An Era - A Beginning or the End ?

F1 - Schumacher
Cricket - Australia
Tennis - Federer

A list of legendary players/team, Dominance is the word, An Era that solely belonged to them and none other, they have established history that probably will never repeat and a certain kind of dominance that made the result of a game predictable, a victory to their credit was a foregone conclusion. Sport viewers have a different take at it, some watch it because they always want their favorites to win and they were treated to it. But, what about the classic competitions, a competition between equals where one tries to get the better of the other and constantly evolve. I am by no means demeaning the feat achieved by these champions, what they have achieved is by no means ordinary, maybe not even extra-ordinary but beyond that, something out of the world, their talent surpassed that of everyone else. Well it’s when you think about all this, you end up watching an epic of a tennis match- Federer - Nadal Wimbledon'08 .It sure was a clash of the Titans. Whatever people may say - that Federer would not have had a chance if the rain gods came to the rescue or that Nadal would not have made it at the end if not for the fading light. It did not matter, we have to give it to these players. It was Nadal’s day from the start and he won the match, deservedly so, Federer definitely was not at his best, but he is called a Champion for no reason, down two sets in a Wimbledon final, how often do we see such classic comebacks. The Final set could have been anybody's. One could draw a parallel to the 1995 Australian open quarter final between Pete Sampras and Jim Courier, I do not remember watching it, but have read about it so often that it sure is etched in my memories as one of the classic moments in Grand Slam Tennis history. Courier was the world's best and Sampras was the supreme challenger. You know what happened after that. Sampras won that match and now, the rest is history. Will yesterday’s Wimbledon final be one such moment - Many say it’s a moment that is going to signal the end of an Era and the start of another one, we got to wait and see if that is going to happen - Time will answer. For now, I am still relishing the amazing sporting moments from yesterday's match :).

When you look and you find..

Growing up in India, the only words that you are fed with while shopping are probably discounts and sale. My first tryst with deals and mail-in-rebates is when I got here to Uncle Sam's land.

Have you ever felt the joy of finding something in the first place you look for?And,before you come to any sort of conclusions this is the story:

June 7 : My friend and roommate Miss.A is looking for deals for laptops and she finds one in Office depot, everything that a normal person ( excluding techies, nerds and gamers) would want came in a laptop costing 830$ with a mail-in-rebate of 175$ and it was the last day of the offer. Wow, both of us jumped in joy, but alas only one of us could order it, mail in rebates have this policy of one rebate per household, nevertheless I was magnanimous and suggested that she should take the laptop first since she was leaving for India soon and I will have some more time. She places her order. Somehow, I felt this was an awesome deal and not wanting to let it go, asked for another friend Mr.K to bail me out and order a laptop for me using his address. Yay I ordered mine too.

June 9: Ms.A's laptop arrives. She is sober.

June 10: My laptop arrives, we now have 5 laptops at home, 3 official and two personal.. Wow, this is my first laptop and am thrilled beyond description.

June 12: Realised that the mail-in-rebate form has to be post marked by June 28th. Ms.A and me decide to print the forms and checked for everything that needs to be sent - original bill, UPC and the form, just believing the ability of the self's knowledge of what a UPC could mean(Ms.A sometimes trusts me), we just sent the Bar code we received with the bill.

June 28: Randomly checked the office-depot website for the status - no updates yet.

July 1: Almost 10 P.M, A friend Mr.A comes over to pick up some card board boxes as he is moving to another place and while pulling out the cardboard boxes, we also realised we needed to throw away a few of them which we probably did not require, one of it turned out to be Ms.A's laptop box, I wanted to throw mine as well, but the lazy me hadn't removed some stuff from the box yet. So all the boxes that we decided were of no use were kept next to the door so that we could throw the next day when we leave for work.

July 2: Morning 8 A.M, very diligently I pick up all the card board boxes and threw it away in the trash bins.

July 3: I was working from home.
2.30 P.M Again a random thought to check the status of mail in rebate (its worth 175$ remember). I checked mine and there was the update that I did not want to see, a non compliance report - Incorrect UPC code and a note to send the UPC code.
3.00 P.M: Realisation that I should check what a UPC code means, a very gracious website had a description that it was the label that is stuck on the box in which the product is delivered, A sudden flash of thought, Ms.A's box is already in the bin and probably even recycled now, that's 175$ getting recycled, you know.

3.30 P.M: Decided to check the bin, odds against odds what if its still there. Walked up to the trash bin in a hurry, they have these huge trash bins out here (there were four of them) and I had left the boxes by the side of the bin the previous day. There was nothing on the sides on the bins, hoping that its probably hidden somewhere in the bins. These bins are taller than me, I just managed to look into one of them and voila there was a laptop box and what are the odds and that in an apartment of 100 houses, somebody was going to buy a laptop and still throw it, a ray of hope, I had to climb up the fence to reach to it, I did not care who was looking, but surprise and surprise, it was exactly what I was looking for!! You can imagine the feeling, It's beyond words.
I Called Ms.A to immediately tell her what I did for her, she now owes me a big treat but better yet, I still find that whole feeling very relishing..lol and also learnt a priceless lesson - Never throw your cardboard boxes until you are sure, but the thing is you can never be sure!
Yay, I now know the feeling of what it means to find something in the first place I look! Here's to - laptop, mail-in-rebates, cardboard boxes and trash bins:)