World Cup Soccer - Week one

That was a great week of soccer...some really cool goals. Coming up this week are even more interesting games since the top 2 teams play each other

Some must sees:
- 6/20 11:55 pm Sweden v England
- 6/21 11:55 pm Arg v Dutch
- 6/22 6:55 am Italy v Czech


Here are my list of hopefuls (in no particular order):
- England: the most talented team..not sure if they have the mind/heart to win
- Argentina: Just road rolled over Serbia.
- Brazil: Ofcourse one can never write them off till they are out...and Kaka rocks :)
- Czech : if they beat italy convincingly
- Italy: If they beat Czech

How serious can winter blues be..

I am sure very few people like winters and short dark cloudy days...but I believe that people have the mental strength to adjust to the condition and find activities even during such times. I mean people have been living up north in norway/finalnd, etc. for so many years and do not seem to be upset about it at all... So I am really quite amused by the fact that the FDA just approved an anti-depresseant for winter blues (Article).

It seems like the mind of the people here is just not in their control and that there needs to be a drug to feel a certain way at any time. I feel that the people here have just lost the ability to feel something for real...and everything is artificially induced joy, love, happiness...

I guess Law & Order can now come up with a episode where the defence for murder is winter blues :) ..

What a fantastic time for sports

This is the best time of the year for sports enthusiasts...French open + World cup soccer + NBA and wimbledon to follow very soon...

The games so far in the french open have been really top class and coming up this weekend are some more fantastic games :
Clijsters vs Justine (Should be really good..)
Vaidisova vs Kuznetsova
Roger Federer vs Nalbandian
Ljubicic vs nadal

Some statistics...for the first time since the 80's the top 4 seeds in the men's game have reached the semi-finals..

Everybody is eagerly waiting for a Federer-Nadal showdown...After watching the Nadal-hewitt game, I have to say Nadal has better chances and I am tending towards supporting him :) (I have been a loyal federer fan for the longest time..)

World cup soccer is starting on June 9. There are about 3 games a day for the next month starting at 6 am PST. So that should encourage us to get up early in the morning... Below is a link to the schedule (for my reference!!)

http://media.espn.com/ESPNToday/2006/Mar_06/cup_sked.htm

And ofcourse NBA..I think the Mavericks will win very easily over the Heat..but the conference finals and the games before that esp. Spurs vs Mavericks were so good to watch. Each one of them concluding with a nail-biting finish

Update: Wimbledon schedule
http://aeltc.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/tvschedule/tv_us.html

Sequoia-Kings Canyon camping trip

Went camping during memorial day weekend to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. We actually camped in the sequoia national forest. The camping experience was very adventurous...we had some unexpected snow showers and sub zero temperatures and after living in California for a while you forget how to deal with cold weather..But the weather did improve a lot over the next two days..so we had a lot of fun.

The national park is very famous for their huge sequoia trees...General Grant and General Sherman (largest living tree in the world) are the some of the really large ones..Below are some statistics just to give a better idea of their enormous size
- Their height is that of a 27 storey building
- The weight is greater than that of 700 cars
- The width/diameter is greater than that of a 3 lane freeway

Below are some pictures from the trip:

General Sherman...was impossible to get a single picture of the entire tree...



General Grant...third largest living tree



We are actually standing inside the bark of a fallen tree :)



We are 5 of us and we still can't cover even half the tree..We figured that it would take about 25 people with stretched hands to cover the entire circumference of the Sherman tree



This cobbled stone circle below is the circumference of the bark of the Sherman Tree...



Hume Lake