Isinbayeva's Retirement Fairytale

The world championships finally caught fire on Tuesday as the fans turned up to say farewell to Yelena Isinbayeva, only for the Russian pole vault queen to roll back the years and win an emotional gold medal against all the odds.

Without a global title since 2008, struggling for form and due to retire after this event, the 31-year-old fed off the energy produced by a finally near-full and raucous Luzhniki Stadium to triumph with a leap of 4.89 metres.

Ever the show-woman, Isinbayeva ended the night with an assault on her own world record, set in her pomp when she won the second of her Olympic titles in Beijing. With chants of "Yelena" ringing in her ears, she fell short, but there was no trace of disappointment from her, the crowd or the organizers who finally got the memorable night they had craved.

Most big athletics events advertise themselves with an image of a sprinter but the posters around Moscow have a pole vaulter as their centrepiece - and now the world knows why. Twice Olympic and world champion, four-times world indoor champion and multiple world record holder, Isinbayeva has been an icon of the sport. But after finishing sixth in the last world championships and third at the 2012 Olympics it seemed as if the glory days were behind her.

American Jenn Suhr and Yarisley Silva of Cuba, who had the five best vaults of the year, came to Moscow as favourites. The home fans had other ideas, however, having finally decided to attend in numbers after nights of embarrassingly low crowds. Tuesday felt different - they even mustered their first Mexican wave - and Isinbayeva, who knows better than anyone how to work a crowd, surfed the wave of goodwill.

With four athletes left, the bar went to 4.82 - beyond her best of the season. She cleared it on the second attempt, only for Olympic champion Suhr to follow her over to regain the lead on countback. The bar was hoisted to 4.89 and, writing a script the organisers could only have dreamed of, Isinbayeva soared over at the first attempt.

Suhr and Silva could not match her, taking silver and bronze respectively, and the Russian tore off to climb into the crowd and hug her coach. After the sideshow of the world record attempts there came a joyous lap of honour, complete with spectacular cartwheels and backflips, and she was still talking to TV crews 90 minutes after her victory.

British Irish Lions Tour

To be honest with you all, I've lost the will to blog. Not sure why but I'm lacking something interesting to write nowadays. I don’t have a good topic in mind. Probably I’m distracted with my work. The never ending e-mails from worldwide HP offices. Pffftttt.. Nevertheless, something that excites me last weekend was the British Irish Lions tour. For those of you not aware of what the hell is that all about, it’s a rugby tour. The British Irish Lions consist of 4 nations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I’m not a huge rugby fan but I do enjoy watching the matches. Especially the Tri Nation series and obviously the World Cup.

What excites me over the weekend was I’ve been following their tour very closely this year. Most of their tour matches were against easy opponents. That was until they met with the Australia. Over the last 2 Saturdays, the matches were very intense and both teams went for the win. It’s no surprise that the series had to be decided on a 3^rd game.

There were a lot of talks about the Lions manager’s decision to drop Brian O’Driscoll, the Irish legend. But at the end, it was a masterstroke. Personally, I think it was still a bad decision but hey, who cares right? Since the Lions basically killed off the game within the first 5 minutes. They got their first try early on and that basically put the game to bed. Lions clinched the series tour with a convincing 41 – 16 drubbing of the Wallabies. There were ups and downs against the Wallabies but 2 players that stood out were Leigh Halfpenny (fullback) and George North (winger). Both of them are from Wales. They were superb from the tour. Both men are still in their early 20’s and the future looks bright for the Wales national side. Mind you, the final Lions tour match consists of 70% of Welsh players.

Here are some of the photos from the final match of the British Irish Lions tour of 2013. Next stop? 2017 against the New Zealand All Blacks. 

Something To Laugh About

Here's something my cousin came across. Read it folks! 

After a meeting I was coming out of a hotel and I was looking for my car keys. They were not in my pockets. A quick search in the meeting room... it wasn't there.

Suddenly I realized I must have left them in the car. My husband has shouted many times for leaving the keys in the ignition. My theory is, the ignition is the best place not to lose them. His theory is that the car will be stolen. Immediately I rushed to the parking lot, I came to a terrifying conclusion. His theory was right. The parking lot was empty.

I immediately called the police. I gave them my location, car number and description of the place where I parked etc. I equally confessed that I had left my keys in the car, and that it had been stolen. 

Then I made the most difficult call of all, to my husband!!! 

"Honey," I stammered; I always call him "honey" in times like these.

"I left my keys in the car, and it has been stolen.

" There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard his voice. 

"Idiot", he shouted, "I dropped you at the hotel !"

Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, "Well, come and get me."

He shouted again, "I will, as soon as I manage to convince this policeman that I have not stolen your car." 

Mourinho Works His Magic

 Madrid's new sweeper: How Mourinho plucked a Mexican cleaner from the gutter and gave him dream job at Real.

Football has little time for heart-warming stories these days, but if anyone is going to create a fairytale it's 'Special One' Jose Mourinho. In an extraordinary story, the Real Madrid manager plucked a down-and-out Mexican cleaner off the snowy streets of the Spanish capital and made him part of the club's backroom staff.

Abel Rodriguez, 41, who waxes floors in Los Angeles underground stations, had spent his last few dollars to fly over to Europe and try to watch El Clasico with Barcelona back in February. Without a ticket, or even a hotel reservation in Madrid, it seemed a forlorn hope that he would see the biggest game in world football, let alone meet any of the players.

Undeterred, Rodriguez made for Real's Valdebebas training complex upon arrival, seeking the consolation of at least seeing his heroes in preparation. He had no connection with them however, apart from a couple of weeks' unpaid work as an apparently anonymous ball boy during the Spanish giants' pre-season visit to California the previous summer, and was turned away by security.

Penniless, with nowhere to go and no chance of seeing the big game, Rodriguez sat shivering in the snow by the side of the road for five hours. Then, the magic happened.

'It was a miracle that I saw him,' Mourinho recalled to Sports Illustrated. 'I saw Abel seated on the road outside the training ground.

'I was leaving in my assistant Rui Faria's car, and there were a lot of people outside. But I told Rui, "Stop! It's the guy from Los Angeles".

'Amigo! What are you doing here?' Mourinho asked from the car.

'I come to visit you guys,' Rodriguez replied. 'It's my first time in Europe, and my dream has been to come and see games. I was hoping to see El Clasico.'

'But there are no more tickets,' Mourinho said. 'Where are you staying?'

'I haven't done anything about that,' the Mexican answered. 'My priority was to see you guys and then make my arrangements. If I didn't see you guys, I'd go to the stadium and try to get a ticket. And if that didn't work, I'd fly back home.'

If it had been remarkable in the first place that Mourinho had remembered the face of the helper from the UCLA training pitches they had used while in the States, then what he did next was truly remarkable. Mourinho booked Rodriguez a room for the night at the same hotel the Real team were staying before the Barcelona match and threw in VIP tickets.

But he was far from finished. Over dinner on the eve of the Clasico, Mourinho gave his new-found buddy a once-in-a-lifetime proposal - to work in his staff as a kit man for the forthcoming Champions League tie with Manchester United.

Mourinho said: 'I told him, 'No way (you're returning home), you come to Manchester with us and work as a kit man. You help us and you live a bigger dream, a Champions League match from the inside!'

Rodriguez dashed up to his hotel room and grabbed his passport so the arrangements for his new part-time job could be made. Overwhelmed by what had just happened, he burst into tears of joy at the Real dining table. A few days later, he was at Old Trafford, dressed head to toe in official Real uniform and helping to lay out the kit in the changing rooms.

He'd even become something of a good luck charm, with Mourinho and the players rubbing his stomach so good fortune rubbed off on them. After Real's controversial triumph that night, aided by Nani's red card, Rodriguez found himself intermediary between the rival changing rooms, fetching and carrying signed shirts and mementos between the two sets of players.

He was even asked by Sir Alex Ferguson to find Mourinho for their customary post-match glass of wine. Rodriguez returned home with plenty of his own souvenirs, including shirts worn by Javier Hernandez, Mesut Ozil, Kaka and Michael Essien, and one of the match balls.

Reflecting on the moment he left his wife Olga and three daughters in LA to make the trip to try and watch his beloved team, Rodriguez said: 'I was really indecisive about going, but the encouragement came from my wife, who said, 'You should go. It's always been your dream.'

I bet he's glad he did.

Autistic Girl’s ‘Broken Cheeseburger’ Story

I'm sure most of us have read about the 'Broken Cheeseburger' story recently. It's a touching story that I felt  I need to share with you all in case you missed it. Read on about it folks. 

A local Chili’s restaurant in Midvale, Utah, might have made the grave mistake of “breaking” one little girl’s cheeseburger by cutting it in half, but the waitress, manager and line cooks more than made up for it Sunday when they presented her with a brand new “fixed” one.

Seven-year-old Arianna Hill is autistic and she loves cheeseburgers. But apparently, ones that are cut in half just won’t do.

“We just decided we were going to get some lunch before we were taking her to see the Easter bunny,” Arianna’s older sister, Anna MacLean, 25, told ABCNews.com. “She usually does OK in restaurants. It seemed to be going pretty well. She wasn’t too overstimulated. She was really enthusiastic before we were even able to put our drinks orders in. She told the waitress, ‘I’ll have my cheeseburger.’”

However, when Arianna’s burger was delivered to the table, MacLean noticed that Arianna wasn’t touching it, but instead only eating her french fries.

“Her verbal skills aren’t the best, but she can communicate basic things,” MacLean said. “I asked why she wasn’t eating and she said, ‘I don’t want it. It’s broken.’ She said, ‘I need one that’s fixed.’”

MacLean loves spending time with Arianna, but is always prepared to come across someone who might not be as understanding of her special needs. Fortunately, the restaurant didn’t skip a beat in correcting the broken burger and their compassionate actions have now gone viral.

“Our waitress came back over and I felt bad. I don’t really expect people to understand these special requests, so I just told her to add a new burger to our bill,” said MacLean. “I just told her to charge it to us and she said, ‘No way.’ She was just so sweet and played along with Arianna.”

The Chili’s server, Lauren Wells, didn’t hesitate before leaning down to personally apologize for the broken burger and assured Arianna she would bring her a brand new fixed one.

“The manager came over and did the same thing. It was really a big deal. The line cooks even got involved,” MacLean said. “When she brought it back out, Arianna said ‘Oh, thank you! You brought me a fixed cheeseburger.’ She sat there and looked at it and said ‘Oh I missed you,’ and kissed it over and over again.”

MacLean was so touched by the staff’s compassion and understanding that something as minor as a cut-in-half cheeseburger would be enough to ruin Arianna’s whole day that she snapped a photo of Arianna giving the cheeseburger a kiss and uploaded it to Facebook along with a brief description of how well the restaurant handled the situation.

Before MacLean knew it, the “broken cheeseburger” photo had more than 100,000 “likes” on the social media site, a number that continues to rise rapidly. At the time of this writing, the post had more than 220,000  ”likes” and 10,000 comments.

“It’s just touching,” said Harrison Dixson, the Chili’s general manager. “I had no idea. I looked at it this morning and it had a couple thousand likes. I thought someone would say, ‘Hey, good job Midvale. But I’m talking to ‘Good Morning America.’ This is just unbelievable.”

Dixson said he’s gotten calls from people all across the country, including the president of Autism Speaks, an autism advocacy organization, thanking him for the way his manager, Brad Cattermole, and server, Lauren Wells, interacted with Arianna.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of those two. I’ve been with this company for 13 years and I’ve never been as proud as I am today,” said Dixson.

“It turned out great and this turned into something way bigger than anything I ever imaged,” MacLean said. “The comments on the post just bring awareness to people. This is Arianna’s story. And this is Lauren’s story, and the manager. They are a true inspiration.”

Thank You 2012, Welcome 2013

2012 was a tremendous year for me. Loved every minute of it. I'd love to tell you all on what went down last year but let me just share some pictures with you. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Oh and here's to a better 2013!!! 

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from it. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Thank you for everything. 

10 Years In The Making

Ellen DeGeneres recently celebrated her 10th season of her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September. I just love her talk show as it's been inspiring and loads of fun too. Check out the video! 

Legoland Malaysia

As we all know, Legoland opened its doors to Asia recently. It is located in Nusajaya in Johor Bahru. Hope one day I have the opportunity to go there. Saw this video of the Legoland's GM, Siegfried Boerst, introducing us all  to the wonders of Legoland. Enjoy!