Sports

Badminton

This is the first sport I was exposed to. I started playing badminton probably when I was around 3 or 4 years old, in my backyard using wooden rackets. It is fast, and more aerobic than tennis (a lot of reaching and moving involved). Of course, badminton is a popular sport in Indonesia, and it is a source of national pride there. However, actually, I played more badminton in NYC when I was at Columbia than when I was in Indonesia. Playing a lot definitely develops my skill, since I think I am better than before I came to college.

Baseball

Although my college years were the golden years for the Yankees, I warmed to baseball quite slowly. My first time being in a major league game was on May 17, 2000 for a game at Shea Stadium between the Mets and the Rockies. It was somewhat accidental; I went with a group from the company I was interning that summer, BeBusy/Abridge (no longer in existence as a result of 9/11), since the company had a luxury box reserved (hey, why not? free food and the best view!). I took more interest than in previous years in the World Series, since it was a series between the Yankees and the Mets. And of course, the following year, the year I moved to the Bay Area, was the year when Barry Bonds set a new regular season home run record. I think these factors serendipitously made me a fan of baseball. In particular, I am a Giants fan, mostly because I was there and got to watch a lot of Giants game on TV. I am also a Yankee hater, mostly because of their enormous budget compared to other teams. So nowadays, during the season, I managed to watch a few games in person. When I arrive at the ballpark quite early, I usually buy a scorecard and score the game (thanks to Jerry Drake, my coworker at Sun, from whom I learned how to score a ball game). And on June 20, 2005, after singing the national anthem with the Mendelssohn Choir before the game, I caught my first foul ball. Five years from my first game to my first foul ball, that's not bad!

Major league ballparks I've visited: Shea Stadium (NYC), PacBell/SBC Park (SF), Oakland Coliseum (Oakland), Bank One Ballpark (Phoenix), Yankee Stadium (NYC), PNC Park (Pittsburgh), Tropicana Field (Tampa Bay), Rogers Centre (Toronto).

Soccer

Also known as football outside the US and Canada. This is also a popular sport in Indonesia. However, the reason it is popular is definitely because of the national team (they are so-so). I started playing soccer in elementary school until high school, and a little bit after I got to Pittsburgh. These days, I think I need to increase my stamina because I can enjoy more playing it.

Swimming

Swimming is a good sport to keep your stamina up. I started getting serious about swimming back in the Bay Area. Swimming has a long tradition there. Even Santa Clara has its own international swimming center, where there is an Olympic-size pool. So I joined the Santa Clara Swim Club and started swimming there. I made a point of going there to do a workout after work, pretty much every weekday. I used workouts from the book The Fit Swimmer. I have been looking for opportunities to do the same in Pittsburgh, but so far to no avail (maybe if I put it into a higher priority). I can say I'm an OK swimmer, not the fastest of the bunch, but not a beginner either.

Other sports that I've played/tried:

• Tennis
• Cycling (used to do a lot of this in the Bay Area as a way to commute to work)
• Volleyball
• Basketball
• Golf (mostly driving range, have played in an actual course only once, a 9-holer)
• Bowling (sometimes good to do as an entertainment during the weekends)
• Table tennis
• Kickball (played once at a tournament for Sun employees, my team won!)
• Skiing (tried once, a lot of painful joints and muscles afterward)
• Softball
• Roller-blading (wasn't very good at it, and in fact got into a pretty serious accident once)
• Roller-skating (long time ago....)
• Bridge (if you consider this a sport)