This is the perfect morning

My wife has work today and my daughter has been invited to spend her day at a friend's house. Now, don't jump to conclusions...that is not what makes the day!

I dropped off my daughter to her friend's house in the morning (my wife had already left for work) and then thought about that I wanted to do.

I landed up at Wheelock place on Orchard road and then spent the next half and hour or so just sipping coffee and enjoying the sight of Orchard Road on a weekend. Then, I slipped into one of my most favourite places in Singapore.

Borders.

The most ideal way for me to spend my time is browsing books and reading them. I have realized that I can spend hours inside Borders checking out books and reading some of them without realizing how long I have been there. That was how I spent most of my morning...until my wife called.

So after she got off work, we met at Suntec and had lunch together in the food court in the basement (Great Indian fusion food) and then spent some time shopping for stuff which she will carry to India. Most of the time, we were just walking along, hand in hand...just like old times.

It's been a great day.

I didn't like the wild

It's Vesak Day today (or Buddha Pornima, depending on which part of the world you are in) and my daughter and I have a holiday. Unfortunately, my wife is busy both today and tomorrow.

So my daughter and I decided that we will play for a while at home, then quickly finish lunch and head out for a movie. I called ahead and booked us two tickets for Disney's "The Wild".

Both of us sat through the movie munching our popcorn and didn't find the movie the least bit impressive. Not that the animation was bad, it's just that there was not story. A lot of it was a-la-Madagascar and it looked like a story ripped apart from a lot of places and sown together. All in all, an extremely dull movie.

But great time spent with my daughter. A whole day! A rare treat for me!

The Return of the King

Or should I say The Kaiser!

What a superb performance put up by Ferrari and Schumi. He started from second position, tailed Alonso all the way, got more fuel on board than Alonso after the first pit stop, tailed him all the way again and then put a couple of lap record breaking blisters when Alonso pitted.

So strong was his performance when he was out (when Alonso can in for the second stop) that he came out a full second ahead of Alonso.

Oh, the joy! Finally the Tifosi are celebrating.

And they said that his win in San Marino was only because Alonso could not overtake him on the narrow track. Well, he just made everybody eat their own words, mixed with tyre rubber and dirt!

Way to go Schumi! We have always been behind you, even through the worst run you had ni your career. And we will be there until you retire. And we will still be with you.

How crucial is Schumi to Ferrari success is evident from the offer made by the Scuderia team to Schumi for an additional two years.

A whopping $85 MILLION!!!

And that will be justifiably so...when he wins his undisputed EIGHTH world championship this year.

Ferrari will rule!

Goodbye Highbury

Now please dont mistake me for an Arsenal fan.

As a matter of fact, I dislike the club and am glad they have had a terrible season this year. The only person who I just cannot get to disliking is Thierry Henry.

What can one say about this maestro? Simply put, he is the best.

His awesome power and his contribution to the success of Arsenal was on display at the final game of the season for them and the last EVER game played at Highbury (next year, Arsenal move to the Emirates Stadium).

Arsenal met Wigan for this final game which was tipped by a lot of pundits as "a game where Arsenal would put on a display". And the game most certainly didn't disappoint.

Arsenal needed to win the game and hope that Spurs lost their match so that they would get to fourth place in the League and earn Champions League qualifiers position. And win they did.

After a great first half where both teams scored a couple of goals each, it looked like the match would end in a draw. That's when the King of Highbury took over.

He scored a hat trick in this final match at Highbury to take the Gunners to a 4-2 victory over Wigan. As soon as he scored his third, he knelt and kissed the ground, an obvious gesture of the love he feels for the ground and the club. Highbury has seen a lot of spectacular matches thanks to this man and they would hate to see him go.

But there is a lot of talk of Henry going over to Barca after this season. A lot of people put this performance of a hat trick as the final league performance for Henry. Speculation about Henry joining Barca is rife and only fueled by Henry who has not yet committed to staying at Arsenal.

Will the King leave? Or will he stay?

Personally, I would love him to stay. Even if his being there helps a club that I despise. Just watching him is pure please (or terror, if you are watchin Arsenal play ManU) and I would love to see him continue in the League.

It took me almost 10 months

Yeah, I know it's a long time, but I finally did it!

I broke 90 for the first time since I came to Singapore. Shot 89 at the Tering Bay course in Batam, a course I was playing for the first time.

We started on the back nine and I played bogey golf for the first seven holes, missing par on two occasions with three putts on each of these holes. Just when I thought my putting was going to ruin the day, my putting stroke came back.

After double bogeying the 8th, I parred the last to finish the front nine on a bogey 45. The back nine began with a par and the bogey golf look like it would continue when I hit a double bogey on the 12th. So far I was playing bogey and was determined to not screw up.

The next five holes were all played to bogey and I managed to par the final hole with a single putt. One short of bogey for the back nine and one short of bogey for the entire round.

That felt really good. What felt better was that I did not hit as many fairways as I usually do and hit far fewer GIRs than normal. Despite that, I save bogey, sometimes even par, and went about the round with only 2 double bogeys. I know I could have had a lot more pars, but I prefer not having more double bogeys. Also 33 putts for the round is not bad. Not great, but not bad either. Considering my recent putting form, it was great.

I hope to do better in my next round.

Tired as h***

I just spent the last ten minutes willing my body to type this :-)

That's how bad I am feeling right now. Really really tired. My body is complaining so much, my legs are hurting like crazy.

Why am I telling you all of this? Cause I am tired ... and bored. I feel like I am going to throw up. And I know I am not going to, but I am just going to go on feeling that I am. Yeck!

Maybe a massage will do the trick.

Maybe I'll go for it.

What a week

Or should I say weak?

To make a long story short, the week was made up of a small birthday celebration, a few days of under-the-weather health and a relatively poor golf game. Yep, that pretty much sums it all up.

You know, as you get older, birthdays don't mean as much as they used to. There are fewer friends around to celebrate it with and there are a lot of things to get done, work wise, on the day itself. So by the time you are home, you are dog tired and it really does not feel any different from other days.

But all credit to my beautiful darling to make the evening worthwhile. She had cooked a really eaborate dinner of some of my favorite things and my daughter made me a cute little birthday card. They made my exhaustion just disappear. After we had dinner and put our daughter to sleep, we sat around and chatted for a while. And then it was peaceful slumber. A deep sleep after a tiring, but good day.

On saturday, we were invited for dinner at my golf buddy's place. All of us, part of the four ball, were there with our wives (and me with my daughter) to enjoy "Dum Biryani" made specially for the occasion by my pal. A lot of Heineken accompanied the conversation, which largely circulated around the topic of Golf. What else can you expect from a bunch of golf fanatics.

What eventually transpired was a set of outrageous statements by the host, who also happens to be a single handicapper, suggesting that we should bet on birdies and that we didn't have the guts. Now I always play to make par or birdie, it's just that sometimes (well, most of the times) the ball does not want to go in the direction I want it to go. My last birdie was almost a year ago, so there's fat chance I am going to be on the recieving end of the Birdie bet.

So we suggested we up the stakes. $100 for every eagle made on the course. And then we went completely psychological warfare on this guy. We put on so much pressure on him that when we started the round, this guy was nowhere in the shape that he usually is. He couldn't take it.

And after a round of golf in the worst weather I have played in, I can up trumps with a round of 90...beating a single handicapper by a single stroke (he shot 91!). 6 pars, 6 bogeys and 6 doubles. Another symmetrical assessment on the putting performance as well. 3 single putts, 3 two putts and 3 three putts for a total of 36. My GIR and three putt saga continued for a bit, but not as bad as the last time.

So I made 4 less putts as compared to the last round and shot a score 4 strokes lower. What I found astonishing was the fact that I took only a single penaly last time while I took 4 this time. So I actually managed to play a lot better than last time to shoot 90.

What felt fabulous was my full swing. It felt completely effortless and smooth. Unhurried, yet powerful. I was consistently hitting beyond the 260yrd mark and was mostly on the fairway. This time, I hit 9 out of 14 fairways and had only 4 GIRs, but even then, I managed to hit a better score than last time. So all in all, a better game than last time and this time, I was confident that I could get back to the game I had when I consistently broke 90.

And I went back to my old Adams putter. I dumped my Odeyssey White Hot because I could just not get the distance judgement with it. The Adams mallet, I felt was a lot better. Only the next round will confirm if my opinion is correct.

So that's the week in perspective. Sorry for not writing often enough, but I have been feeling so sc***ed the last few days, I just didn't feel like writing.