Bankruptcy

I was wondering how many company will go bankrupt by 2009.

Here is the few, and no surprise to start with GM

General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Sun Microsystem, Circuit City, Sirius/XM Satellite, Sprint PCS, Etrade, Pilgrim's pride corp, Twin River, and many more smaller companies.

The company, FYI consulting, who help other companies for bankruptcy are doing good.

Needless to say unemployment number will be in 2 digit.

Myths about Media and Marketing

Both media and marketing has one thing in common - they guide the consumer in wrong direction. And both of them are powerful.

1. Media- It is a myth that whatever comes in news it is true. Any media whether is it TV News, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, they divert your attention the way they like. This is so powerful that Obama bought TV time to give his speech and vision. It almost like you loose the freedom. Couple of months back every media was talking about inflation, now no one is talking anymore. 30% of Texan believe that Obama is Muslim. No one know the name of the person who was involved in Oklahoma bombing but everyone knows Bin Laden. They drive us in terms of what we need to know. They like to make story of any give event - so they become popular and sell more advertisement. They will tell that Wine is healthy based on some research, but they never tell you who sponsor that research. Be very careful what your watch, read and listen.

2. Advertisement - The myth for this is - everything they ask to buy we need that. We are so much abused with the advertisement and we don't know we are abused. We are like hostage monkey who they control the way they want. They make you buy the stuff that you never need in the first place. And if you want one they will sell you two. Remember buy one get one free. For example, Nike make the advertisement like if you do not buy Nike shoes your leg will worn off. You would go to big and fancy houses and pretend this is how the average American lived. Advertisement bring the revolution in the society. I mean it change the society the way they live. It change the life style. Corporate America spends 15% of their revenue in Marketing and Advertisement.Think before taking any action based on advertisement.

We as a consumer need to be smarter than we are.

Historic Day

Today is the Historic Day for America. 50 Years back African American had a problem in getting the seat on the Bus. Today, Barack Obama, a transformational leader, got the most powerful position in the World. Clearly this event makes America proud of. We once again lead the world. The world will learn the lesson why diversity is important. This election is primarily influenced by the economic down turn and problem in the financial market. I think younger age pepople make the difference in this election. If you look at the people, they have the money in 401k, retirement, loosing the job and they want changes. This election tell us the newew generation is thinking differently. They watch politician closely, they understand, what is right. American proves that who is right person to run the country which badly need great leadership.

America Is A Land Of Opportunity And We Can Now Truly Tell Children You Can Be Anything You Want

That being said, I am proud to be American Citizen.

What changes do we need?

About $30 trillion of market value has been erased from global equities in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Is that all because we did not regulate the mortgatge industry? In the late 19th century, we had faced problem for the rail road companies, and government stepped up and rescue them, after few years they rescued whole farming industry by grants. If any industry get bigger then open market has a significant factor on the economy and it need some level of regulation. We learn a lot for the short term, learn more for medium term and learn nothing for a long term.

There are few points I want to mention that I think does not work.

1. Rich getting richer: We moved from the economy from "opportunity for everyone" to rich getting richer. In the last few decade, huge amount of wealth is created. Usually, wealth is created by Intelligence and Hard work. It was not the case in past decade. People getting rich by housing, stock option and simply by speculation. As a result, it form a bubble of wealth, which we have seen bursted. In this down turn, the biggest loss was faced by the rich people and not the average Joe.
   
2. Deregulation: In late 20th century, governemnt implemented deregulation in various industry such as Telecom, Energy, Finance, Insurance, Airline. Telecom - Because of dereulation it gives huge opportunity to become success. Many companies has been created to take the opportunity. As a result it spurs growth. But at the end, only few big companies left AT&T, Verizon, Sprint. Similarly, in Energy, we have seen how Enron has manupilated the open market and in the same way how the crude oil has gone up. Finally Finance, investment banks has become very innovative in getting new product in the market - which no one understand the consequences. As a result, all the investment banks has gone. They have been converted to regular bank, so that it can be regulated. We know airline industry is also struggling and in merging phase. At the end you will see few companies and fewer competition and we as a consumer will have to take the hit.
   
3. Globalization: I cannot claim that Globalization does not work. But due to globalization, there is significant dependency that nobody knows the consequences of it. We have seen how the problem in Iceland, Argentina, Russia, and many more to come. Few years back when Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, interviewed on PBS. He mentioned that he does not want other country to participate and eventually manipulate in Indian Debt Market. Indian regulation such as Energy, Fianance is working very well. They regulate the Gas Price, Insurance, Banking Industries and it works. Their economy does not give much opportunity to create innormous amout of wealth that sustain longer time.
   
4. Semi-Socialism: We need to stop lobbying. We need to stop governement becoming socialist. Government is not only bailing out the company but they are now taking ownership in the equites of Finance Industry. Governement is writing big fat check to the companies like GM and Ford, who cannot compete with Japanese Car maker. Government has a strong relationship with the main street. Does this sound familer in other countries? Yes. China. When these companies were making big profits nobody bother to take big tax on them. We tend to be semi-social government. This was not capitalism, here tax payer are abused. Also we has a lot of companies has CEO also act as a Chairman of Board. How that company overlook what CEO is doing? I would never invest in company like this.
   

We have very big challenge ahead, and we need to change these policies. Leadership and Adivsors will determine the future of the country.

Healthy Living

For last few decade, when manufacturing jobs move abroad, the obesity level became high for an average American. Now our economy is only 20% manufacturing and 80% service based job. This makes us physical activity less than required. On top of that TV, Games, Internet make you sit in one place for hours and hours. Because of this - Corporate America found very good business Exercise related and Diet Food.

When I went to cruise this summer, I learn few thing in the seminar they gave. There are three things important for the good health. 1. Food, 2. Exercise and 3. Internal Health. While you see many commercials and products related to first two category but no one talk about the Internal Health.

1. Food - Food is important for your body either vegetables, meats, or water. The time, amount and what type of the food we take plays significant role. They were saying we should have more breakfast, less lunch and light dinner. I guess it change with the time. since we do lot less labor work. We should avoid the toxic substances such as Prescription/OTC medications, Alcohol, Caffeine, Tobacco, Preserved sugar, soda, frozen food etc. Preserved sugar is very dangerous and many people does not realize it. It is used in diet coke/pepsi. This toxic substances over the time raise the acid level ( called ph) in the body. When we born we have we have ph level of around 6.7. The diet coke has ph level of 1.7. When we consume this toxic substances the ph level go way below 5. Eventually, this bring lot of problem in our body including cancer. The reduce the acid level in the body, eat more alkaline food. One of the best alakline food is Sea Weed.

2. Exercise: Since we do very few physical activity, they says need to do 30-45 minutes a day for 5 days and other 2 days to recover the body. The time is also important early in the morning compare to during afternoon or late evenings.

3. Internal Health - To improve this you have to control the type of food you eat and air you breath. The liver play important part in this like - filtering the toxic sustances. It detoxifies the poisionesous chemical such as alcohol, drugs etc. It store the tonic substance such as iron reserver, vitamins, mineral, energy and control the sugar. It manufacture the blood. It deferes the germs going into the body. But, if you dring, eat too much of this, it cannot handle. The worst part is it won't warn you like heart or kideny. When you detect the problem in lever, it is too late. So Internal Health i.e. detoxification plays important role to become healthy.

The secret behind the flat tummy is not food or exercise but balanced ph level.

Talking Recession

Needles to say we are already in the recession. But there are some good part of the recession. First and foremost, it will kill inflation. We (American) spend more than we earn, consume more than required and leave way above our mean. Recession let people to look into this issue and force them to readjust. Recession will bring a best opportunity to invest in the equity market. And this recession will bring once in a life time kind of opportunity to invest. Recession will bring you the best deal that you always wanted to purchase. It bring less traffic on the road.

However, there could be lot of disadvantages - it will bring people out of job, so crime level increases. Companies will fail - every recessions, companies closes the door; especially - start ups (I mention as it is important in the valley), companies with negative cash flow, company with no cash on balance sheet, and company with huge debt. In this recession, you will not only see the bank will fail, but big company like Ford, GM and Chrysler will fail. Small business will hit the hardest in the recession. This recession is like in 90s, so most of the "Blog Reader" has not seen the effect of it. What we saw in 2001 was very tiny recession, and mainly on the corporate side which is 33% of economy. This one will be on both the side; consumer and corporate, so it will be deep and may last longer than 9 months. And this recession is global, which never happened.


Here is the excellent presentation from Venture Capitalist in the valley - Sequoia Capital. Which will tell you the picture of the coming month from the VC perspective.

http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint

Recession is good for the economics, it's a normal economic cycle. The only fear with the recession is when it turns out to be the depression.

Capitulation begins

We have a bunch of idiots on the media who people love them and listen them, No.I idiot is Jim Cramer. Today, he comes out and says S-E-L-L everything you have. He told after market already been down. Few years back, I thought he was a smart guy, apparently he is totally worthless; but the tragedy is people listening him. He has a media power.

Anyway, the market is down a way down than anyone expected. And one fact is Market alway over-react whether in up trend or down trend. There is a good news and bad news, but bad news are on win as it is bear market. I am not sure if this is capitulation. The world is not going to end. I am holding tight and keep my finger cross.

TARP Bill Raise the National Debt to 11.3 Trillion

The new 700B (actually 800B) TARP passed bill will make national debt to 11.3 Trillion, this is almost double when President Bush took the office. The US Dollar will have to suffer and that will cause another longer term problem. Anyway, here is the highlight of the bill

1. The Treasury department can purchase troubled asset (CDO, MBS, CDS etc) from the Financial Institution upto 700B. 250 Billion immediately, and 100B as required and rest of them with the President advise. It expires by Dec 31, 2009 and can extend upto one year if Treasurey want to do so. They can define the terms and condition.
   
2. It is treasury responsibility to price the security based on the risk. They have to consider tax payer cost, national debt, stability of the financial market, preserving home ownership, need of financial institution and local communities; expect corruption with this line. There will be lot of regulation to avoid the conflict of interest though.
   
3. There will be Financial Stability Oversight Board to review and make recommendation. The board will have Fed Res. Chairman, Ben B, Sec. Hen P, Chairman of SEC, Director of FHA, Secretary of Housing Development. There will be also a special inspector general to supervise and coordinates audit and investigations. He has to provide the quarterly report to congress as well. There will be also a Congressional Oversight Panel, who will review the financial market, regulatory system and use the authority. They all have to cooperate with the FBI too.
   
4. Within 60 days treasury has to report to Congress what they have purchased, if it is more than 50B they have to provide detailed report. Within six month they have to report the effectiveness of this program. They have to also report the transaction within 2 days to public.
   
5. If any profit they have to pay the national debt. There will be profit for sure if it is managed properly.
   
6. Plan will try to avoid foreclosure by modifying the loan terms for the trouble and other home owners, who might consider foreclosure.
   
7. It prohibit the golden parachute for the executives who sell the trouble assets.
8. They will also study of mark to market accounting and its effect,
9. Raise the FDIC limit from 100k to 250k, until Dec 2009. Also raise the borrowing limit for the insurance.

The Question is: Will this works? If "works" means avoid recession then NO. If "works" means potential failure of other financial firms then YES. This program will be more effective if they did earlier; IMO its too late. Also to the other note it is government intervention in the open market, they are fixing the prices, as Ron Paul said. The company like GE and Goldman (both are AAA grade company) are paying 10% to their investor. How much is the cost to borrow the money for the BBB grade company? Costco is selling $100 Starbuck Giftcard for $80. How creative to raise the money? Will government come and rescue them as well? This is the problem and that will bring the economy into the recession. Furthermore small business; if mom and pop shop cannot borrow at sufficient cost, to do their business, that business is going to fail.

Full detail of House Bill here

Worst Vice-Presidential Candidate Ever

Generally I do not like to talk politics, because I hate all of them. But with the selection of our Vice President Candidate Sarah Palin, I cannot resist. We saw dollar declining, our (USA) status being strong declining, performance in sports declining (e.g. Olympic medals), Financial Power declining, Military power declining, and now leadership. I cannot stand the declining of our Leadership. Leadership is very important for the success of our country.

Looking at Sarah Palin, I would rate George W Bush better. It seems like she does not know anything except raising the kids; even their she did not do a good job, as her 17-year old daughter is pregnant. The only good part about her is her "Glasses". She is a total joke, she doesn’t answer questions. Simply because she doesn’t know the answers. Totally out of her league, she has no idea about anything at all. A disgrace to America, a disgrace to the world. The only thing she knows about the foreign policy is she can see Russia from her window. She read all the newspaper but she cannot name them. We cannot let her to be our vice president. And being Mccain very old and can get heart attack any time; she is going to be our President! I don't want to see that day. I think she is not qualified for this position. If Republican are smart enough they should pull her out as soon as possible. I think she knows it and she should step down. Being Governor of State with less than half million population does not qualify for the president.

The worst day is when McCain elected and by any chance Sarah Palin become President. I mean there is nothing worst can happen to USA than her being President.

God Bless America.

Here is the next problem

Is Money Market Fund safe? That is the big question. And no one has right answer. Login to your brokerage account and check the 7-day yield of swaping money market account . Do not surprise if it is over 4%. I am talking about CA Tax Free money market account, so taxable yield is over 6%. Any point over 3.5% is consider risky this days.

So what is going on? The bank are looking for your money - to raise the capital. So this is the way they are attracting investor. The money market fund usually buy Commerical short term papers and other short term securities. This securities are too many in the market and fewer buyer, hence its prices has gone down and yield going up. So your brokerage is passing this high yield to you. Very unusal, I have never imaging this could happen. This does not mean underlying security is very risky. If this underlying securities are risky then you will see the value of your $1 money market fund will be $0.97 or even lower after some time. People says that it never happend, but it happend last week. Since August, Wamu was offering 5% FDIC insured CD for 1 year and 4% in saving account. (It is still available Sep 24, 2008) Fed overnight rate is 2% and treasury yield is less than 1%, however they are offering 4.5%, something is cooking which is beyond our imaginations. I think they want to raise the capital. I just found the news that Wamu is taken control by FDIC through JPM or in other word 12th bank failed this year. Here is the list of all failed banks since 2000.

This high yield investmet securities will be available at lower price until the market stabilizes and find the buyer for this securities. At this point, international buyer are going away from US, we have record outflow of investment dollor in July. So here is the question again, where to put the money?

My mother used to tell me if you have money, do not put in the bank - Buy Gold.

Armageddon Has Arrived ...

Finally, Lehman will file bankruptcy, or at least it looks like this way.

Greenspan said more firms will fails, the crisis is once in a century. He should get some credit for this crisis.

AIG, the biggest insurer is in trouble, that means most of the retiree, who has annuity they are in trouble.

The rating agency in trouble, so no one know what is the value of Bond.

Merill Lynch cannot survived by its own, they are in talk to merge with Bank of America.

Wamu is next one, if need bailout it need 24B tax payer money.


So what will happen tomorrow ? a) Market will down 5%, black monday, b) Fed will reduce 1 point, c) Market will close in memory of Lehman :-


....will know more later.

Alt-A Loan problem still to come

The mess of sub-prime mortgage is almost over but there is another problem that financial companies need to worry about i.e. Alt-A loan. Alt-A (Alternate Document) loan is the loan given to the people who has good credit but does not want to show the document related to asset and income such as W2/1040/Bank Statement and so forth. Going forward, you will hear the news of Alt-A loan problem. About 3 million U.S. borrowers have Alt-A mortgages totaling $1 trillion, compared with $855 billion of subprime loans outstanding. 70% of them has exaggerated their income by 50% or more. $400 billion of that was sold in 2006. Almost 16% of Alt-A loans issued since January 2006 are at least 60 days late. Many of these loans (around $270 billion) were interest-only, and the resets were at 3- and 5-year lengths. That means starting next year we are going to see a wave of mortgages resetting to new rates hence it will increase the foreclosure rate.

Fannie own 340B, Freddie own 190B, Wachovia own 122B and Washington Mutual own 53B of Alt-A loan. If you look at their stock its already built into it. But if it go worst, this companies has no future. And due to this, housing is not near bottom, according to the Schiller. Housing went 20% down and it will down further more 10%. Housing fell 30% in great depression. This is the time nothing less than Great Depression as 164 years old company, Lehman brothers, is struggling to survive. This company survived Civil War, Panic of 1907, World Wars, Great Depression, and many deep recessions. But as of now, they are looking for buyer. You can imagine how bad it is.

There is one more problem apart from this I will cover later.

Financial Crisis Continues

While Fed Chief, Treasury Sec, and Top Management of Fennie and Freedie are working on right now for Fannie and Freddie future; lets take a look at what crisis going on. We keep reading the news about Banks has trouble raising the capital. Why this is important?

The crisis are started by leveraging the money 30 to 50 times and investing in the risky assets. This is same analogy when people sold their gold and buy stocks, back in 2000. But this time Bank and Brokerage are caught up.

Let's do some mathematics here. Usually, banks (FDIC insured) on average has about 8% of capital for their assets, and loans are 60% of assets. It means they have leverage the money approximately 12 times (60 divide by 8) . What does this leverage means? For example, if you have 100k in your bank in CD (i.e your Capital), then you (if not you than bank) can borrow and lend 1.2M (100k X 12). You have done 12 time leverage of your capital. So if you paying 2% (Current Fed Rate) for your money you borrow and charge 6% to other for the loan. The loan could be for Car, Mortgage, Home Remodel or may be to take vacations. So you can make profit of 4% (6%-2%) on 1.2M i.e 48k. You just made profit of 42k on 100k. This is 42% gross profit on your invested capital. Amazing, isn't it? This is why you see small banks are started.

Now, let's take a look at risk factor. Out of 1.2 M you lend, let says 10% if it (i.e. 120k) is bad loan. The person you lend forclose the home, or they have no money to pay for whatever the reason. So all of your profit i.e 42k gone and on top of that it dipped on your capital. So 1.2M + 42k (Profit) - 120k (loss) = 1.122 M. So you need to raise 78k. (1.2M - 1.122M) or you have to reduce your loan porfolio and have a write down the loss.

This is why you see the news about raising the capital and write down the loss. In this example above, I have just used 12 time leverage and 10% bad loan, the brokerage firm like Bear Stern made 44 times leverage. Fannie and Freddie made 50 times of leverage. Fannie and Freddie combined has a loan of 6 Trillion, half of the whole mortgage market which is 12 Trillion. Considering house price went down 20% so far; and delinquency rate is still high more than 4.5%. If you apply this number with above formula it is no brainier Fed has to bail out Fannie and Freddie. Not only that, one more top tier bank has to go out of business.

Merill Lynch are selling the asset to raise the capital and so what Fannie do, but there is not enough demand in the market to buy this assets. Couple of weeks back, Merill sold all of the mortgage portfolio for 22c for the $1 value (They sold 30.6B asset for 6.7B.), on top of that they give buyer (Loan Star) a financing of 75% of it. So basically that means they may get 5 cents for the face value of one dollar. Additionally, they will sell 8.5B in stock, so it will dilute the value of share by 38%. This is how the bad it can go, and this is the reason why Goldman rates Merill stock to Sell.

And not only US bank is on this mess, country like Singapore, Kuwait, UAE all has invested on this brokerages and banks (Merill, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS ) as a part of raising the capital in 2007 and 2008. They are all down more than 40%. So far Banks and Brokerage Firms across the world has write down 500B, more to come.

I am not saying it is the end of the world; the market will find the solution. But there is some more short-term pain for many investors like me, and we need to be aware of the problems and see if we can avoid them for ourselves.

Update as of 9/7/2008: US Govt has undertake Fannie and Freddie under Conservatorship for indefinite time, they will get a credit line of upto 20B/month from treasury, to save 2B they are going to cut 100% dividend on Stock and Preferred Stock, but they will pay the debt, common stock will be last on the line, so it won't wipe 100%. Most of the detail can be found below:

LINKS

• Paulson Remarks on Housing GSE Actions
• FHFA Director Lockhart Remarks on Housing GSE Actions
• Fact Sheet: FHFA Conservatorship
• Fact Sheet: Treasury Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement
• Fact Sheet: Treasury MBS Purchase Program
• Fact Sheet: Treasury GSE Credit Facility

Yet another browser

We have one more browser available to consumer, most probably starting Sep 2, 2008. This one is from Internet Giant Google, the project Chrome was going on for a long time and it has several rumors in the past about it. But this time it is official.

They have introduced it with the comic book, an easily book to read by anyone. Here is the book if you want to see. Chrome has a lot of features better than Internet Explorer 8 Beta, which Microsoft is working on. I love the innovation and competition. One can expect the browser could be very fast, easy to use, easy enough for grandpa, so they click on Google Ad. One feature about privacy is "incognito window", allows user to browse but nothing in this window will be logged into the computer. This feature will help tremendously in Library and public computer.

Reading this comic book about Google Chrome make me exciting about this new browser. First, big kudos to Scott McCloud, a cartoonist, who done a fantastic job of illustrating the concepts around modern browser design and engineering.

Final verdict will be tomorrow.

My Best Vacation ever - Alaska Cruise

We went to Alaska from San Francisco through Princess Cruise on Aug 15, 2008 for 10 nights. This is the first time we took the cruise. It was one of the best vacations I have ever had. It was completely stressed free, relaxing and really enjoyed the days in cruise and Alaska. The cruise we took was Dawn Princess. It was built in 1997 with dimension of 857 X 106 feet. It has 12 decks. We were in Dolphin (Deck 8) in inside cabin. For family of four it cost around $4500, which is the best deal we got IMO. Also Outside/ocean-view cabins are not worth the extra price.

Pre-Cruise Preparation:

We book the cruise through travel agent. I spend some time on cruisecritics.com to learn more about the cruise since this is my first time. We had a list of thing to pack. We book our offshore excursion for Juneau. We choose to go Mandhell Glacier by helicopter. The cost was $250 pp. $30 cheaper than offered by the Princess. We decided Princess, because Princess has invested heavily in Alaska cruises & has good support for logistics at the ports.

Embarkment: We got a ride from one of our friend to Pier 35. We were there by 10:30 and check in. The porter were ready to pickup over baggage. The check in process was smooth. We were on the ship by the lunch time and had lunch on board. We explore the cruise and gathered all the information. Our baggage was arrived little later. The cruise was little late for Embarkment. We passed the Golden Gate Bridge around 4:45. The weather was foggy and windy.

Rooms and Facilities: The ship in general was good. The room is spacious than I thought. There was a enough space in the closet. The TV size was small and selection of the channel was horrible. No CNBC or major News channel except CNN Headlines, few movie channels and some channels for kids. On the ship, they had a decent library, computer center, four heated swimming pool, 5 hot tubs, fitness center, two theaters, casino, art gallery, shopping stores, 24 Hour Buffet, Grill, Ice Cream Center, Pizzeria, various bars and lounge to relax and couple of fine dining rooms. The internet connection was slow and expensive (75c/min). Fitness room and 24 Hour Buffet was in very good location with a view of the ocean. Theaters were nice too, they used it for the show and movie and the seats are very good. They also had a kid’s center divided by the age; one with 3-7 and other with 8-18. They have a big area on the top deck to tan your skin under the sun. They also have a Spa, nearby there was a Sauna and Steam Room. On Deck 7, they have a walking/jogging trail around the ship; three laps makes one mile. They had a night club for dance as well.

People and Program: You always get a warm welcome wherever you go. The staff was highly professional. The steward was very nice and can do whatever you ask him to do. They always want to make you happy. They have a variety of programs in various places going on. We had a five days on the sea and never felt “what do I do now?”. There is always something going on. There is free as well as paid seminar in the fitness center about your health. They have a exciting programs for the kids, one day kids has a dissection of the fish. Every night they have entertainment on Princess Theater, it could be song, dance, comedy show, bingo, magic, information, seminars, knowledge session and movie. There were two formal nights where they take the pictures; you have to buy to get it though. They have 3-4 Art Auctions where they draw for free art, and give drink and appetizer free. The entertainment show, comedy show and magic show was best, they are very talented in what they do to entertain you. Most of the staff are Canadian, Indian, Philippians and East European. I guess they pay less to them in terms of salary, so they highly rely on the tip. Princess charges the tip everyday 10.50pp/day. If you do not want that way, you can tell them and give the cash to the people who served you most. We have 75% of passengers were 60year and old. So lot of programs, food and facilities were based on that age group.

Food: In general I was not impressed with the food, but the other people was praising. The food is more American rather than continental.

They have a Japanese, Mexican, Alaskan day to make the food based on theme. Pizzeria has one of the best Pizza I had. Fin

e Dining food is same as Buffet. We use first seating most of the time. In the fine dining, they have a choice of Indian and Philippines food too. The grill was ok, they never cook on fire grill. The food is mostly pre-cooked and the cook again to server you. They do not have any spicy ingredients such as Jalapeno. We bought unlimited drink package for $90, which allow to order Beverages, Hot Coffee, Virgin Margareta, Soft Ice Cream anytime anywhere.

Shore Excursions:

Victoria – This is the thrid time I went Victoria so I was not that excited. We went to Victoria Parliament and get a free tour inside the parliament rest of the time we walk around the warf. The warf is approx 1.5 mile from the cruise terminal.They have always canoe race going on, its fun to watch those.

Ketchikan – This is the place I like the most. We took a Rain Forest Tour from local for about $25pp, kids free. The princess was charging $79 pp for the same tour. The only difference was the bus, we got school-bus and they had a hi-fi bus. But we enjoyed very well. The guide took us to the important places to see in the town. We saw Eagles, their 100 year old nest, lot of Salmons, sea lion. The Eagle is a truly represents Unites States. We had on of the best lunch there, Burger Queen, very old restaurant with fresh food. If you want to do shopping this is the town to do so.

Sitka – This is very small historic town. You do not need to take any excursion here. You can walk to the places that is interesting. We went to the Salmon Hatchery, Raptor Hatchery, and a small walk in the rain forest, it was very nice place. There was tons of salmon in the creek. We had another good lunch, Salmon Fire-Grill Sandwich.

Juneau – In the morning we went to see the Glacier through Express bus, we paid $6 pp one way. We went their saw the glacier, took lot of pictures and we saw bears. To see the bears sometimes you have to wait for 2-3 hours. We were lucky we saw two times one on the creek and second they were on the Road! In the afternoon, it was raining, so our tour to Mendenhall Glacier was cancelled. It was disappointing. There is also skyline you can go. We eat lunch on the ship and dinner in the local restaurant. The ship stops at very close by to everything. We didn’t bother to see the Governor House (Now he is contending for Vice President with McCain!). Some other folks took a tour for Whale Watching and Wildlife Quest and they saw lot of wild life.

Tracy Arm: Before the cruise I had no idea what it is. They had a information session couple of day before we go to Tracy Arm. That session excite me most. We wake up 5am in the morning to see this beautiful place and it was the absolutely blast. The captain took all the way to the North Glacier, if you see the route you would think how he is going to turn around. But he did a fantastic job handling ice-berg and cursing. We saw glacier from about 500 feet distance. This is the first time in 15 year some big ship like Dawn Princess went there; according to them. We saw both North and South Glacier. The valley was amazing, it is the most beautiful place in the earth, or at least I think that way. We went to 11^th deck to see this. This is a best place to see, not many people knew about this place. The 5 hour experience you get in Tracy Arm was mind blowing. After couple of hour, we were in the hot tub on the top deck and we saw these beautiful mountains from the hot tub. While returning from Tracy Arm, we saw lot of Whale doing their show, the one you see it in the Sea World.

Disembarkment: They give enough information about this.

They divided the people into batch, we were on the last batch, we request to go on first batch and they honor it. Since we were the first it was each to find the porter to take our baggage out.

Conclusion:

The ship ride overall was good, lot of shaking first 2-3 days. This vacation was the best one so far. If you love Mother Nature, wild life you should go to Alaska. This is the vacation to relax and enjoy. On Monday, when we back from the cruise I directly went to work and didn’t felt tired unlike other vacation. One must go before those Glaciers go away. Chao for now.

PS: More Pictures

Can you believe this?

India won Gold medal in shooting. As far as I remember this is the first one other than Hockey; which India won in Russia in 1984. When I saw the opening ceremony, I saw around 25 participant in the country of the 1B population. My hope immediately went down as usual. India needs to invest into the people and their talent. In 1984 China does not know about Olympic. And at this time they are expecting to win highest gold medals.

Go Team India.

8/11 Update.. an unbelievable competition 4X100 Relay.. Bravo Michael Phelps

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=0811_hd_swb_hl_l0194

Do you think eating make difference in maintaing the body? Think Again.

This is the daily menu of Michael Phelps, all items every day. And still he maintain his

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks


By eating all this, he still can maintain this body.

China flex their muscles

Most of us has watched the best ever Opening Ceremony in Beijing Olympic. The Pyrotechnics was one of the best. Now I know when we do shopping, where does money really goes. I think Brits will be the only one who are sad as they have to show something better in the next Olympic.

This event does not comes free; there were lot of sacrifice or human right violation occurs . Media are not focusing on underlying facts of the events. 2 Million people became home less as they move them to capture the land to build stadiums, parks etc. All the factories and road are closed because of pollution. They said worker will be compensated but corruption is the biggest challenge to get those money. There are lot of buzz going around in China but truth will never comes out. Soon we will see independence of Taiwan will go away. Couple of US resident who display the Taiwan flag are deported immediately. Taiwan will no more independent country. Pollution is the biggest threat to all the athletes. Its amazing to know that people in Beijing do not see the blue sky. Thousands of premature babies are dieing because of this pollution.

There were lot of reason that USA should avoid the Beijing Olympic just like Russia. But politically or economically it was not feasible. And that is the problem going forward. The Opening Ceremony was important to them as they wanted to show the world what China is, they are flexing their muscles.

When dream comes true

I had a dream in my 80s to see Amitabh live performing. That dream comes true when we went to see "The Unforgettable Show" at Oakland Arena. I checked one check box from my Goal List. But this is more than check box. We saw Amitabh and all the actors with the distance of feet, which I did not expect. It was mind blowing experience. It really make diffrence what you see live and what you see on TV. Its most fun event that I remember.



When you see and know how Amitabh Bachchan keep in contact with his fans through blog, I was truely amazed. I saw his blog for this show at Oakland Arena. I express my openion in his blog, I wrote following as a comment in his blog (click the above link and see the comment#362. )


"It was my dream since 80s to see the Amitabh performing in real and that is the reason we went to the Show in Oakland Arena. Let me tell you. It was fabulous. This if the first time ever my money worth something. Absolutely amazing. Click here if anyone want to see the glymps of the show. The Amitabh Dialouge of Deewar was outstanding as usual. Abi has a lot of energy just like Amitabh had in 70s. He is stylish just like his dad. We were on the left of the stage near stage and Abi is absolutely with us in dancing he loves us. Madhuri/Preeti was great too. Its glad to see Jaya there but it would be awesome if she would in “Shaba Shaba ” dance. I think she can do that. I also like her vision on Go Green. "





Bang. Next day, he mention this comment in his blog, check this blog


http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/07/30/day-97/#more-327


and he wrote this


"Many responses talk of the emotion connected to the show, the efforts made to travel to the venue from distances not traversed normally. They talk of being moved to tears to see us in person and to be fulfilling long-standing dreams. It is to us too equally emotional. We shed tears of joy at seeing your appreciation. It may not look very evident but I can tell you that inside all of us there are similarities."


It is true pleasure to see that kind of person on stage and this is something Unforgettable.

You won sir.

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, has died of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pausch, 47, who turned the lecture into a book, said that no one would have been interested in his words of wisdom were he not a man in his 40s with a terminal illness. Expect movie from Hollywood in couple of year.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/reviews/critics/la-me-pausch26-2008jul26,0,5191339.story



"But we don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well," said Dr. Pausch

Check my previous post here.

Men and Women Explained

The picture pretty much explain the difference between man and woman.

1. Man is simple, woman is complex to operate.
2. Men can operate women and women can operate man.
3. Man is digital, woman is analog.
4. Men on top!
5. Men and women are different.
6. More button more fun.
7. Machine need both men and women.
   

anything else missing?