Memoirs from my trip to Canada

I had some personal stuff to take care of in Montreal on Tuesday and I figured that if I'm spending all that money on the plane ticket, I might as well see a little bit of Canada too. So, after spending 2 days in Montreal, I drove off to Toronto for 2 days and then came back to Montreal for my flight back to Dallas.

Following are some of the interesting things that happened to me there:

-- I don't know if this is true for most people, but I love going to places where they speak a foreign language (or at least have an interesting accent) French was the first language in Montreal but they all spoke English too, so I didn't get a chance to show off my non-existent French speaking capabilities. The following conversation took place at a Tim Horton's drivethru somewhere outside of Montreal:

Speaker: xxxxxxxx Something in French xxxxxxx
me: Hi, do you speak English?
Speaker: Yes, I do (in heavily accented english)
me: proceeded to place my order in english.

For some reason, that was fun. I felt like I really was in some foreign country :p

-- I've finally decided that I will never go visit a new city/country alone again. Especially if it involves a six hour road trip (Each way)

-- Speaking of road trips, I never thought that American light rock music could feel so comforting. After driving for almost 6 hours (I was bored out of my mind) and with one more hour to go, I was fiddling around with the radio to find something to listen to, I came across this light rock music station. Let me tell you, if you're in a foreign country (even if it's only Canada) and feeling kinda homesick ... listen to music that you can somehow associate with home and you'll feel a lot better.

-- Oh and during the long drives I came up with various stuff to entertain myself (wait !!!! .... oh come on .. it's not what you're thinking .. lol)

Note: These antics were designed for a 2 lane freeway, but can be improvised for other freeways too ;)

1) Do you ever get annoyed when you're driving in the left lane (the faster one), going well over the speed limit and some wise guy thinks that you're still going too slow and begins to tailgate you? Well ... you can either move over to the right lane (which is somewhat boring) or you can choose the more exciting option. Just push the button to spray the windshield fluid on your windshield. Keep it pressed until you either run out of water or see the person behind you turn on his wipers to wipe off your water from his windshield. Then just move over to the right lane and let him pass and smile when he gives you a dirty look.

2) Find somebody who's going about the same speed as you are and then wait for the car to get into the right lane. And then pull up right next to that car in left lane and drive at the exact same speed as the other car. If the other car slows down, you slow down and vice versa. Believe me .. it's great for passing time.

3) Try and convince yourself that it's okay to feel a tad bit sad/disappointed when an unknown car driven by an unknown person, who you've been driving alongside for the last 300 km suddenly takes an exit, leaving you alone for the rest of the drive.

3) If you're going at 120 km/hr (20 km/hr over the limit) and you pass a cop writing out a ticket to somebody about every 45 minutes and on average a car passes you at a higher speed every 5 minutes. What is the probability of you coming across a cop who's free and sitting there with his speed gun trained on the freeway? I really had to resist the urge to pull out my calculator and calculate it.... hehe. (I had vowed to myseelf that I would never calculate another probability after my last statistics course)

Disclaimer: The above mentioned antics could have serious consequences ... not just limited to various offensive hand gestures from the affronted parties :p

Finding that perfect swing !

The first hole was par 4.
I raised my driver and brought it down in a perfect swing and watched the ball fly up in the air and land 200 yards away right on the fairway.
I rush of emotions went by which ranged from relief that I didn't make a fool of myself, to disbelief that my first shot was so perfectly on the spot.

That was the first shot of the first ever real golf game that I played. I had started learning how to play a few months ago, and had played at various driving ranges and small 9 hole practice courses. But last Wednesday, I went in to play at a real golf course with a couple of friends & colleagues. And I actually did well ...

I finished the first hole at par !!!!!!!
Although I admit, there were a couple of holes in which I was hitting the ball from the trees in one side of the fairway to the trees/shrubs in the other side.


And I lost only two balls (which is an amazing feat by itself) ... one in the water, and the other in the trees


But it was sooo much fun ... I'm completely hooked up on this game now. Every now and then I find myself checking the weather for the weekend to see if it's going to rain or not.

And I dont care if people say that it's a boring game or only old retired people play it (which is not true .. I see a lot of young men and women playing .. even kids!)

Here's the score card of the first 9 holes from the game ... I figured I would want to have a memory of my first game ever.
Also .. note that my score wasn't that bad compared to the other people I was playing with (Who have been playing for years - except for Sabir)

Sense of touch.

I poked the stylus on the 'Internet Explorer' icon on the screen, but nothing happened. I tried again, and still nothing. The white and blue internet explorer icon stared back at me defiantly as if saying "Haha .. I'm the one in control here, not you!"
And then I noticed it. A small crack towards the top of the screen. I figured it was just a spec of dust (since it had been sitting all day in my pocket with my keys and bunch of other stuff) I rubbed the screen with my sleeve willing the crack to go away. Instead, the crack seemed to have gotten longer.

Wtf? This could not be happening to me. I needed to get access to the internet to pull up the directions to go to the laser tag place from Mount Bonelle in Austin. Btw, this was my first time playing Laser Tag and it was soo much fun. Our team beat the crap out of the blue team. And I felt kinda cool crouching behind a wall holding out my laser gun in Tom Cruise - Mission Impossible style. Point, Aim and Bang. And the next thing you know, a 15 year old kid sneaks up, and puts a couple of (metaphorical) slugs in me.

But anyway .. back to my trusty old PDA. I felt the world caving up on me. All the cool things that I used to do with my pda started flashing before my eyes. Real time traffic reports, unlimited access to gmail, playing mp3s through my car stereo using an FM transmittor and streaming audio. Not to mention all those (not too) awesome software that I created in my leisure time. Oh one of the most ingenious applications I created was 'The UnSnoozable". It was an alarm clock application that lets you snooze only 5 times. Each time you snooze it, the snooze button becomes smaller. And eventually the snooze button becomes invisible and you need to take out the stylus, open your eyes and type in an 8 digit random number displayed on the screen. The sad part was that the application was only used once and the next morning, I actually overslept because the darn program had too many bugs in it.

Anyway ... my 18 month old companion that was by my side 24/7 is dying (I'm talking about the phone/PDA) The touch screen is all cracked and doesn't work. I don't want to go back to using regular cell phones because they're just so .. so .. inadequate .. and I can't really afford buying another PDA phone. So, I had to improvise and learn how to use the phone without using the touch screen at all. I admit it's a little hard to navigate, but I'll just have to do until my cell phone contract expires or if the phone just gives up on me. lol

Rantings of an introvert !

I was labeled as an introvert, in front of my whole class. And as if that wasn’t enough to make me squirm, my Meyer Briggs personality report was held up high in the air to for everybody to see the rare occurrence, when the bar charts showed me highly introverted in all 5 aspects. *sigh*
And then to my horror, all of us introverts were herded into one corner of the class, while the extroverts gathered in the other corner.

I’m talking about my ‘Career Management’ class yesterday, in which we were given out our Meyer Briggs personality test results. I was branded as an ‘INFJ’ which was somewhat different from my previous test results. Anyway, after the class was divided into two groups, they were both asked to come up with things that they liked and disliked about the other groups.

A couple of interesting things that were noted about the two groups were:

• 80% of the people in the introverted group were wearing either blue or black. (For some reason I had decided to wear my favorite blue shirt that day)
• All the extroverts were standing really close to each other while the introverts kept their distance.
• The extroverts just couldn’t stop talking among themselves, while us introverts just finished the job at hand and then were trying to make uncomfortable small talk. (Did I mention that small talk sucks?)

Anyway … following are the things that my extrovert counterparts didn’t like about us:

• It’s really hard to get us (introverts) get excited about stuff. (Which is rubbish … I do get excited about things sometimes, but I just keep it to myself)
• We don’t talk! (duh .. if I start talking too … who is going to listen to you when you’re talking incessantly about anything and everything)
• We sometimes don’t understand what’s going on in meetings etc. (if we’re quiet, that doesn’t mean we’re stupid. I’d rather stay quiet and let you take control of things until you do/say something wrong, and then I’ll offer my expert opinion that will leave people dumbfounded. hehe)
• We write long emails instead of using the phone. (Oops … I think this blog post is getting quite long too. Oh and yeah, I do prefer emails over making actual phone calls)

So, next time when you see an introvert displaying some of these similar characteristics, try not to judge us based on what you see. We are just regular people with regular feelings. We are just a little stingy with words sometimes and like to keep things to ourselves if we dont know you that well.
And to set the record striaght I wore a green polo to work today (and I felt rebellious for some reason) ;)

Learning new games

Rhyming Words
One person says a word, and then somebody else has to think of a word that rhymes with the first one. Who ever comes up with the correct rhyming word get to pick the next one.

Action Words (This is a hard one)
Think of an action verb, and then somebody else needs to come up with a word that represents an action opposite to the one initially chosen. For example sit - stand.

I Spy ....
As you walk, one person sees an object for example a yellow flower and says something like 'I spy a yellow flower' and then the other people have to look around and try to find that flower. Whoever finds it first wins and gets a turn to say 'I spy .....'

Guess what, I learned all these games from a couple of 6 year olds yesterday.

Last night, I had dinner at my aunts place. After the dinner, I decided to go out for a short walk. As I was about to leave, I saw my two cousins Zainab and Mujhtaba (who are 6 year old fraternal twins See Pics ) waiting for me at the door with shoes and jackets on. Since I didnt really have a choice, I had to take them with me.

As we started walking, they they suggested that we play the games mentioned above. They taught me how to play them and it was soo much fun. Due to their limited vocablury they tried to get away with words that didnt mean anything. And they tried to make their answers funny. For example, Mujhtaba said 'I spy a blue window' and we looked everywhere but couldnt find a blue window. So finally he laughs and say 'I was just kidding .. there's no blue window because I made it up' and we all cracked up and started laughing.

That short walk just made my day yesterday. The conversation was fun, and free from any complexity or worries. It's almost like you forget about everything that's going on in the world and just look at things from their point of view which usually is quite innocent and worry free.

Fun times!

Kids these days!

My nephew Faaz has his own blog now.
He's about 20 months old ... and his blog contains mostly videos and pictures.
Check it out : http://faazoo.blogspot.com

(Im afraid, the videos might be a little boring for those of you who dont know him personally. But personally, I think he's really cute in those videos)

Red on brown?

Okay .. so I knew that we south asians have managed to spread out in almost all parts of the world, especially in the US.
But I was in no way prepared for this when I saw Natasha Bedingfield in a video wearing a t-shirt which had the word 'DESI' emblazoned on it.
Finally !!! Global acceptance of the fact that we desis rock! hehe.
The text on the t-shirt looked something like this:

Upon further browsing, I found some other words like INSPI(RED), TREASU(RED), EMPOWE(RED) .....

And the truth dawned on me .. and I was completely crushed lol.

So, we're still not there yet with our plan to take over the Americas. (India just needs to export a few more of their IT guys and we'll be right there ;)

The silent spectators.

In the last couple of days, I heard a couple of desi domestic stories about 2 different families. And they both had the same common theme ... something that makes me feel sick whenever I think about it.
Im talking about the frustration, suffering and despair that a girl's parents go through after they marry their daughter off. It's like raising your girl for 20+ years, catering to her every whim and protecting her from every adverse situation, you end up sending her away one night after a rather elaborate wedding ceremony.
She just goes away to another home, to live with people who she's met only a couple of dozen times. And SPEND HER WHOLE LIFE there whether she likes it there or not.

I will never forget the night when we came back home after my younger sister's wedding more than 2 years ago. The house that was a beehive of activity only a couple of hours earlier, was deserted. The silence was deafening and sad look on my mom's face was heart breaking.
There was a person missing from our family now. I wanted to shout out aloud and say 'Mom .. we just left my sister over there. She's all alone and scared' .... Knowing my sister so well, I knew she would be feeling uncomfortable and lonely among so many unknown people, wishing she was back in our home where she spent 20 years of her life.
But instead, we just went around our normal nightly routine, trying to act as if everything was perfectly fine.

Anyway ...I got side tracked with my sister's story .. but the point I'm trying to make is that a girl's parents become mere spectators after the wedding. Unless it's something really major, they just sit there and watch how their daughter is being treated without having any say in it. I dont know these two families (the ones that I mentioned in the start) very well, but I just wont be able to look at them in the eye again. Im afraid that they'll see my sympathy for them about their lack of say in their daughter's married life.

I think this is where I like the western way of doing these things better. The kids just decide for themselves about who they want to marry and thus relieving the parents from any guilt of possibly choosing the wrong spouse for their kid.

Trip to LA/San Diego/Las Vegas

Quite big for a horse isnt it?

Gangsta!

Tahir and Mahira.

Road trip to San Diego.

ASD/AMD Trade Show in Vegas with my uncle.

My Latest Crush !!!!

I really really really want this !!!!!!
Apple unvieled their new iPhone at the Macworld 2007. And it looks amazing. It should be out in June for a hefty price of $500 if u get the 4GB one or $600 for the 8GB.
Watch Steve Jobs keynote @ http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/showtime06/

The new cleaning lady & the poor kid

Our new cleaning lady is awesome (she even speaks english!) ... The only time I had seen our apartment that clean was when the leasing office guy showed it to us for the first time a few months ago. She said that she'd come every friday to make sure that the apartment stays sparkling clean. And to top it off, she actually enjoys cleaning. I mean, look at the picture; Have you seen anybody looking so happy while vacuming? lol

But unfortunately, it was too good to be true. The next friday came and went, and the apartment got dirtier and dirtier... and then the next friday ... and the next one ....

Oh and another cute picture of this little kid who seems to be really tired of having carted around by his mom in shopping malls. And that doesnt seem like to be a very comfortable position to sleep in either.

btw, I was just joking about the cleaning lady. Thats our friend Dana who actually helped us clean our apartment once and got mad that we messed it up in just a few days after she cleaned it ;)

Snow in Dallas

What the hell is going on?

Okay .. something's seriously not right here:

- I went to bed at 5am, and was woken up at 9am, and I wasn't grouchy. I was actually in a good mood and I even smiled.
- I spent the entire day sleeping and watching movies. And I didn't feel guilty about wasting time. (I guess the people you hang out with really effect your behaviour)
- Having butterflies in your stomach can actually feel good sometime. I usually associated that feeling with dreaded job interviews only.
- I actually vacuumed the living room before my roommate started bitching to me about it.
- Today, after I read a particular text msg, I missed my exit on my way back home because I was lost in my thoughts and smiling to myself. And I didn't even get mad. I just kept smiling and made a u-turn at the next exit.
- I realized that I'm not irritated by people who become clingy when they're drunk. I actually liked it. :)
- Talking into the wee hours of the morning can be so much fun. I think I'm going to try and see if I can stay up to the point where I can get to see the sunrise.
- Not all cheesy romantic movies are .. umm .. cheesy?

I think I know what's going on ... but I dont think I blurt it out yet.

The Tale of Bubba

Once upon a time there was this Styrofoam cup named Bubba. He co-existed peacefully with this mug named Buckeyes on a desk inside a small messy cubicle.
Buckeyes was really popular and was used to store pens, pencils, markers etc, while Bubba was only used for carrying drinking water.
Being the thinking type and extremely emotional, Bubba had often spent hours thinking about what would happen to him once he got thrown into the trash where a lot of his look alikes had ended up after spending days on the desk rotting away with stale coffee and other equally disgusting stuff.

And his question would always be 'Why me ... ?' How come Buckeyes got to be so good looking and useful while he was left to rot away and eventually end up in some recycling plant in South America ?

Oh and how he hated that smirk on Buckeye's face (see picture above) !!!!

And then one Friday evening .... he suddenly started panicking. He knew that the cleaning lady cleaned up the place during the weekends. He was 'The Bubba', he couldn't just go to the trash can like the other nameless Styrofoam cups. He had heard so many horrible stories about the things that happened in the dumpster. Not to mention the fact that there were some really shady characters there like half eaten pizza slices and stale donuts. *shudder*

He decided that he wouldn't go down without a fight. And began a journey of rigorous self improvement. And voila .... check out the new 'Bubba'

Now, even though the hairstyle that had chosen was so last year, that was all he could come up with at such a short notice.

And he didn't just stop there, along with being such a smart cup, he was also realistic. He knew that a new hair style and the basic facial features wouldn't be enough to save him from his fate.

Doesn't he look cute?

And he didn't stop there ......
He wanted to look cooler.

And here is the new Bubba.
Now he can't wait for monday morning when people will come back to work and look at him and whisper among themselves 'Did you see Bubba?' or 'Omg! How could I have never noticed him before? ... he's so cute'

And Buckeyes will become green with envy and beleive me, green will never look good with his all fakey red color.

wow .. I'm a genius !!!!!

For the last two days I have been continuously getting praise for something that I believe I don't deserve.
Most people would say that I shouldn't be complaining. But it's just driving me crazy.
All I did was write the code for an application that was somebody else's idea, which somebody else designed. And since yesterday I continuously get called in to demo it to various people in the company calling it Arfeen's new software.
I guess what's really bugging me is the fact that I've done a lot of really neat things in the past and I rarely got any recognition for them. Things that worked behind the scenes, which took a lot of time and effort to develop. And now everybody is 'ooh and aah'ing over this new software (which only took 3 days to program from start to finish) just because it has a cute front end.

or .. maybe I shouldn't complain ... and just bask in the glory while it lasts.

okay ...
[END OF RANT]