Contd....Tsunami...The Killer Wave

When the waves hit the different parts of South-East Asia....they have had some devastating effects.....thousands have been killed (at the time of the post the death toll is abt 1,00,000 and is still rising).....and millions have been rendered homeless...the scenes that I have been watching on the television for the past few days have been very very shocking and sad....I saw some amateur videos on CNN and CNBC which showed the Killer waves hitting Thailand and Indonesia....the sheer force with which they hit the coast was mind-boggling. The other fact that the wave travelled as far as Somalia and caused devastation there is even more mind boggling as Somalia is 6000 KM from the epicenter of the quake !!!!!!

I have read a lot of amazing survivor stories...and every story is a miracle in itself....though I watched only the images of the tsunami on the TV...I can say that the survivors were those with luck and determination to fight against all odds (u need both to survive such a disaster)....the TV coverage on the tsunami has been very extensive....i am glad that i am able to follow the situation so closely...thanx to CNN and rediff.com....

The fact that such huge waves went undetected for most part (a US Pacific lab claims to have detected the tsunami)....is very very shocking. I guess Mother nature reminds us time and again....how ever advanced the technology can be....how many ever inventions man has made....she is still in control of the earth and we cannot deny that.

The Pacific lab that claims to have detcted the Tsunami...says that they didnt have the contacts of the concerned people in their address book to warn those countries....are u kidding me ??????.....how hard is it to get the numbers or email addresses???? if not anything...atleast they could have googled for the numbers...and I am sure they would have found 100 of those......this could have saved many lives!!!!! I am not saying that it would have saved all the lives...but even saving some lives is as precious......what if the life saved was that of ur beloved one ??? wouldnt u have been grateful ???

one more incident that read on a blog on rediff ..... when DD (Doordarshan) was asked abt when they would be airing the next update on the Tsunami...guess what the answer was????...."How can we air an update in the middle of a cricket match !!!!!we will air the next update after the Cricket Match between indian and Bangladesh"....can u belive that??? is a cricket match more important that giving updates to the families and realtives ofthe people that were effected by the killer wave???

the aid has been flowing in from all directions....but is it too late???? u never know....atleast we know that people in the world are trying to help those hit by the Tsunami...that is very very encouraging...people all over have been sending in food/clothing/medicines apart from the monetary aid and volunteering....

someone aptly put it.....on the first day of such an adversity the victims need..food and shelter.....on the second day clothing....third day medication...finally relocation and rehab....I guess we are into the medical attention and relocation mode right now.....

seeing all this i was wondering....how come soo many people were killed in only one incident when 4 hurricanes one after the other in Florida was resposible for 14 lives ???? I saw a lot of things that were in favor of the US....they are very well prepared for these kind of adversities...i am not saying that they are prepared for a tsunami....but i am sure that they will not be hit as badly as they crisis management and emergency management organizations are very well trained and are upto the task....unlike the countries that have been hit by the tsunami..it clearly shows the amount of effort that US puts into these ememrgency drills..the fact that they (effected countries) are among the most densly populated places in the world..doesnt help....it only made the effect of the tsunami more severe with lot more lives at stake....

to be continued......

Tsunami.....The Killer Wave

As most of u know that South-East ASia was hit by the tsunamis (killer waves) in the early hrs of 26th....people had just finished their Christmas celebrations....Kids were on the beach and the streets playing cricket etc....the fishermen were getting to work....women were out mending the fishing nets and helping the men go out into the see....hundreds were on the beach for their early morning walk and jog.....people in the tourist places were out to beat the crowds to the beaches....the businesses on the beach were abt to begin in full swing.....but all these people were unaware of the danger that was brewing the depths of the Indian Ocean !!!!!!!!!

Earlier that morning a 9.0 earthquake had hit the shore of the Sumatra Island in Indonesia....taht itself had caused a lot of devastation....people from India will remember the quake that hit Gujarat abt 3 yrs ago....its after effects cans till be seen on the streets of Gujarat whre people are still trying to get over the personal and financial losses that the quake had brought...

This quake in Indonesia seemed to have shocked the world by its magnitude as 9.0 quakes are not commonly seen....the one in California in 1986 was much smaller than this one...so u can imagin the magnitude of destructiion it can cause. Tsunami is a tidal wave that is caused by quakes close to the shore or in the ocean....the quake caused a disturbanc eon the ocean floor which develops into a huge wave that is only 1 meter in the ocean but travels at 500 mi/hr (near to the seep of jet)....it travels very fast in the deep waters and slows down considerably when it approaches the shore...the bottom of the wave is slowed down by the sloping (elevation) of the ocean
floor as it approaches the shore...but the top of the wave keeps traveling at a greater speed and accumulates water so it rises to abt 20m in height as it reached the shore with millions of gallons of water.....when it hits the shore it hits it with such force that it can literally destroy everything in the vicinity.....

example....if a tidal wave of 90ft(~25m) height hits the east coast of Florida...it can travel across Florida....flooding the whole state!!!!!!!!!!!! and drowning most of it

the waves that hit Srilanka were abt 40ft high, those that hit Chennai were 20ft and those that hit indonesia are speculated to be abt 60ft high...so u can imagine the amount of devastation these can cause....

to be continued..........

Saga of the Cleveland Browns

I recently attended a talk of Terry Pluto...leading sports journalist in the US and the probably the best sports writer in the North-East Ohio area. I used to read his articles in the Akron Beacon Journal (when I used to subscribe it, I dont anymore....newspaper is a luxury in student life...hehehe). He, like most of us, is an ardent fan of the Cleveland Sports teams and is very disappointed with the unsuccessful sporting history of the teams....Cleveland Indians havent won a world series since 1954, Cleveland Cavaliers havent even reached the NBA finals ever (for most of the people who dont know much abt Cavs....its the team Lebron James plays for) and the Cleveland Browns havent won anything in the past 25 years....so basically all the sports fans in Cleveland are longing for some kind of Success of these teams and the closest or the only glimmer of hope is the impressive run of the Cavs so far this season and I atleast hope that it transforms into a Playoff Season!!!!

Cleveland is probably one of the few cities with teams in all the Professional Sports....NBA,MLB and NFL...and it has got a tremendous fan support and sporting history. The Cleveland fans are considered to be the most enthusiastic crowd (as there are only a few things to cheer for these days) and its sad to see that these wonderful fans are disappointed day-in and day-out by the lacklustre performance of the sports teams.

Terry pluto has written books on the Browns, Cavs and the Indians but his favorite topic is the Browns (who doesnt like football???). He talked abt his new book False Start ...that was based on the bad choices made by the NFL when Art Modell left Cleveland with his team to become the Baltimore Ravens!!!!!!

I learned a lot of things abt the transactions that took place in that period between 1995-99...and how the Cleveland Fans got shafted...by the then owner of the Cleveland Browns ..Art modell....demanded a new stadium for the Browns with the City money and since the City of Cleveland rejected the idea he was pissed and left with his team to Baltimore which built a new stadium for him.....so much for the fans feelings!!!!!!

Terry mentioned that the NFL didnt take any actions against Art for leaving the city on the contrary they proposed to set up a new team in Cleveland as they knew that the fans in Cleveland are so crazy that they will pay to watch anyone play!!!!! so the whole point here was for the NFL to make the most out of the oppurtunity to make (more) money. The price that the currrent owner of the Browns paid was abt $550 million when the rate for taking over any franchise was between $300 - $350 million ....the LA Dodgers were then sold for abt $325 million and everyone expected the Browns take over to be abt the same price.....but the NFL increased the franchise take over cost and in a way ensured that the next person to buy a team (which happens to be Texans) will have to atleast pay that amount....this was a smart move by the NFL to make more money.

Usually, when a team moves out of a city, the city is up for grabs for other teams to move in within 900 days but when Modell moved his team out the NFL let abt 1500 days pass by before letting another team come to cleveland....this way the owners of the other teams could blackmail their respective cities to build new stadiums....as they could say ""Build a new stadium or we will move to Cleveland!!!!".....to support this argument there were atleast 5 new stadiums that were built or were agreed upon in that period of 5 yrs.

A new franchise is usually given abt 3 yrs (Texans were given that period)....to prepare for the opening season....but the Browns were given only 11 months!!!!!! that too with countless restrictions.....the head Coach Palmer was asked to hire the personel for the team but the restrictions from the NFL were:

U cannot approach an Asst Coach of another NFL team
U cannnot hire anyone that is on the roster of another team
U cannot sign any player that is currently signed with another team

now with these restrictions even the best possible coach like Parcels would have found it difficult to put a team together....so Cleveland Browns were put together by gathering Coaching Staff that was either fired by other teams or from the College level....the players were drafted from the Expansion Draft where in the teams will leave the extra baggage (dispensible players) and Browns picked them up....now with that kind of coaching staff and players I dont think its fair for any one to have high expectations from the team.....there was nobody in the Club house with any experience of putting a team together. can u imagine what a fair draft or hiring process or preparation time would have done to the browns team???? it could have been a play-off contender by now!!!!!!!!!!

As expected the Browns were annilated by the teams and we fell to abt 2-14 and Palmer was fired....in comes the hotshot coach from the University of Miami....Butch Davis...but seeing the plight of the browns he had insisted on being the incharge of the hiring and draft in short he was Coach/GM.....his first season here he did wonders by leading the Browns into the playoffs as he was still Coach Davis but the last couple of years the Coach in him was over shadowed by the GM Davis and his team fell apart...as a result we finished 5-11 last year from 9-7 record of the previous season......and this year were are on our way to finish 3-13.....now tell me what kind of expectations should the Browns (Cleveland) fans have from their teams????

The Indians tooo are falling apart with the last survivor from the 90's team....Vizquel....being traded....there ended the golden era (partially)...we atleast reached the World Series.....of the Indians and we are rebuilding again!!!!!!

Cavs are the only bright feather in the current Cleveland teams thanx to our local boy/hero....Lebron James....it has been a treat to watch him on TV....i have been following this kid for the past 4 yrs since he was a Sophmore in HighSchool....he was a Phenom...Pluto had been wirting abt him since and I have seen this kid grow from a Highschool star into a NBA Phenom....he is a great guy....unlike the other younger people in the NBA...he is level headed and knows to move with the right crowd and not take part in a crappy rap song full of gangsters (u cant claim u were innocent Anthony!!!)....

well all in all...being an ardent and die-hard sports fan of the Cleveland teams I hope there is a turnaround in the fortunes of our team!!!!!!!!

Earth Sea

I eagerly awaited the mini-series on the Scifi Channel...Earth Sea....I was very much thrilled by the previews and had the expectations similar to LOTR....but I guess I was expecting tooo much from a normal TV series.....LOTR trilogy is once in a lifetime classic...it doesnt happen everyday.

Anyways, back to Earth Sea...it was a story abt this young wizard (they seem to be the most popular guys around in Hollywood now...Gandalf,Harry Potter, Dumbledore.....) who wants to get all the powers ASAp....but as we (those of us in school) all know that never works as it will lead to disasters.....welll thats exactly what happened and he is challenged to calling the spirit from the dead....from the side of darkness...and now he has to send it back else it will devour him and get all his powers and the world will be in trouble!!!!!!!!!

The idea for the min-series was pretty good but I felt that they were trying to put too many things into the 4 hr (2 episodes) series.....they wanted to show the elements of rivalry among young wizards in school (like Harry and Draco in HP) , wanted to show the great burden the wizard carries when being hunted by the spirit from the Dark Side (like Frodo baggins) and he has a fat friend that accompanies him to the mouth of danger (aka Sam wise Gamgee).....there are Priestesses, Men, Evil Spirits, Wizards , Dragons.....etc...in the series.....though it looked great in the previews the original storyline was very thin and never had the punch the movies like LOTR and HP had....

Though it was a disappointment I am an ardent fan of Sci-fi and Fantasy stuff so I watched the series for 4 hrs even in the middle of my Final weeks....heheheheh...and I also ended up writing this post on that series...so I guess I kind of liked it a little bit.

 Some interesting Laws....

LORENZ'S LAW OF MECHANICAL REPAIR-

After your hands become coated with grease, your nose

will begin to itch.



ZADRA'S LAW OF BIOMECHANICS-

The severity of the itch is inversely proportional

to the reach.



ANTHONY'S LAW OF THE WORKSHOP-

Any tool,when dropped,will roll to the least

accessible corner..



KOVAC'S CONUNDRUM-

When you dial a wrong number,you never get an

engaged one..



CANON'S KARMIC LAW-

If you tell the boss you were late for work

because you had a flat tyre,the next morning

you will have a flat tyre..



O'BRIEN'S VARIATION LAW-

If you change queues,the one you have left

will start to move faster than the one you are in now..



RUBY'S PRINCIPLE OF CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-

The probability of meeting someone you know

increases when you are with someone you don't

want to be seen with..



WILLOUGHBY'S LAW-

When you try to prove to someone that a machine

won't work, it will..



BREDA'S RULE-

At any event,the people whose seats are

fartherest from the aisle arrive last..



OWEN'S LAW-

As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee,

your boss will ask you to do something which

will last until the coffee is cold..