Blogging after a forgettable year and half...

I have been a NFL buff for a while and for years I thought baseball is the slowest version of cricket (which BTW I still consider No.1). Over the past few months I started to follow baseball and to be honest, I think I started to draw interest in this. Also living in a baseball adored city with a great team adds to it.

I like the various statistics and metrics involved in rating a pitcher or a hitter and love the fact that baseball does take into account the fielding errors, which is forgotten in cricket. But similar to other sports, any match-up between good teams will draw interest and will make the sport more interesting. The nuances like DH in AL and PH in NL and makes the interleague match-ups more interesting. But one major aspect that surpised me was the video replay. I thought american sports were a huge fan of video replays, which seem to be maturing slowly in baseball. But unlike FIFA, atleast MLB have started the ball rolling.

Health insurance

For many years in US, I dint bother about health insurance probably either I was cocky and or totally believed that the insurance from my employer (well known Indian IT company) was gold. In the last couple weeks since I am moving to a new employer, I had a chance to fish for insurance on my own and was an eye-opening experience. First of all I was feeling pathetic that I did not know all the key terms involved HMO, PPO and its sub-terms. Considering to take a smart approach, with the help of my dear friend google I thought should venture some insurance help web sites. In various insurance help websites after grinding the same flour over and again (I picked this phrase from Tamil), they all throw a caution note - 'Find the policy that's right for you' - and seriously I don't know whats right. Since myself and missus don't have any major issues (touch my-head), but going through the policies it did put me to think as to what might happen if we had an accident and did induce a kind of negative thought. I think insurance policy is a smart venture to terrify people and get $$ from so called safeguarding the people. I never did such a thing back home in India and not sure anyone still does there (I know we promptly insure our motorbikes against theft).

I went through the various websites, Keystone, Aetna, Oxford, GE and finally settled for one, but the agent advised me on the application processing time i.e. 3-4 weeks after appropriate scrutiny. I wonder and amazed how UK/Canada are providing health benefits duly undertaken by government and is an excellent policy. For me the worst is yet to come as I have to go through the same pain for dental insurance. Tooth-ache is tolerable than this.

I seriously feel the health insurance policy in US needs a total revamp and easier to public.

Just started with diwali bang!

For many years, I wanted to blog but somehow it slipped. Today being diwali and auspicious (god! I am getting old) and just like my mom says ' Nalla naala paarthu aarambi' (check the right day to start), I thought would start to pen, but not sure how long.

Diwali is very speical for nostalgic people like me, as it makes me think of all the fun I had when was a kid. On Diwali morning, my mom used to wake up very early, and yes you can't sleep beyond 5:00AM, else the fire crackers will wake you up. Dragging myself from bed, I wake up to see my Dad all bathed (with 'vibuthi' all over body) with a stern face and cup of kaapi (our term for coffee). Then comes the shower ('ganga snanam') and mom used to prepare 'nalla ennai' (hot oil) and apply on top our head before the shower. The sole motivation point for me is to wear the new dress and the firecrackers. It's a competition among neighbours that who starts the crackers early and who has the most number of crackers, and man I get beaten everytime. In Chennai diwali season also brings the monsoon, but never had dampened the spirit of the people. Getting back to firecrackers, myself and my sis will start slowly with a few lil ones until we had our ear's deaf'ed out and then its easier to go for the big ones.

After the crackers, the good part is the food and wow its amazing to see so many varieties. I hog till my tummy cries out load and then comes other important of the day - TV programs!!. All celebraties will be in TV one channel or other. New movie releases will be trailered and 'key' celebraties will be interviewed like - ' An evening with Namitha', an actress with one ' special song' and whose movies are hit for all the wrong reasons. I dont understand is the media can go to all extent to have the people glued to TV (but as a teenager I never complained). The worst part is the advertisements, you can't watch a program continously for more than 5 minutes without an interruption, and god I hate 'Pothys, Nalli, Saravana stores & Thanga Maaligai' for their never ending adverts.

All in all the day closes will visiting a few relatives in evening and again hogging myself with various festivity foods.

Well I was discussing these things with my wife this morning and over coffee and well it was worth going over until I checked the clock and had to beat the traffic rush to work. But I did warm the oil and applied on my head before the shower, for my mom.