Fantasy Football Break #1

I apologize, but this is a random post for some Fantasy Football opponents back in the U.S. I will sporadically do this over the course of the NFL season.

And if you haven't seen this YouTube video yet, you are missing out.

Do you know what a "nationwide bandh" is?

I know I certainly didn't but apparently it's a big deal. Chalk this one up to a "cultural experience" for me.

So yesterday I'm burning through my day trying to get the never ending list of to-do's done and then I get an email stating I should work from home on Thursday. Naturally curious I start asking some colleagues what the 411 is. I had heard talk on Monday about a potential "holiday" on Thursday but didn't think too much about it.

Welp, turns out there is a bit of a dispute about diesel prices being raised here in country and one of the political parties is none too pleased about it and has declared a nationwide bandh, which is ultimately a stoppage of work, daily life, etc.

Being a naive American, and even more naive HR professional, when I hear strike I think of individuals with signs shouting about not being paid enough or concerned that there performance at work might actually be tracked. (Yes, I'm looking at you Chicago Teachers Union. Your compensation is completely ridiculous considering your districts performance and state financial situation. I'm all about 100k salaries for teachers, but you better be sending every one of those kids to an Ivy League school and ranking higher than India and China in STEM education for that compensation. Pay for performance people.)

Well the strike game here in India is on an entirely new level. Apparently you take this stuff seriously or risk physical harm. Here are some excerpts from a local paper covering the story...

oohhhhhhhhh scary...

So school kids get an extra day off. I used to get days off all the time when it was -37 degrees F (without windchill) or when megastorms would ruin my childhood memories of Halloween.

Ok, so if there's one thing I've learned while living here, autorickshaw drivers hardly ever say no to a fare and are fearless in their own right to even drive these streets. But if a bandh creates a fear of attack, now they have my attention.

Ummmm... this sounds like foreshadowing to me now.

Well that's nice that the State Police has "done their best." Famous last words. Anytime someone tells you they did their best it means they dropped the ball and you need to get on damage control immediately. This applies to life at home, the office, or any other facet for that matter.

So yeah, should be fun tomorrow and most likely not a big deal. I've been assured by the hotel that they are locking the gates and bringing in extra security. I'll snap some photos and share what this looks like.

Cheers.

1st Impressions of Portugal

Upon landing I immediately went to withdrew some Euros for the first couple days and was pleasantly surprised by exch an ge rate. 150 euros turns out to be about $188 and change USD which was less than I had anticipated. I grabbed a cab for 18 euro and through the course of a 25 minute commute, received a full debrief on how Portugal is really struggling economically. You wouldn't necessarily know it though just by walking through the streets and taking in some of the sites. But you do find some clues in the urban art...

The first night we stayed at the Tivoli Hotel on Avenida da Liberdade. It was a nice hotel, but the room was insanely small and the guest services staff wasn't the most customer friendly.You can't knock the location though as we spent a lot of time walking around the main drag of the city that first day.

Portugal as a city is beautiful. There is a ton of the expected European character, impressive architecture, wide selection of diners and cafes and great people watching. The sidewalks are all a polished stone type of walkway which proved to be troublesome for my athletic prowless. If ever visiting Portugal, I recommend shoes or sandals that do not have worn bottoms.

But enough about me talking about the city, take a peek for yourself in a couple of these videos... (there's no sound cause there's no need to eavesdrop).

Bull Fighting in Portugal...

is AWESOME!!

The history of it, the pure violence, the elegance, the music; I'm hooked. If we had this back in the states I'd be all over it. The "horsemen" are stars and I can only imagine the perks they get across towns they visit. Probably put rock stars and athletes to shame.

The match we attended had 6 matches and the intensities increased with each bull. We did see a guy get beat up pretty bad, but was assured by our cab driver that he didn't parish. Here is the video...

It gets good about 1:20 or so in. This should act as a reminder that this is a serious sport. I mean the guy was TOSSED.

And started bleeding from the back region somehow...



Again, I took lots of videos and I promise they all aren't as brutal as this one. They do give you a great seat in the arena though. Enjoy!



Air France is decent

The flight over to Portugal was a relatively decent experience with Air France. I had a very early morning flight out of Bangalore that connected in Paris and then brought me to my final destination in Lisbon. Somehow I was upgraded on every segment of the flight despite not holding any great status with Delta (which Air France is a partner of), but I'll certainly take it.

If there's one thing that gets me at airports, and I see it's all over the globe, it's the queue that forms when there is a bit of activity at the gate from attendants. This was the line before first class was even announced to board. The day society as a whole begins to understand how airlines check people in and not form a gauntlet of bodies blocking the entrance for sections being seated ahead of them will be joyously celebrated.

I was able to get this shot of serenity in flight too...

In flight I couldn't complain. Had a spacious window seat where I could get some work done, a great selection of movies and a decent late night dinner and breakfast. Yes, that's Bachelor Pad.

The only hiccup on the trip was the tight connection time in Paris. I had under an hour to get from the exact opposite end of the Paris Charles De Gaulle airport. I've never been to France and this was my first connection through this airport so I was a bit nervous about not making my connection. After a small cardio workout running from one end to the other, I made my gate with 5 minutes to spare. Here some of the walk/jog and art info...

The flight from Paris to Lisbon was a short 2.5 hours and pretty empty so I was able to catch a quick power nap.  When I awoke, I was in Lisbon and ready to have some fun.

Cheers.



Wisc-OH?!

I spent much of Saturday late night dominating the first lady from roughly 8,500 miles away on this addictive new app called SongPop. If you haven't tried this out yet you are really missing out. It's iPhone/iPad/Android app fire as the kids say. I am a bit concerned that she isn't a Pearl Jam fan though...

While administering some pain until she discovered my achilles' heel (animated movie song list), I stumbled upon a glorious thing: Wisconsin Badger football vs. Oregon State broadcasting live on the ESPN India feed. Can't even begin to say how excited I was to find this.

But as I watched a cold reality was slowly coming over me, it's going to be a long year for my favorite college football team. Poor offensive line play, serviceable at best QB work and a new offensive coordinator are not things that will get you a conference championship or BCS bowl bid. This may too soon, but...

Maybe it's divine intervention that I'm going to miss all of the college regular season being here in India?

Cheers.

Comic Con 2012 - India Style

Comic Con is one of those events that I think everyone should experience just once, even if you are not a comic book fan boy or brony. Other events like this include Bonnaroo, Burning Man or the Texas State Fair. Well this weekend I was in luck as the Comic Con tour made a stop over in lovely Bangalore for two days. Needless to say, with non-work activities at the minimum here, I was all about checking this out.

Prior to getting to this thing, I was a bit scared that I might have set my expectations too high. Anyone familiar with the U.S. Comic-Con in San Diego knows it's full of elaborate costumes, movie star cameos and large film, tv and comic launches or first looks. Well, I did get my hopes up.

When I arrived there were certainly tons of people there which was encouraging, but the content and number of booths was a bit of a downer. While I fully expected a slew of Indian based comics and film, I anticipated there would still be a major footprint of the U.S. industry trying spread it's tentacles across the globe. There was really no presence from the big companies like Marvel or DC. The one international company that had a big presence was Microsoft with a huge Kinect booth that overall I thought was a pretty cool setup. No food or beverage sponsors and no big comic company corporate presence.

I did stumble upon a few cool local artists who had some nice pieces of work, but nothing so nice that I would be compelled to buy and then put in the effort to ship back to the U.S. without destroying it. I did make one purchase though...

Yep, a graphic novel of the Steve Jobs autobiography. Full nerd status here. I figure it will make a great piece of bathroom reading when I return to the U.S. for guests. And for only 170 rupees, you can't go wrong.

But I won't talk about this anymore, check out the video I made with all the highlights from the event below. Cheers!

- D



Portugal is awesome

I'm halfway through a whirlwind 3 weeks that has me going to Portugal back to India then off to Singapore. On top of that I drafted 2 fantasy football squads, one of which I am satisfied and the other leaves some intrigue as to how the season will fair. QBs are key to my fantasy strategy and I've got Brady and Brees between the two which will suffice.

Yes Tom, hopefully I'll be dancing my way to a league title led by you and your UGG boots. Random note, when you Google Tom Brady images you get way more photos of him "modeling" than him on the field of play. Not a good look. Anyways, I'm sure the interest is on how my fantasy drafts from the other side of the world went and more on what Portugal was like so I'll get to it.

Now I debated how I want to share the trip: do I go one massive post or do I tease you with smaller/focused segments like a good blogger. I'll be doing the latter. Over the next week I'll post 5 segments covering the travel experience, bull fighting, dining, cityscape/architecture, random remnants not covered. Here's just a little taste...

All in all, Portugal is a beautiful city and I think I have a competitor to my current favorite vacation spot, Cabo San Lucas. The people were friendly even though I have no idea whatsoever they were saying (damn you, Portuguese!) and the cuisine from Portuguese style steak to seafood was excellent. It was also to our benefit that the Euro continues to get pounded so the sticker shock on meals, lodging, etc. wasn't too bad.

More to come soon...

Cheers.

- D