give a chase to the chain snatchers in his TVS Scooty and will come empty handed. Then the hero requests the pretty dame varnika to sing the introduction song again( nana irunthena mavane ippo thaan chain thoalachiru irruken patta kekuthu unnaku appdinu thooki pottu midichirupen) , camera man will do some close up shots of the hero( I don’t think the camera man could have survived after seeing the expression on a close up shot) when the heroineeee is singing the song. I watched the movie till the embedded song and couldn’t take it up anymore. I am not a guy who says that only good looking actors should act in movies, look at dhanush he is not good looking but has his screen presence and is confident of what he is doing in front of the camera. You need people who are confident and know what they are doing. What makes people to take movies like this??? Is it due the advent of cheap camcorders??? Or due the hero with lot of money who wants to leave a mark in tamil cine industry?? Or the rich produced who wants to show some loss to evade income tax?? God only will know the actual reason…..

How to do a 360 easily???

What is 360??

Car doing a complete circle of turn at high speed (speed is relative). Simplea layman termsla “Car Full Roundu Adikanum”(Thanks to Shankar for the definition).

Physical Requirements:

1. Obviously you need a car for doing a 360 (Enna question ithu).

2. Car tires should be bald (namma lollu sabha manohar thala maari) or you should have driven the car with new tires for more than 20k miles ( avlo ottuna eppadiyum car tire bald aaydium).

3. Preferably no passengers in the car except you, compulsorily no gals (otherwise there will be lot of screaming).

4. Driver heart should be made of steel (shouldn’t panic under any circumstance).

Environmental Conditions:

1. You should drive down the hill (hill grade should be high).

2. There should be a stop sign in the road where you cannot make your car to stop.

3. There should have been atleast 1 inch of sleet (sleet is neither snow nor ice, but very slippery) rain.

4. No Car should be parked in the road where you are going to do 360

5. Gods should have showered a lot of luck on you

Drive down the hill at a good speed( if the speed limit is 20 , drive at 35-40) and try applying your brakes at the first stop sign, you cannot stop the car from doing a 360, trust me I did that twice this morning.