Frequent Flier Syndrome

I never really understood why frequent fliers hated flying. In my mind, it was always like "why would someone not like traveling to new and exotic places, trying new things, seeing new sights and of course who can ignore eating new cuisines." Last week, I understood why.. I saw the light.. I was traveling for some interviews in Austin, Texas from Ottawa and I realized that even a short flight like this one could make a person hate traveling. Let me give you a scene by scene description of the events that unfolded.

Thursday afternoon at 12:00 PM : I take off from work to catch a flight that leaves Ottawa at 3 PM headed to Newark, NJ.. Yes, there were no direct flights and I had to take a connection. I get to the airport and check in and was ready at the gate by 1:15 PM for the 3 PM flight.

2:00 PM: Announcement informing that flight to Newark has been delayed by 2 hours, it is now scheduled to leave at 5 PM. I think to myself that this shouldn't be a problem as I have 4 hours between my flights in Newark so i'm still good for my connection

5:00 PM: Announcement informing that the flight has been further delayed by an hour due to air traffic control issues. I go up to the attendant, she confirms that I should still be able to make my connection in Newark.

6:00 PM: We board the flight (i'm happy), we get out on the tarmac ready to take off.. Pilot informs us that we're stuck for another 90 minutes ON THE TARMAC because Newark has not given them permission to take off as they have too many planes landing and don't have time for ours.

8:00 PM: After the scheduled departure of my flight in Newark, we leave Ottawa and reach Newark an hour later...

9:00 PM: I get out of the plane and ask the attendant immediately if my plane to Austin has left. She nods with a false sense of comfort.. I ask her if there are any other flights I can take out because I don't want to be late for my interview the next morning. She informed me taht the 8 PM flight was the last one to austin and there are no other options or routes to get there that night. She then tells me to go stand in line at customer service so they can put me up in a hotel room.

9:45: I get to the front of the customer service line where I'm being helped by a woman who acts like she's concerned about what's happening to me.. she re-iterates the fact that there are no flights out that day and that the earliest flight she can put me on was at 6:45 AM the next morning, which gets to Austin at 10:00 AM.. a full 2 hours after the scheduled start time of my interview.. I accept my fate and ask her where they're putting me up for the night.. she checks with another superior agent standing next to her who shakes her head in disapproval.. here's the conversation..

Agent: "sir.. this is the part of the job I hate.. and I hate to be the one to break this to u but since you are coming from Canada, and since flights from Canada are not considered to be international flights, we cannot put you up in a hotel for the night.."...

This is when I lose my cool..

Me: "I've been patient and accepting of a 5 hour delay in my home city, accepting of missing my connection and accepting of the fact that i'm going to be late to my interview.. and accepting of the fact that thanks to you guys, i'm not going to get a job.. but now ur telling me that I have to sleep in an airport chair??"

Agent: "I'm sorry sir but that's policy.."

Me: "Well I don't give a damn about your policy, you are putting me up in a hotel room tonight because I need a place where I can sleep and shower in the morning.. Your agent at the door told me that i'd be put up in a hotel and I better be put up in a hotel or you will have to face legal action for distress and economic turmoil.."

Agent: "The lady at the door told you we'd put you up somewhere."

Me: "Yes she did."

Agent: "Let me see what I can do."

5 minutes later.

Agent: "Alright sir, here's your hotel voucher, you can go ahead and go straight, there will be a hotel shuttle waiting to take you there."

11:00 PM: I get to the hotel room and find out that the loving and caring agent did not attach a meal voucher to my hotel voucher.. wonderful.. hotel staff were nice enuff to let me order pizza.. i order a medium pizza, and gulp it down 40 minutes later.

Midnight: I finally go to bed so I can wake up in 4 hours and go back to the airport to go do my interview.

6 AM: Get to the airport, check in, get to the gate and find my flight delayed by 30 minutes once again..

7:15 AM: Flight to Austin actually takes off and we were told to expect turbulence.. (no sleep for Raj)

10:30 AM: Land in Austin, and my baggage surprisingly arrives safely. Get to the rental car and rive off by 11 AM. (3 hours after start time.

11:35 AM: Show up at the office for my interview.. they were very happy to have me and had all my interviews rescheduled to accomodate the travel mishap.. (yes, i had kept them posted throughout to make sure they knew what was happening.)

------- ALL THE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN IN AUSTIN------------

FLIGHT BACK....
More delays, more pain.. My flight out of austin was delayed by an hour by guess what.. Air Traffic Control in Houston.. Get to Houston 15 minutes before my connection was set to leave.. run across the airport and board barely on time.. which by the way was the best thing that happened to me in the airport all weekend.. get to newark and find my flight to ottawa delayed by 2 hours.. get to ottawa 2 hours later than expected..

i don't wanna go into more details, but let me conclude with this..

4 days, 5 flights, 5 delays, 2 hotel rooms, 1 overnight layover, 1 fight with Customer Service... All for 1 interview

so the next time someone says "you dont understand the pain of frequent fliers..", give them the benefit of the doubt..

How Private Are You?

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged. I've been doing a lot of local traveling with interviews, family, friends and other things have been keeping me quite busy for the last 2-3 weeks but I finally found some time at work to write a little bit today.. I read an article a few weeks back where the founder of Google Sergey Brin was funding a company called "23 and me" which decodes your DNA and provides a mini-snapshot of diseases that you are genetically predisposed to. He published a blog where he identified that he had a much higher chance of being afflicted with Parkinsons. Knowing this can really help a person early in their life to alter their lifestyle appropriately to increase their chances of fighting back. The cost of decoding a DNA sequence cost as much as a million dollars a year ago to $5000 today.

This morning, I read another article in the NY Times called "The DNA Age" which identifies a Harvard Medical School study that decodes your DNA for free but the cost of doing this is that your genetic information is made public. Now, you are probably thinking, how dare they reveal my personal medical history and personal attributes to the whole world? I personally think that we are living in a world where privacy doesn't exist. Call me a cynic, but that's the truth. Google reads your mail, the gov't and banks see your money, the doctor/nurse/pharmacist see your health records.. they're all stored in a central database somewhere.. so what's wrong in you just revealing it yourself.. I would rather know that I am genetically predisposed to a heart attack than live my life with the false belief that my life is private and that no one knows the real truth about me.. The interesting question brought about in the article says that if you have an identical twin, both twins need to agree to share the information as the genetic information is a little too similar.. but in all other cases, when a person signs over the genetic data, it's property of the company "personalgenomes.org".. Imagine if your gene, along with a hundred thousand others can identify the exact sequence that causes alzheimers and parkinson's and could potentially prolong the life of millions in the future..

Last week, we faced some tumultuous times as a family after the passing of my 47 year old cousin. Cause: Heart Failure. If my DNA could have been used to identify common family traits, perhaps he could have been better prepared and lived a healthier lifestyle to stop this tragic event. I think that privacy advocates need to wake up and smell the air and realize that privacy is a myth and the sooner we accept that, the faster we can help future generations.

Warren Buffett - Man of Vision

I'm sure everyone knows who Warren Buffett is. As of 2007, he was the richest man in the world. His ranking fell to number two this year largely due to the financial turmoil in wall street. It's almost universally accepted that Buffett is one of the world's foremost authorities when it comes to picking stocks and when it comes to picking undervalued investments with huge future potential. He is one man who can single handedly calm down an entire nation of investors from imminent collapse. This is just what he did earlier today by putting down $5 Billion of his Berkshire Hathaway money to buy a chunk of one of the two remaining wall street banks, Goldman Sachs. I Know.. I know.. Goldman Sachs is no longer a wall street bank technically.. But the man's brilliance can be seen from a quote he gave 5 years ago when he called credit default swaps, and derivatives in general, a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc to exit the business. His argument was quite simply that “there is no central bank assigned to the job of preventing the dominoes toppling in insurance or derivatives”. Today, Credit Default Swaps have resulted in the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses and the virtual destruction of wall street as we know it.. The man's genius can be seen from 1 simple statement more than 5 years ago..

Buffett has been known to make investments in companies that are declining but with future potential. This was in the early days of berkshire hathaway and he has since moved to a different approach. He now follows a theory of investing in high quality business with competitive advantages. He called these advantages "moat" businesses as opposed to commodity businesses. In layman's terms, Buffett's investments often involved companies whose products are priced much higher than cost and have a niche market. A perfect example was his investment in Coca-Cola in the late 80's where he knew that people would be willing to pay more money for a drink labeled Coca-Cola even though cheaper drinks with similar taste was available. He called Coca-Cola a moat business. Conversely, he believed a commodity such as salt is not a moat business because people generally didn't care what brand of salt they bought.

He often said that diversification is not necessary in investment, contrary to popular belief. He believed that you only diversify when you don't know what your investing in to protect your losses. (I guess this is true for most of us commoners) His company Berkshire Hathaway in its glory days between 1977 and 1983 never owned more than 18 companies and never fewer than 8. This shows that they didn't invest in a lot of decent companies but a few great companies.

Two of my favourite quotes:

"I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty." - Warren Buffett

"It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." - Warren Buffett on the value of Gold

An overview of the famous companies owned or partially owned by Berkshire Hathaway:
GEICO, Dairy Queen, Cort Furniture, American Express, Anheuser Busch (Budweiser), Coca Cola, Comcast, General Electric, Glaxo Smithkline, Home Depot, H&R Block, Johnson and Johnson, Kraft, Lexmark, Nike, Procter and Gamble, UPS, US Bancorp, Walmart, Washington Post, Wells Fargo.

Amazing to say the least..

Negative Campaigning - WTF mate?

I'm sick of all the smearing that's occurring on national television in the name of "political ads".. pisses the hell out of me to see 5th grade name calling coming out of presidential candidates who are supposed to represent the future progress of the world. i understand that it's politics but whatever happened to highlighting ur positives than someone else's negatives.. are we in such a depressing state that our "leaders" feel that people should vote for them not because they are the best candidate but rather they are better than the other guy.. It's happening on both sides of the border and it's disheartening to say the least.

it's sickening not just because of two opponents trying to smear one another but rather because it's eliminating the fundamental decency of politics. Government is supposed to be for the betterment of a nation but what I've seen from Obama/McCain and Harper/Dion/Layton campaigns thus far begs the question "do we need better campaign reforms??" With every smear and every lie that is spread through the media, I can't help but think that civil debate has been replaced by a political cage fight.

Yesterday John McCain released an ad identifying Obama's relationship to Franklin Raines, the former CEO of now bankrupt Fannie Mae Corp. The statement can be seen below.

"Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The Post says it's Franklin Raines, for "advice on mortgage and housing policy." Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed "extensive financial fraud." Raines made millions. Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill."
--McCain video release, September 18, 2008.

Now that you've seen what the ad said.. here's the truthful aspect of it. The evidence that McCain's advisers are talking about is the Washington Post which had an interview with Raines back in July where he was asked if he "was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. His response was that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign and when asked about what, His response was "oh, general housing, economy issues." Furthermore, the reporter went on to ask "Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific?" Raines's response was a definite "no."...

It's one thing to do negative campaigning.. it's totally a different ball game if ur gonna lie in it to sway the voters... To the majority of the voting public, this ad points out a negative characteristic in Barack Obama and shows him as a character who played a role in the collapse of the financial sector... It's sickening that such an ad was even approved by McCain and his advisers. Give me 15 minutes and I'll chalk up an ad with George Herbert Walker III (for those of u that don't know it's dubya's cousin not daddy) who happens to be a managing director of Lehman Brothers which incidentally collapsed last week. Oops.. I guess this can only mean that Senator McCain who voted with George Dubya 90% of the time had anything to do with the biggest collapse in the history of investment banking..

It is unfair to say that this game is one-sided as i'm sure there are comments that Senator Obama's crew passed with negative imagery.. but it's that much worse when the negativity is based off lies..

Sub-Prime Mortgage... what does it mean for joe schmoe...

I just read an article about the state of affairs in one of the world's oldest financial firms, and their plight as they seek a saviour to rescue the company from the deep trenches of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. As I write this blog, Lehman Brothers, the 161 year old financial giant is on the verge of a collapse and had lost more than $7 Billion in the last two quarters alone. Add to this fact, most of lehman's employees have gotten most of their pay with stock, stock options and restricted stock units that vest over multiple years. Think for a second about the value of Lehman Brothers stock. The stock price plummeted from an all time high of $86.18 in early 2007 to $4.22 end of trading yesterday. When Nortel collapsed a few years back, thousands of employees were laid off but at least they were sufficiently compensated for their years of service with a payment that actually cashed out to something. Lehman employees were paid anywhere between 10% and 60% of their salary in stocks and stock options. In less than a year people saw their children's college fund disappear with no warning. Their crime: being part of a company whose management took decisions that landed them right in the middle of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Lehman Bros aren't alone on this one either. Global banks have lost close to $300 Billion to the sub-prime mortgage crisis with the IMF predicting that by the time all this is over, more than $1 trillion could be lost into fat air. Unlike Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayer money isn't coming to the rescue of Lehman Bros where employees face more than $10 billion dollars in losses. With 24,000 employees working at Lehman, that averages out to $42000 per employee. Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you've lost $42000 dollars because someone else decided to borrow money from your employer and they couldn't pay it back. More than 80,000 jobs have been lost in the NYC area in the last year alone, mostly in the financial sector and mostly attributed to sub-prime..

For those that are still curious about what the sub-prime mortgage crisis really is, it's quite simple. It's case of a greedy lender and a greedy borrower fighting it out.

Part 1: Greedy Borrower... A few years back, the housing market was facing a boom and house prices were going up throughout the United States. People saw this as an opportunity to grow their personal wealth and went to their banks and asked for a mortgage to finance their new home purchase. Often times, they did not make enough money to support the mortgage they were asking but were hoping that house values would continue to rise and they could refinance their mortgage at a later date.

Part 2: Greedy Lender... Typically a bank would only give money to lenders who they strongly believed were capable of paying them back. However, the banks didn't make this any easier by providing incentives such as sub-prime and adjustable rate mortgages with very appealing initial terms. The banks knew the risk they were taking but were confident that the housing market would continue to grow and people would be able to afford whatever mortgage they were getting with interest rates that were below prime.

Chaos Theory: ...All hell broke loose in 2007 when the housing bubble burst and house prices started falling to the amazement of both banks and buyers. Banks refused to refinance once the housing prices started falling and people who borrowed could no longer pay back what they borrowed resulting in high default and foreclosure rates to end up where we are today..

Now, anyone with a financial background wanna explain to me the process of securitization?? i know the banks took all these foreclosed homes and resold them to investors as securities but I don't understand how they're in a position of being screwed over if they did that. Isn't the purpose of securitization to protect themselves and pass all the losses to the investors and not the bank itself?? and if they did that, y are they on the verge of collapse?? Also, what's the point of the gov't pouring millions/billions of tax payer money into these companies if they're going down under. I guess i'm asking this from an ignorant perspective because I don't fully understand the roles all these institutions play... anyone who wants to explain this to me.. please.. feel free to comment..

The life of a nomadic co-op student

Another school term completed, another work term started, another move to a new town, another 4 months of routine life. I guess after 4+ years of it, you would think that I wouldn't complain about this anymore but the sad reality seems that each move makes me more and more bitter. Living off two suitcases is painstakingly difficult especially when you don't have a "home-base" to store your belongings. These past two weeks have been horrible in terms of settling in but I guess I have it better off than some of my buddies back in waterloo, who, by the way, were homeless for almost a week thanks to a construction delay in our new apartment. I guess a part of me is glad i didn't stay in waterloo for this term. On the plus side, we only have 2 more moves before we can settle in one place and boy am I looking forward to that. Finally a house I can settle in for more than a summer, a car I can call my own, a lifestyle that is not constrained to an extent where lunch out with friends is too expensive. I guess i'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. Let me first find a job first.

This brings me to my next point. With graduation a mere 8 months away, and a slumping economy as a graduation present, I'm finally starting to get worried about getting a good job. I know that i'm better qualified than most new grads with almost 2 years of work experience under my belt with some good, if not great, companies. I've prided myself on having varied experience by trying out different industries, different jobs, and different environments and cities. Of my 6 work terms, I've only lived in the same city twice, and that city happens to be Ottawa. Even in Ottawa, I've worked for two different companies in my two work terms. I guess the question is, how important is specialization and how important is variety when you're a university student. I could have easily spent 5 work terms at RIM and been an expert on the BlackBerry. But I chose to explore with Telecom (Alcatel-Lucent), Semiconductor (Cypress), and Consumer Electronics (RIM). In hindsight, I'm confused as to whether this was a wise decision. Now, upon graduation, do companies look at my experience and think "There's a guy who doesn't know what he wants?"or do they think "there's someone who's tried a lot and come to a conclusion on what he really wants to pursue".. I guess with a few months to graduation, I've all but eliminated semiconductors as a full time industry mainly because of the culture and "cheap" manner in which they run their businesses. Unless you're a giant such as Intel, it's hard for semiconductor firms to stay afloat and that means corporate culture is rather meagre. I did, however, enjoy my marketing term at Cypress thoroughly and had a natural aptitude for all things marketing.

Instead of rambling on, I'd like to hear your opinions on what you think is a good industry to be in and why? (P.S. If anyone has some good full-time opportunities that they know of and are willing to give me a hand, please give me a shout on that front as well.. This is my marketing/people skills talking.. if there's one thing i've learnt from that job its "contacts, contacts, contacts")

Mammaries.... i mean.. memories..

It's been a while since I last blogged.. since another work term has just started, i figured now's a good time to start.. I guess i have to give my sister and my buddy kevin some credit to get me started again, since she's been telling me to restart writing and kevin had a discussion with me abt my last post. I had a rather eventful day as I spent a good chunk of it looking back at my last four years of university.. I had to write up a blurb about me to go along with my grad photo in the yearbook. so i spent almost 2 hours just thinking back to the crazy stuff ive done in the last four years.. but i cudn't stop at the four years.. i went back further.. that's when i came across an old email address.. one of my close friends, sarah, had an email address 8 years ago called cosmicfalcon@____.com. The moment i read it, a rush of memories poured in almost instantaneously. I had completely forgotten that such an email address even existed. it brought me back to a time when we didn't try so hard to be "professional", where we could meet up and enjoy for hours without an expensive dinner/coffee, and fun didn't always include elaborate plans with 50 emails passing between people to find out the exact time and place of a meeting. We didn't look at our schedules to squeeze time in for friends.. yet we are at a crossroads now where that's exactly what we'll be doing for years to come.. Maybe i'm having a little bit of a hard time to come to terms with that.. but i've been telling myself c'est la vie.. A part of me wishes that things don't have to be this way and that you will always be able to take certain liberties with friends and that we don't go on to lead lives as corporate robots yet it seems to be inevitable.

AND THE LEAFS ARE OUT...

I think i've made it quite evident in my previous posts that I'm an ardent supporter of the Montreal Canadiens. Along with this loyalty comes a perennial hatred towards all things Maple Leaf. (The hockey club of course..) i've been asked time and time again why I "hate" the leafs so much. Let's put it this way, i don't hate the players or coaching staff of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now that that's out of the way, let me explain to those who question my lack of love for "Canada's team".

Simply put, because for the 5 million people in the GTA, the country Canada begins and ends in the city of Toronto. There's a saying that i've heard in Canada that americans are narrow minded and that they do not see beyond their borders. To a lesser extent, this is true of a number of Torontonians. Not to generalize, but this has been my personal experience. I don't know if these people have been massively brainwashed by the media, or if they truly believe that failure shud be rewarded. I speak this purely from a sports perspective. More specifically with regards to the attitude of Torontonians towards the Maple Leafs not their attitude in general.

Thanks to the media in Toronto, the leafs have been overhyped as "Canada's team". That in the last 10 years, the Ottawa Senators have made the playoffs 9 times means nothing to Leaf Nation. Yes it's the nation's capital but no they're not "Canada's team". The Montreal Canadiens are arguable the best professional sports team in North America with 24 Stanley Cups in the leagues 90 years. That's almost a 25% success percentage yet they are also not "Canada's Team".. The Edmonton Oilers who housed without doubt the greatest hockey player to ever play the game, Wayne Gretzky, had their glory years in the 80's with multiple stanley cups. Yet, they are not "Canada's Team".. but the media chooses to portray the team that has missed the playoffs 3 years in a row, that has not appeared in a stanley cup final, let alone win, in 41 years..

Now, if you were to look at the two major sports networks in Canada, CBC ( Broadcasting Corporation) and TSN (The / Toronto Sports Network).. Both these networks are national broadcasters, yet they broadcast nationwide, only leafs games. I understand market dynamics making them want to attract a large audience, which is available only in the GTA. Is it so far fetched to promote a team that is successful in Canada to be Canada's team. If the idea is to broadcast leafs games, why shove it down the throat of every market in Canada. People often wonder why all the other city fans hate the leafs organization. This is precisely the reason. They are being forced to follow a losing team, a team that they did NOT grow up watching, a team whose style of hockey they do not appreciate.

I was listening to the leafs broadcast last night right before they were eliminated. With about a minute left in the game, it was evident they were not going to make it. The commentators exact words were.. "It's rough on a team. The Leafs had a tough schedule early on where they had to play their first 10 games at home. That put too much pressure on them. They could never rebound from it.." I hear this and the first thought in my mind is "What BULLSHIT.." they call it home-ice advantage, not disadvantage. It's supposed to relieve pressure playing at home not add pressure. The New Jersey Devils started their season with 10 games on the road, if anything that's adding pressure because you're playing away from your home and you're exposed to travelling pressures, time differences, scheduling conflicts etc. The Devils are battling for 1st place in the conference along with Pittsburgh and Montreal. Playing at home is meant to be more relaxing, yet the media was trying to find excuses for their failure.. I couldn't help blow up laughing at the comment. For those of you that don't understand why Leaf Nation is doomed for years to come, simply look at the Leaf Management over the last 40 years from Frank Ballard, Punch Imlach leading up to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment's purchase of the leafs. It will be quite evident why the leafs never cared about winning and why they never WILL care about winning. Not unless the fans wake up from their slumber.

It's just more proof that no matter how poorly the team performs, they will continue to sell tickets to brainwashed leafs fans, and they will continue to fail, and continue to promote "Canada's team".. yet many torontonians have the audacity to call French Canadians arrogant for being vocal in expressing their support against Leaf Nation.. ironic is it not??

My first Rahman Post

I came across this article today and had to do my part in making it public.. That's right 21 filmfare awards more than any recipient before him. For those of you that don't know, filmfare awards are considered to be the "oscars" of bollywood. It's sad that all the awards that Rahman has bagged have been only for his hindi movies. Had filmfare been truly nationwide, that number could easily be twice as high. Look later tonight for my analysis of Jodha-Akbar songs.

Double whammy for Rahman

February 25, 2008, 4:17:01 PM

It was A.R. Rahman all the way at the 53rd Annual Filmfare Award. The music maestro, nominated in three categories – Best Music, Best Background Score and Best Singer, walked away with two statues of the black lady (Best Music, Best Background Score) losing out the third one by a whisker.

It should be noted that the world renowned composer had just one release in 2007, director Mani Ratnam’s Guru which released at the very beginning of 2007. However, the film’s songs are still a rage with the masses, a proof of Rahman’s musical prowess.

As he received the award for Best Background Score, Rahman (who was presented the award by Bollywood’s famed director duo Abbas-Mustan) said, “The Filmfare Award is like an ornament for a lady; the more you have, it enhances the charm.”

Later on, he was back on stage once again, this time receiving the Best Music award for Guru from Bappi Lahiri and Poonam Dhillon. The award, his 21st, makes the Mozart of Madras the recipient with the most number of Filmfare awards. We, at Galatta.com, wish the ‘Isai Puyal’ on his glorious triumph.

Hockey is getting interesting.

So, there's 10 games left in the regular season before the playoffs starts, and the NHL is proving to be quite the thriller. Living in portland, I don't get to see too many games, let alone any insightful post-game analysis, but let it be said that I've been drawn in by this year's installment of the final stretch. My habs are on the run for top spot in the eastern conference and they're fighting with a worthy adversary in the neighbouring Ottawa Senators. Add to this the fact that the leafs are likely to miss the playoffs, can a habs fan ask for anything better?? I highly doubt it.

At this point, I guess i'm drawing out a lot of scenarios in my head for the post season matchups and here's something that would be ideal. We all know that the top 6 spots in the east are all but locked up for the Ottawa Senators, New Jersey Devils, Carolina Hurricanes, Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins, and New York Rangers. The Boston Bruins and Philadelphia flyers seem to be in shape to get in, but with the last 10 games, if Toronto gets very lucky can manage to squeeze in. I am as anti-leaf as the next habs fan, but I'd still rather have toronto in the playoffs than an american team so for the time being.. Go Leafs Go. I must also admit that i do fear the leafs in the playoffs, especially if they're facing the habs. As horrible a team as they are, they somehow manage to perform well against the Canadiens every time. It seems that they only perform against the senators and the Canadiens, as though their only goal is to bring down their fellow canadian teams. It would be a bitter pill to swallow to see them barely make into the playoffs and eliminate the teams that have worked so hard throughout the year.

I guess the ideal scenario would be if Ottawa finished 1st in the conference and are forced to play the leafs in the 1st round. (highly unlikely.. more likely the Flyers).. New Jersey should be able to streamroll through 7th place Boston. and 3rd place Carolina are going to be destroyed by 6th place Montreal. That's right.. I said 6th place montreal.. you're probably wondering that I'm insane for saying that montreal drop to 6th place in the standings. that's because i see pittsburgh and newyork rangers to take 4th and 5th place respectively.. and face each other.. This leaves montreal to play the lowly hurricanes in the 1st round. It's just the kind of confidence building a young team needs early in the playoffs. Habs beat carolina in 5 and get through to the second round.

Going into the second round, we have, Ottawa Vs. Pittsburgh/NewYork and Montreal vs. New Jersey.. Knowing the Habs record vs. the devils this year, this should favour the habs.. and any one of ottawa, newyork or pittsburgh can get through on the other side. The reason i said any one of the three is because all three are very capable teams that are offensively powerful, and can be considered powerhouses.

Look ahead to the conference finals. The dream finals would be Ottawa vs. Montreal (although i dread it considering montreal's miserable showing in tonight's game). I see New York pulling through to face the habs. Habs take the series in 7 thanks to some stellar goaltending by the young Price. wishful thinking i know. The habs are still a good season away from becoming the contenders they're touted to be.

Out in the west, i'm betting that the sharks will make it through. The acquisition of Campbell to strengthen their defense was definitely the move of the deadline.

I know i'm being extremely hopeful here but you can't stop a guy from dreaming. You can't tell me that an all canadian conference final doesn't excite you. Let's get this show on the road and show the world what we're made of..