We know this day will come sooner or later. This time we even have a date couple weeks ago. Rafael Nadal takes over the No.1 ranking on Aug 18, 2008.
But I guess I am still not that ready. It feels so weird when I surf to ATPtennis.com and found Roger’s name no longer on the top. They even make a special welcome page to congratulate Rafa. It feels awkward looking into the main draw of the US Open and see Roger’s name in the very bottom. It feels even more awkward to call Roger “former World No. 1″
The order of the tennis kingdom has been under CHANGE this year (well now I sound like Obama:P) Justine Henin suddenly announced her retirement, and since then the Queen spot has been changing hands quite often. Roger is certainly not in his form and dethroned by Rafa. Even the Bryans showed lots vulnerability (like losing in Davis Cup, which would never happen before) and handed away their Ni. team reign.
It is so difficult to make it to the top. It is certainly more difficult to stay there facing all the challenges. It is probably the most difficult to step down and they fight back to the top again. This gonna take great minds, and great HEART for that.
I am going to share this great conversation between Charlie Rose (yeah Duke Law alum!) with one of the greatest Champion who has been to all of those before himself, Pete Sampras. And I hope Roger will prove us that he is in the same club with Pete!
The great Champion went down, but certainly IN STYLE.
This final is definitely on the top of the list of the greatest tennis matches ever. We are proud that you were part of it, even though it did not end in the way we like. You are still my Champion.
Now you need not face the monster you created anymore, now you need not play under the pressure of making history, now you need not care how the commentators rank you of all time. I hope you enjoy your own tennis outta there. Simple and happy.
I don’t care if someone calls you vulnerable or whatever. Nor do I care how computer ranking points work. Maybe you will not beat your nemesis ever again. Maybe they can take away your trophy, or maybe they can take away your No.1 ranking, but they will never be able to take away your elegant style, on court or off court. Thank you for the most beautiful tennis you have brought us.
Tip my hat to Rafa. You are a deserving Wimbledon Champion, and maybe soon No. 1.
But Roger will forever be my Champion, the most elegant one, the greatest one. Thank you, Roger. This is the greatest run in sports. I am honored to be your fan.
Jon Weber hit his second homer of the game, and the Bulls seemed to be powering their way to yet another victory. The trademark Bull sign above the left field wall was smoking, sold out fans were cheering, and I am sitting back to enjoy a wonderful, comfortable Friday evening at the DBAP (Durham Bulls Athletic Park) And this familiar scene brought me back to many years ago.
It should be one of those high school days when I first learned the place “Durham”. I was watching Kevin Costner’s “Bull Durham,” a romantic movie involving minor league baseball players and a local girl. I think I never really watched the full movie. ( You know, this is one of those old movies that HBO keeps rerunning. So I definitely watched multiple times of different parts of this film) And I am too big a baseball/sports fan that if any movie uses baseball as one of the elements, I would definitely watch no matter how crappy it is. (But I am not saying this is a bad movie, it’s a quite nice romantic piece I guess)
It never occurred to me that one day I will reside in Durham.
To my memories, it is a small southern town. (I am right on this) there are a lot of farms, but it didn’t show a lot of trees (which they definitely should) Can’t remember anything related to the Blue Devils Nation. There are nice and hard working people with southern accent. Baseball and those young and veteran players are part of people’s life in this town. It seems that it’s not all that far from the reality.
Of course 20 years have changed a lot. This City is trying to boost the economy along with the rise of the triangle. Durham Bulls is now a AAA affiliate instead of A team. Now the team is having series of celebration of 20 years of this movie. And I, still enjoy all those Bulls and baseball, happily put myself into the scene of the movie and connect myself back to my past memories, those hot afternoon at home watching HBO….
I can’t help but wanna leave something before the 2008 French Open Final.
Rafa is INCREDIBLE these days. But if there’s someone who can ever beat Rafa on clay in Paris in a best-of-five match, it has to be Roger Federer.
This is THE one final piece of the pursuit to become the GOAT. History is at stake, and these two guys are no stranger to play for the history. I am looking forward to a wonderful tennis match, and I will be with Roger all the way!!!
Believe!
UPDATE: Please forget about whatever I just said. Roland Garros is now officially the Waterloo of King Federer.
The Lakers are really on fire after the Pau Gasol trade. They are playing decent basketball, and this brings my passion back to the NBA.
I have to admit that I haven’t really closely follow the NBA for a while. There’re lots flaws of the NBA. Too easy to get into the playoff (16 out of 29 teams will qualify), which makes the regular season too long and boring. Only the final two minutes are fun. Couple superstar can easily dominate the game. Huge difference between good teams and bad teams ( You will have top teams winning over .700 while the worst teams are below .300. Upsets are rare. Take baseball as an example, usually the difference between the top team and the bottom team is less than .600 to .400). And we no longer have the God, the Magic, and the Bird in the game. So I dedicated more my research time to baseball and others, and no longer focus on the NBA that much.
But I have great old memories.
NBA is definitely part of my high school memory. Among major professional sports, basketball is one of the easiest to understand. And the fact that most of my friends do play basketball. It’s fair to say NBA is the most popular sports among high school guys back then in Taiwan (We didn’t have Chien Ming Wang by then). I still remember that how we shared newspapers (fought for it) in the morning, how we trash talked to each other about our favorite teams. How we compared each other’s basketball shoes (and who endorse them). If the college entrance exam had a subject in NBA, I would be quite confident that I will be on the top of my class. I will even say that NBA is the reason I learn English well because I tried to read all ESPN.com news and articles everyday. They are definitely better than the textbook.
That was an era that everyone idolized the God of Basketball, MJ. 95% of my friends are Bull fans. They adore MJ, they admire MJ, and they salute MJ. I am one of the very few exception that I am a proud Laker fan. I began to watch the NBA earlier in the 80s (yes, in elementary school), that’s why Magic Johnson is my first hero. But I still owned a pair of limited MJ XIII, which made me a better player (in my imagination) on the court. Yes, in MJ we trust.
I clearly remember the scene of NBA finals then. We are still in the class in the morning, but somehow many people managed to get small TVs and followed the game. Some of us (okay, me) just skipped the class and watched the game with the campus guards (I pretended to be a senior, who has all the privileges because of they need to study for the college entrance exam). At the moment MJ concluded the game by a jump shot after a fake over Russel of the Jazz. Huge cheering were suddenly around the campus at the same time. Wait, aren’t you guys supposed to be in class? Well, this is the beauty of my high school: we never pay any attention in class, and we managed to have all kinds of fun.
A new God has come, in the name of Kobe. And I click into ESPN NBA scoreboard to follow him again. And I lament my lost of youth.
I recently feel kinda lost. I can’t focus on reading, and I found myself failing to read any books outside class (truth is, not much on the textbooks either). Old Chinese philosophers said something like this “If you stop reading for three days, you look disgusting and you talk like sxxt. (I know their wording has more classic, but forgive me given the fact that I failed to read for so long)” As lazy as I am, I realized I would never become the most hard working guy in the world. To my surprise, I do share the same feeling with our ancestors now, especially I haven’t really read for quite a while.
To analyze my symptom, I put together several factors and reach a conclusion: Durham is too quiet.
As boring as it is here, you would have nothing to do but surfing on the Internet. As time goes by, you are used to only read huge amount of info on the Net in a very short period of time. You wouldn’t even feel that your ability to read and appreciate a book is losing. You also spend too much time on Facebook and MSN and Youtube. Many times that you didn’t even finish reading a webpage but you already turn to the other one.
Even if in the rare occasion that you are not on the Net, you discuss more gossips rather than other meaningful conversation. You know, if you are in a small town, and everyone knows everyone in the community. Plus there are not too many places to hang out. Gossips go around too fast. You can’t blame us for gossiping too much in this sense.
Speaking of not too many places to go, another old Chinese saying is: “Traveling for thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.” It’s so clear that you don’t get to discover exciting events here in Durham, therefore we lost the chance to gain knowledge.
Just to remind all of you that I have not been reading for more than three days, so you know I am bullshxting….
Thoughts after the first day of iPhone era. “This iPhone is a better iPod, a much cooler blackberry, and a really stylish accessory for every occasion!”
For those who can read mandarin, you can check out some of my words here.
Now I am waiting for my next flight at Newark /Liberty Airport. I think it’s probably a good time to pick up my unfinished draft post about the terminal.
I first want to write this post after my crazy and tiresome trip from Toulouse to Paris CDG to Tokyo NRT to Taipei CKS to Los Angeles LAX to Raleigh/Durham. (within 48 hours) During the intervals between my destinations, I often grab a copy of The Economist or sports news for a while, and then proceed to desperately trying to get the Internet access to check emails and work on my stuffs. I kept wondering that if this would be my life in the future 20 years. Imagine a young business attorney frequently travel across the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean. This sounds so successful, doesn’t it?
When I was a little boy and did not have too many chances to fly. It’s exciting to get into the terminal. I happily looked out the window for the incredible airplanes. When you fly more and more often, you still feel fun when you arrive a new airport, but more frequently, you begin to need to work in the terminal. I now don’t think this is in any way fancy or success. Real successful people don’t do this; they either have personal jets of something similar to Air Force One. It’s us, typical mid-class professional workers, who work for them doing things like this.
Seems lots complaints, but don’t get me wrong. Generally speaking, I still enjoy flights; especially fly to a new place I’ve not yet been to.
I have more to say about the terminals, but the boarding time is approaching. Maybe I will talk more in my next stop in the Airport.
Charlotte is the largest city in North Carolina (18th in the United States). This winter break I visited Charlotte twice. She is a charming little girl, not as fashion as NYC, smaller than I thought, but nice and fit.
The City and its Skyline
US cities are actually quite different to Asian ones (except NYC). People live in suburb, and the downtown area isn’t usually quite large. Charlotte has beautiful skyline, but not as big as I thought. The high modern buildings are gathered in about 10 blocks, I would say probably even smaller than Xinyi District of Taipei City in Taiwan. However, as a financial center in southern US. We saw lots of fancy cars and well-dressed people here. Charlotte is not a wild girl but definitely very neat:)
Panthers and a Lovely Sunshine Football Afternoon
The first visit to dear Charlotte is for my first NFL game ever! Carolina Pantherslost badly to struggling defending Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. In fact this game sort of cost the Panthers’ playoff hope. You felt like you were actually in Pittsburgh in the end of the game. But who cares (I am actually a Packer fan), I enjoyed the atmosphere of football game a lot. Lots Steelers fan traveled down from Pittsburgh, families gathered and BBQed before the game. Winning or losing, you enjoyed a lovely Sunday afternoon. That’s what it all about:)
Kobe scored 58 in a 3OT thriller
The second trip to Charlotte was for a NBA game (you can now tell i am a very big sports fan). My beloved great LA Lakers paid their annual visit to Charlotte, how can I miss the great Kobe Bryant in this sense.
Kobe did not let me down. He scored 58 points (third most in his career) with some super dunks and heroic shots. He’s really the best. However, the Charlotte Bobcats did not let local fans down as well. They fought hard and forced the game to the third overtime! (How lucky I was, I enjoyed 15 more mins^^) And the Bobcats eventually upset another strong team and gave Charlotte a joyful night.
See You Soon, Dear Charlotte
After both games, I enjoyed nice restaurants and bars in Charlotte. It’s comfortable to walk in the downtown there. Compares to where I live, the middle of nowhere or the center of the forest, it’s quite nice down in Charlotte. I think I will see her again pretty soon:)
Congratulations to the best baseball city, your mighty Cardinals won their 10th World Series title. After 24 years, we don’t have to wait anymore. After heartbreaking 85, 87, 96, 04, 05 losses, we no longer one step shy for the title.
Impossible is nothing! Anything can happen!
That’s why baseball is so attractive: you never know what will happen. 2006 Cardinals are the underdog all the way in the playoff, and they went through them all. This team never undermine themselves, and they never count themselves out. I am so proud of them!
My October at the Bryan Center
Thanks to National Blackout Policy (Telecommunications Law…..mmm:P), I can’t watch Major League Baseball playoffs through my MLB.tv. Therefore I spent most of my evenings in October at the great Bryan Center TV room, sitting on the big sofa, with unlimited 24-hr McDonalds (of course you have to pay), to enjoy the Fall Classic.
The Fall Classic
As a baseball fan, you always feel the seasons according to the game. When you hear the first strike call, you know spring comes officially. You feel the heat of summer by one homerun after another one. And in fall, heroes stand out and the champion will be crowned.
The World Series made me aware of the fall, and the cold wind outside the Bryan Center everynite after the game made me really feel it. It’s literally the Fall Classic.
