Chris' own little world

In the kingdom of the blind

2008-01-21T01:21:00.000-08:00

In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
One of the few quotes I've heard that are as true and meaningful as they are catchy.

Would you be happy being the one eyed king?

Home Sweet Home

2008-01-13T23:04:00.000-08:00

I went for a stroll in downtown Seattle today, the weather was very un-Seattle-like (read Sunny) and I'd frankly missed it coming back from a long vacation.

Coincidentally, I found a store that sells small antiques and other seeminly random but somehow interesting things imported from Namibia, Kenya, and a couple other countries according to the owner. A quick chat started by the owner asking me where I'm from, playing the guessing game, and failing, as has become the norm for me around here (you *have to* make them play the guessing game when it's a (cute) girl asking you where you're from, playing the game is optional when it's guys asking you).
Anyway, it turns out the guy is from Guinea and has been in Seattle for 12 years.
Interestingly, the guy voluntarily admits that he'd like to go home (not Seattle). I'm puzzled.
'But 12 years is a really long time, it (Seattle) must feel like home to you now, no?', I ask.
'No, I still want to go back, I go on vacations and it may be a worse place but I like it better, there is no place like home', the man replies.

The conversation ended pretty soon, and I felt exactly what his last statement would make most people feel. A mysterious admiration for the man's "loyalty" for his place of birth.
But I really don't know why we feel that way.

First of all, I'm hard pressed to find a definition for "home". We use the word everyday and one would think the definition is clear, but is it?
If a man is born and lives in country A for 20 years, and then relocates and moves in country B for 20 years. Which country is home now for him?
And it can't be defined as the country of birth, because a person who is born in country A but only lives there for a day, after which he moves to country B would never call country A home.

And the definition of 'home' is not the only problem...

Loyalty to one's home, however we choose to define that home, is usually perceived as a virtue, but again the reasons are unclear to me.
Most people will admit having a familiar warm fuzzy feeling and feeling mysterious admiration after hearing the phrase 'There is no place like home' or the seemingly-deep-but-actually-not-so-deep "Never forget where you're from".
A lot of people will say either phrases and countinue to live on somewhere else anyway, go figure.

Maybe I need to study ethics?

Si

2008-01-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

The french si, not the spanish one. The one you use to reply affirmatively to a negative question. A silly silly word, if you ask me, because it solves a problem that should have never existed in the first place.

Who on earth invented the idea of negative questions?

Negative questions do not add any meaning that normal questions don't have, it's actually pretty oxymoronic if you think about it, what does it mean for you to negate something you don't know (yet at least)?
Some languages, like formal Arabic and French, took it even further and made up words to denote an affirmative response to a negative question. After all, what does it really mean to reply 'Yes' to 'Are you not going to work today?'.

I hate very few things in life, and negative questions are so bad that they managed to make it very close to the top of a very short list.

The worst thing about negative questions, to me, is that they suggest some sort of expectancy of a negative answer on behalf of the asker. But why anyone feels compelled to communicate their anticipated answer to their question is beyond me, if you know the answer, just don't ask the question.

'Are you not going to eat?' sounds like "Are you going to eat? You really shouldn't" and 'Are you not coming?' sounds like 'why don't you spare us your company?' to me.

Just think of it, how many times have you had to reask a question in the proper (affirmative) form after not understanding the answer to your previous negative question?

Negative questions are evil.

Smile! You're in a 3rd world country!

2007-12-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

First of all, I really don't mean the title, or the post for that matter, to sound condescending (if you don't know what condescending means, we have nothing to worry about). If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that there rarely is genetically or categorically "bad" people. The system (or lack thereof) produces the people and their defining traits (as a people).

If you've been outside this (or any other) country for an extended period of time (anything more than six months will do), things get pretty interesting when you go back. You start seeing things as if they were completely new to you (unless you have extraordinary memory). You don't otherwise get a chance to see things in your city anew because you grow up in it.

One of the very first things I've noticed the first time I walked on the streets in Cairo is the people, more specifically the faces of the people.
No one is smiling! Absolutely no one!
I've wondered since then what makes people on the streets smile in Seattle when they cross paths with a stranger, after all, it should be lack of this thing, whatever it is, that makes people frowny on the streets of Cairo.
And I found out the hard way.

Yesterday, I went to take my car to run a few errands, only to find it with a flat rear left tire. It was obvious someone had done it, because the tire had not been leaking and both cars in front of and behind mine had the same rear left tire deflated.
While changing the tire, a passerby tipped me off.

I'd parked it by the school wall (there is a school across from my place) and apparently, the school bus drivers don't like it when someone does that (parks on the street around the school). So they deflate the tires to "teach them a lesson"...
That's not the sad part, the sad part is that there is nothing you can do about it...

Why would you smile walking around in a country where you have no rights, be it property, human, or otherwise?

At least I found my/an answer.

El Toktok

2007-12-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

I went to visit my uncle and aunt today, one of my cousins was there too so I get to check a significant percentage of family visits that I have to do off the list (can you tell how small my family is?).
My aunt asks me if there is anything that I saw in my visit that was new to me (I'd been away for about 2 years) and the first thing that comes to mind is "El Toktok!".
If you're wondering what el toktok is, wonder no more, this is what we're talking about, in all its three wheeled flippable glory.

Apparently, Cairo currently has way more cars than it was designed for. Actually that's a misstatement, Cairo was not designed. The best way I can think of as to how its streets came to be is that people built their homes wherever they pleased and the remaining space (or lack thereof) was deemed streets.
Anyway, back on topic, for lack of space (and money), el toktok sprung as an alternative way of transportation (sometimes to the "afterlife").
But this being Egypt, there had to be an interesting twist.

Reportedly, the guy importing toktoks is well connected (he had to be) and made a lot of money on importing and selling them, which is fine. A lot of the "offline" (read not connected) poor folks saw it as a worthwhile investment and started saving up and taking loans to buy and operate toktoks and make a living.
Looks like a win-win so far.
But there is no such thing around here, not that I've seen.
Now the powers that be are disccussing banning el toktok, rumour has it. If/when the toktok is banned, hundreds and maybe thousands of people will have tin boxes for their life investments that they can neither use to make a living nor even sell to recoup their losses.

But life will go on fe om el donya...

Re-blogging

2007-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

It may be ironic that the factors responsible for my restarting blogging are the symmetric opposite of the reasons I started the blog in the first place. I started the blog mostly because I was relocating from Egypt to the US(which I did) and thought I'd have fun maintaining it (which I did not). I came back to Cairo two days ago (for a visit) and here I am restarting the blogging.
Evidently, change in one's geographical location is a big deal.

A lot of people (like three of them) have asked why I stopped blogging, my answer was (and still is) that I don't know exactly why I started blogging in the first place. But right now I feel like I have words to blurt so I will. This should not be taken as any sort of promise of continued e-blurting --blogging, as it came to be known in recent times.

So I'm back in Cairo, for about a month. I've been away for 27 months (2.25 years for the mathematically challenged) and I seriously couldn't have anticipated the shock. Ironically (I love irony), I was not in culture shock moving to the US, but I am now that I'm visiting Cairo.

Don't get me wrong, I am really excited about meeting all the people again. I love my family and friends and it's the one thing you miss when you leave a 3rd world country, but (you knew this one was coming, didn't you?) you definitely do not miss much else. The list (of things you don't miss when you leave Egypt) is so long I don't know where to start.
And it's very well that I don't too, because I'd probably be like that snobby, "westernized" relative of yours who left the country for a couple years only to come back with a fake accent and attitude complaining about everything he sees and some things he doesn't. Let's just say the complaints are mostly warranted, even though the fake accent is not.

As always, I managed to write more than I had intended, and thus I'll end it here.
To be continued...

(I just entered the letters in the word verification thing wrong ~~twice~~ three times, I feel like Nagia)

May 0th

2007-04-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

I just got this random thought.
5:00pm means 5 o'clock. The first minute in a given hour is 00 and the last is 59, that's called zero based indexing in CS world.
But the first day of a given month is, well, the 1st. So beginning of May is 05/01 not 05/00.

Why are we using zero based indexing for minutes, seconds, and hours (in the 24hr format) while using one based indexing for days and months?

Way to go, Egypt!

2007-03-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

For some reason I keep on stumbling upon these, another addition to our hall of shame.

Read and weep:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

Does time really fly?

2007-02-15T01:20:00.000-08:00

It's 1 am.
I've had dinner, watched some late night comedy shows, and brushed my teeth in preparation to going to bed.
I looked at the 3 stacked books on the bedside table but I didn't feel like reading any of them. At the bottom there is an economics book that I almost finished but not quite, a stock market book on top of that that I almost finished but not quite, and on the top there is a humurous book about one author's first hand experience with extremists, a book that I almost finished but...you've guessed it.
But I felt like reading something a little light hearted, so I turned to the stacked book shelf, and grabbed a copy of TopGear the magazine that I got a few weeks ago after looking for it all over the US. I learned that Barnes & Noble seems to be the only bookstore that carries European car magazines around here.

It's "Car of the Year" issue, gotta be interesting. But wait a minute, it says 2005 cars of the year. This can't be right. I double checked and it does say 2005. I looked for the tiny date on the top right corner, it said January 2006.
I got this issue 13 months ago, not a few weeks ago.
And this is probably the first time I really realize that it's 2007, that I've been in the US for 17 months now, and that pretty soon in what will seem like a few days I'll be 26 years old.
I have no idea what to make out of all that.
And this is when I grabbed the laptop and started writing this post, mostly because I had a mental hang and thought that writing may unblock it.

I changed a lot in a year and a bit, although I can't be entirely sure since nobody who knew me from "the previous lifetime" has seen me since I came here to attest to that change.
I still, however, can not say that I'm in a substantially different place in my life than I was a year ago. I'm not sure if I was standing still the whole time or running around in small circles.
Do I have to be in a different place (figuratively speaking) every year? Or does running around in circles still count?

I'd decided to take a break for a bit when I came here, I need one after running for 25 minutes so it seemed appropriate after racing life for 25 years. "I'll just take it all in, catch my breath, and then lock on another target and go for it", I thought to myself.
But getting back in the ring after a break is harder than I thought it would be.
And somehow I don't feel that much more refreshed than before I took the break.
And I need a mark before I start shooting.

Does time really fly? Or have I fallen asleep on my break?
It's 1:20 am.

Conversations

2007-02-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

I find it fairly interesting that the level of any conversation I'm in depends heavily on the participant.
I find myself talking fairly trivial stuff with some people, and highly abstract and/or philosophical subjects with others.
Everyone else is probably like that, it's not like a special ability of mine.

So this lame excuse for a post is a snippet of a conversation held with one of my dear and highly respected friends a few days ago. C is my humble self.

C: The recurring "so what really is the point?" question strikes every now and then
D: Oh, that question :D
C: Any significant amount of happiness is followed by a similar in quantity opposite in direction amount of unhappiness.
D: Yeah i know all about it.
C: You can't win.
C: and you know a million others would kill for what you have
C: but you know better, because one day _you_ would've killed for what you currently have
C: and now you'd kill for what somebody else has
C: and they would kill for what somebody else has
C: and on top of the pyramid there are thsoe who would kill for what nobody else has
D: :D
D: well am going through a similar phase myself and it's hard I know
D: and harder i guess when you are away
C: is that what they call growing up or something?
D: exactly
D: that line from queen "no one ever told the truth to me about growing up and what a struggle it can be" has never been so relevant
C: and i dunno why life has this annoying habit
C: of giving me a taste of what i want, and then just when I start thinking about how great it is and how I would happily give up other stuff to keep it
C: takes it away
C: i swear i could see somebody sticking their tongue out every time this happens
C: because somebody out there apparently thinks that having everything one wants is too much

Ribs and Hearts

2007-02-04T13:42:00.000-08:00

A ~~wise~~ funny man once said "In order to pretend doing something I actually do it, this way I'm only pretending to be pretending".

It's winter and snow is abound, Guy number 1 likes the snow and thinks snow sports would be fun to try. He'll learn something new, have an interesting story to tell, and who knows, maybe he'll find a new favorite sport that he could spend the rest of his life enjoying and perfecting, the guy (affectionately called G1 from now on) thinks.
G1 still remembers his rollerblading incident, when he fell on his back and fractured his tail bone. He was in pain for more than a few weeks because of it. He nevertheless decides to go ahead and snowboard, it'd be silly to let that incident scare him off.
He goes up and down the slopes quite a few times, 2 weeks and numerous small falls later he's getting better, or he thinks he is. He takes on a steeper slope, and decides to jump off a ramp while he's at it. "How hard can it be to jump a few inches and land on the board?", G1 thinks to himself.
He starts the descent, kinda scared at first, but as his speed increases so does his confidence. He's on a good trajectory to make it, he lines up his board perfectly with the narrow wooden ramp and right before he catches air he thinks the hard part is over.
He'd underestimated the landing it seems because just as his board is about to touch the snow again he feels something is wrong. His heavy head is determined on beating his feet to the snow, he extends his arms to try and brace for the fall. He lands on both his hands and feet, but he's not slowing down. The slope is so steep that gravity is overpowering the friction. He tries to slow down the fall but it's not working, a second or two that seem like a lifetime later his torso collides with the ground.
He can't breathe in for a minute from the impact, the pain is agonizing. Judging by the pain, he realizes he almost broke a rib and dislocated a shoulder. Almost but not quite.
It'll take him some time to recover from this one, but he survives.

In slightly different four dimensional coordinates, G2 meets a nice gal. "I should ask her out", G2 thinks to himself. He'll get to know a person, have interesting memories, and who knows, maybe he'll find the girl of his dreams in her and spend the rest of his life cherishing and sharing his moments with her.
G2 still remembers his breakup incident, when his heart was broken by a girl he loved. He was in pain for more than a few months because of it. But it'd be silly to let that scare him off.
They go out for quite a few times, 2 months and numerous small issues later things are getting better. Or he thinks they are. He thinks he's falling in love and he confesses it. "I love you too", she said ", but it's going to be hard". "How hard could it be for two people in love?" he thinks to himself.
He starts the journey, scared at first, but as their love grows so does his confidence they can make it. They're on a good trajectory to make it. They've been over a few hurdles and he thinks the hard part is over.
He'd underestimated circumstances out of his control it seems because just as he was happily adapting to the changes a serious relationship brings to one's life he feels something is wrong. Other people are determined on spoiling his happiness. He fights for what he thinks is his right to be with someone that makes him happy. But the web of ignorance, love for control, and general nonsense is so complicated that it's overpowering all his efforts.
A week or two that seem like a lifetime later, they're broken up.
He feels like he can't breathe in from the pain. He got his heart broken again.
It'll take him some time to recover from this one, but he survives.

I can only pretend to be G1 and G2.

Keep a blog, spend 9 years in prison

2007-01-31T23:04:00.000-08:00

I don't recall the last time I've been so enraged.

The gist: An Egyptian blogger criticizes the Egyptian government and El Azhar. He's arrested and is "on trial" and could be looking at 9 years in prison.
The joke, I mean, trial is still going on, please take a look and think of something you can do to help. Anything... Sign the petition if nothing else.

http://www.freekareem.org/

Everyday it's becoming more shameful to be an Egyptian. I would've said this is a new low for Egypt, except that it's not exactly new.

Law lam akon masreyan, I really would have pointed and laughed.

It's a beautiful life

2007-01-30T01:07:00.000-08:00

I've always liked Ace of Base, I'm not sure why. I thought they were dead (musically) but a look at their wikipedia page suggested they have an album in the works.

A couple weeks ago I was at my new favorite breakfast cafe. They have friendly baristas, play good music, serve good coffee and an excellent tuna sandwich, and they have free wifi. It doesn't really get any better than that. So they're my Seattle Cilantro substitute (dang it, took me a few seconds to remember the name Cilantro, this can't be a good sign).
So I'm sipping on my coffee and browsing the internets, and a bum comes in. He's black and looks over 50 or so with a plastic cup in one hand and a few quarters in it. He asks me if I have a couple of minutes so naturally I presume he'll be asking for money. I turn around and he starts talking.
"You see, I'm a musician".
'Yeah, right' I thought to myself.
He seemed to have trouble saying complete sentences, he was just blurting words and it was my job to collect them and guess what he meant.
"Can you.... check my name... amazon... music... joe bayana... b a y a n a", he said.
I fired up google and looked for Joe Bayana, the search turned up results and the first is to a page on amazon. This is weird.
I go to the amazon web page and lo and behold. It's an album with a familiar face on it. I look at the man's face, and the picture in front of me, and they match. I take another look because I can't believe it, but there is no denying it.
'Hey, that's you, this _is_ your album, that's great, man', I said. He cracks up a short giggle like someone who hasn't laughed for a long long time.
"music... people buy... money... can you check?"
I don't quite get it so I ask him to clarify.
"check for me... orchard.... last name.... password..."
So I figure he wants me to check if his album is selling and if he has any money to claim out of it. But I don't know how to do that. I ask him to clarify.
"orchard", the man said.
So I try orchard.com and there is nothing there. I rescan the search results and check any promising link with his name in there, but it doesn't get me anywhere.
A couple minutes later I raise my arms up in defeat. 'Sorry man, I don't know where to check for your money'
"That's ok, God bless you", he said. He slowly walked away and out of the coffee place thanking the baristas for letting him in. Never asking for money...

I sit there thinking for a couple minutes. I don't get it. That guy _is_ a musician, at least used to be. He has a published album that's being sold on amazon. He's now homeless. Life is weird.

I go through the amazon page again, and I notice in the album details that the publisher is called The Orchard. Oh, that's got to be what he meant when he kept saying orchard. Another quick search and www.theorchard.com turns up. I go to the page and there is a login link for artists to check their accounts. Darn, that's what he meant. He wanted me to log on to his account and see if there are any new sales that would have credited his account. I look out the window but I don't see him anymore. I run out to see if I can find him, but he'd vanished.

When that man walked in, I presumed he'll be asking for money. But he didn't.
When he told me he's a musician I presumed he's lying. But he wasn't.
When he saw me sitting at a computer he presumed I can help him. But I couldn't.
And however unlikely it is, anyone stumbling on his page on amazon will probably presume he's a well-off recording artist. But he isn't.
Presumptions are cruel.
Or maybe life is.

That man must have been jumping with joy with the recording and publishing of his album. He must have thought it's his breakthrough. Ironically the album has got 3 5-star reviews, so he might have been justified. But life had something else in store for him.
Is it really a beautiful life?

Been some time

2007-01-26T01:30:00.000-08:00

It's been more than 2 months since I posted anything, probably my longest blogging abstinence period since the 24 years I spent on the planet before I started the blog.

I can't really say why I haven't been blogging, because I don't know. It's not like nothing was happening or that life was monotonous. On the contrary, we had 2 snowstorms and a windstorm, the latter had us without power for 2 days. Seattle smashed its own record for its wettest month ever in November. I started Salsa dancing classes, and stopped. I went snowboarding twice and am slowly starting to get the hang of it. There was Christmas, and New Year's, and I took my first US road trip down to Reno 750 miles each way.
I also got a lot better at going sideways in the snow thanks to above mentioned weather and summer tires. There is a pretty boring video where you can see the slides improving after the first minute.

Still no clue why I never blogged any of that.
Maybe that's a wrong question to ask, one probably needs a reason to blog any of that, not lack thereof to not blog.

Anyway, I'll probably be back blogging more often for at least the near future.

Con Art - Solution

2006-11-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

This is the solution to the question I posed in this post, so if you haven't read it you can safely skip this one too.

Hussein got it pretty much right on in the comments.

What the company could have done is the following.
Identify 32000 recepients, that's a very easy feat and most mailing lists for sale contain way more than that.
First week, divide them in halves. Send to half of them (16000) saying that X stock will go up, and the other half saying that X stock is going down.
Wait for 1 week, see the results. You must have sent the correct prediction to 8000 people, no matter how the stock actually did. Identify those 16000, divide them in halves, repeat the exact same process saying to half of them that the stock is going up and to the other half that it's going down.

At the end of 6 weeks you would've sent 6 correct prediction in a row to 500 people. Collect your money and profit :)
This con game is illegal when/if played on purpose. Do not attempt :)

Adaptation

2006-11-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

You know you've spent too much time in Seattle when:

1. You start to panic when you're driving in a small suburban street and the lane markers disappear.
2. You wonder how you ever got anywhere before the invent of live/google maps.
3. On a strange road the first thing you do is start looking for the speed limit signs.
4. You have trouble parallel parking in a spot that is twice the length of your car.
5. You regard a Jeep Grand Cherokee or a mini van as a small car.
6. You walk around with zero cash in your pocket.
7. You wonder how you ever lived without online shopping.
8. You think that a 10 mile drive is a really short one.
9. You're very surprised to find a place that's open past midnight on weekdays.
10. You start using 5+ word phrases to describe how you want your coffee, e.g. Tall Non-Fat Eggnog Vanilla Latte.

Popular and Right

2006-11-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

Apparently we tend to confuse these two separate things, or assume some sort of correlation.

This might seem all a bit random but bear with me.

What do you think is the percentage of smart people in a given population?

Trying to come up with a definition for smartness or intelligence is not as easy of a task as it sounds. There are thousands of totally different I.Q. tests which are assumed to measure ability at a skillset and call it IQ.
Being well informed about a specific topic, however, is much easier to define and measure.

So what do you think is the percentage of people who are well versed in medical sciences or philosophy in a given population? The US's or Egypt's for example?

My conjecture says that it's not a majority.

This, in itself, is not so bad. But substitute economics or politics for medicine or philosophy and it becomes kind of dangerous.

Smart or not, you have to be well informed about a subject to be able to take sound decisions regarding matters of said subject. It took countless smart people thousands of years to build a foundation of science that got us to where we are today. You simply can not, no matter how smart you (think you) are, rebuild it all from scratch in one lifetime.

I said earlier that one can get away with little knowledge of medicine because one doesn't get to vote if one wants his son's tonsils removed or not. The decision is made in a dictatorial fashion by someone who is (hopefully) an expert on the subject.

But this very same person gets to vote for what his country's policies should be, at least in a true democracy he does.

To make matters worse, individuals rarely get to pick from individual policies on a decision by decision basis (or else nobody will do anything but attend political meetings and vote for whatever today's decision is). Instead, you and I get to pick a "package deal", be it a political party or a presidential candidate. For example American voters can (and recently actually did) pick candidates from the Democratic Party for the senate or the house. The Democratic party generally stands for a higher minimum wage and legalization of abortion.
If you happen to agree on the latter but disagree with the former, tough luck. It's our package of the day.
Or of course start your own party, good luck with that.

Combine all of the above and you might arrive at the same conclusion I did.
1. The majority of people are not well informed (sometimes ill-informed?) about economics and politics.
2. If you're ill/dis/mis-informed about a specific matter, you shouldn't be expected to take a sound a decision regarding said matter.
2. Voters get to pick one out of several candidates, each is a bag of specific stands on a multitude of subjects.
3. A democracy guarantees that the candidate with the most votes win.

Do you see it yet?
Democracy guarantees the domination of what's popular. It even actually creates an incentive system for politicians to stay "in fashion" with what's popular and form their strategies or advertised agendas accordingly.

The result?
What's popular is what will get done. And what's popular shouldn't be expected to magically intersect with what's right. Not until the majority is knowledgeable about economics and politics (in the very least).

We might as well be flipping coins.

P.S.
I'm not anti-democracy. Nor do I have an alternative worthwhile system that I can suggest. I'm just debating the merits and flaws of what is currently, widely accepted as the best system to run a country.

Con Art

2006-11-10T20:31:00.000-08:00

Or How to Make Money using Mathematics.

So here is the question, and I'll answer this one after I get a few responses. Just think about it and don't cheat.

You open your mailbox and you find that a "stock prediction" company sent you this letter saying that it's their business to predict the stock market and they want you as a customer. They provide you with a free prediction that the stock price of company xxxx will go up in the next week. xxxx is a large company like MSFT or something of the sort.
You toss the mail out, but come next week you note that the xxxx stock price did go up. Next week, surely enough, you get another mail from the same company extending one more free prediction that the xxxx stock price will go up (or down for that matter). A week passes by and they were right again.
You get that for 6 weeks in a row, and every time they are spot on right about the stock price prediction.
For the 7th week you get a mail that they had sent you enough free predictions and you should pay for the next one if you want it.

Would you pay? Obviously they're good at predicting stock prices aren't they?
If not then why?
Just think about if for a few minutes and leave me a comment with your answer.
Please don't cheat by looking it up (or otherwise), or at least if you do, don't paste it here in the comments :)

Hofstadter's Law

2006-11-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever read about Hofstadter's Law?
If not, it's about time you do. It's true.

Probability and Coincidence

2006-11-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

A man who travels a lot was concerned with the possibility of a bomb on his plane. He determined the probability of this, found it to be low but not low enough for him, so now he always travels with a bomb in his suitcase. He reasons that the probability of two bombs being on board is infinitesimal.
-John Allen Paulos in Innumeracy

Sacrifice

2006-11-06T01:04:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the movie "The Weather Man". I started watching it at 11:20pm and finished it at 1:02 am.
This line, in my opinion, is one of the truest statements you'll ever find in a movie.

Robert Spritzel, played by Sir Michael Caine, said to his son David:
Sacrifice is... To get anything of value, you have to sacrifice. Do you know that the hardest thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. Easy doesn't enter into grown-up life.

This post is for you, you know who you are.

Home

2006-11-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

If somebody relocates when he's 25 years old to a different part of the world.
If this somebody lives there till he's 50.
Which part of the world is home to somebody? One..., both..., or neither...?

Halloween 2006 aka Borat in Seattle

2006-11-02T01:22:00.000-08:00

Time for a less serious, less important, and a more personal post after the couple past ones.

So last year I took a back seat and watched Halloween in the US for the first time. This year I jumped right in.

First of all, if you don't know who Borat is, you need a primer. You will also probably love the trailer.

So, for this Halloween I was Borat! And even though the movie hasn't come out yet, the character is insanely popular. Going out on Friday in the costume was pretty amazing, people are really nice on Halloween. Everybody dressed up in the most creative customes, complementing you on yours. In Borat's case people were taking pictures, yelling lines from the movie. It was truly a weekend of living like a movie star :)

Such a post would, of course, not be complete without photos, so I present you with a few.

Huh?

2006-10-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'll ever understand how a person, any person, think like this, assuming there was thinking involved.
I will never understand what can make a person become like that either.

Sex maniacs, are these real?

2006-10-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

If you live in Egypt please help me out here, is this real?
http://malek-x.net/node/268

If you're a girl who lives in Egypt, please be careful. Try to avoid the busy spots and downtown at night. Better safe than sorry.

I don't know what to say, it's a new low.

The Smiling Cucumber

2006-10-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

You probably thought the title was some kind of metaphor or hoped the post would have some deep insightful meaning to it.

If you did, then I am actually not terribly sorry to disappoint. This post is exactly and literally about what's in the title.

After 25 years of eating cucumber, I can announce that I have a photo of what up to my knowledge is the first smiley embedded in a cucumber. There is no manipulation of the cucumber or image processing of any sort. This is what I saw looking back at me when I looked at a piece of cucumber I was biting.

Flying Spaghetti Music

2006-10-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'll keep it sweet simple, I'm sure the less I talk the better a post it is :)

-Pastafarianism
Nothing for me to say, the wikipedia page says it all. Awesome stuff.

-Pandora Box
The only such website that I see actually works. It's realy cool, just tell it what you already like and it'll guide you through discovering music that you most probably never heard before but will like. And it works!

Bloggerhea

2006-10-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been blogging more than I used to so that's the term I came up with to describe the phenomenon. I have a feeling it'll become popular one day, maybe just with the guys. I know all the girls are saying "ewwww" together right now, no big deal.

The newly coined term swiftly takes me to the topic, which is probably going to provoke more ewwws. It's just I noticed what looked to me like an interesting phenomenon. The naming for bathrooms.

Every few years English speaking people seem to get fed up or disgusted by one name and decide to switch to another. So far we have bathroom, water closet, washroom (mostly Canadian), men's/women's room, loo, toilet, can, and lavatory as words that are pretty much referring to the same thing. I conjecture that this is the one physical object with the largest number of words associated with it in the English language.

It seems to me that the new word gets associated with the concept and disgust ensues, and then people think they can solve that by using a a new word and designating the old one as non-PC (politically correct). Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Seriously, what difference does a word make if we understand we're referring to the same concept?

Superlatives

2006-10-18T04:31:00.000-07:00

Sleep has a funny habbit of evading me for a few days every now and then. Tonight, reading the last 100 pages of the book I was going through hasn't helped. Turning in bed for a few hundred times didn't help either, and I found thoughts racing through my head. They're doing so even faster than what I'm used to in the shower which by now everybody knows is my inspirational place. If we can be so misled as to call these things in my head inspirations, that is.
So I thought blogging as a means of documenting my brain's electrical activity was in order.

Of course, the net had to be down at my place. For only the 3rd time since I got it here a year ago probably. But, like sleep, it seems to go away when I want it the most. Or maybe we've grown too attached to our online "presence" that all the time is when we want it the most, but I digress.

So anyway, I'm writing in notepad and will post it later, I think.

My amusing thought of the day is about human nature and competition. If there is anything that human beings are best at, it's getting better at something. Every day people in all walks of life outdo other people as well as previous versions of themselves in a relentless quest for something that I can't figure out yet.
Sometimes it's about wealth, and sometimes it's about fame, but most of the time you can't really tell what it's about. People are breaking records and outdoing everyone else noisily and quietly every day and at things ranging from the grand medical or technological breakthroughs to the absurd eating records.

We're all proud of ourselves and how well we do a specific thing or two, be it our jobs or playing a sport, musical instrument, or a particular video game. I know I am. But a little exposure to the best in the world usually changes your perception of just how good you actually are.
Look closer and there is someone who's stronger than you are, another one who's taller or shorter or fatter or thinner, someone who's better at doing what you do for a living, and someone who's better at playing your favorite sport or video game. There's someone who's more social, someone who can speak more languages than you do more fluently, and someone who can drive faster.
You can only attach superlatives to yourself in a (very) limited context, and it's a scary thought, even a depressing one if you let it get to your self confidence and sense of self worthiness.
After all, if that's the case then you're pretty much disposable from a world point of view.

I thought this would be the end of this post when I started it, but as I type the thoughts came flowing and I think I found a way out.
I guess this is why I keep on blogging.

Most of us can't be the best at everything or even one thing almost by definition. As long as there are more people than things to gauge skill at this has to be the case. There just can't be 10 best people at doing 5 things. There can only be 5, and this doesn't bode very well with 3 billion people in the world.

But each one of us is the (relatively) unique combination of how well he/she is at those things combined. I am the mix of an 8/10 driver, an 8/10 gamer, a 7/10 programmer, a 2/10 ping pong player, an 0.1/10 squash player and a 0/10 singer. As well as a bunch of other stuff, but you get the idea.
It's not only the things we're good (or best) at that makes us who we are, but also what we're fairly good at, not so good at, and absolutely bad at.

Maybe now I can sleep.....

Stack overflow

2006-10-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

Lately it's been feeling like very little bit of new information that makes its way through to my head displaces an older one. I feel like I've hit the (admittedly low) limits on my memory and now I'm starting to merely replace old information with new one.

Maybe I have to stop acquiring information...

UnNews

2006-10-11T01:00:00.000-07:00

I woke up today to a text message from Nagaiaia asking me to remind her of the wikipedia parody website. Took me a bit to remember she was talking about Uncyclopedia

Having been reminded of it I took a glance and the UnNews section actually contained a couple of hilarious posts.

This one should be enjoyable by the geekier population. If you'd caught on the computer thing long enough to remember Duke Nukem 3D (circa 1997) you should be good to go.

I also came across a more general audience "article" and it's just as hilarious. The news? A man had bad picture taken of him.

Geek, Geekier, Geekiest

2006-10-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

Let me state the obvious first, I (surprise!) have changed the template. This one looks better imho and it isn't messed up on some computers like the other one was after I'd tried to make the post pages wider and messed it all up. Ironically this one is just as narrow as the old one was before I messed it up, so I'm back to square one. Anyway, just let me know if something is (not?) broken with the change.

I've always been a supporter of the cool geek concept. I believe that being a geek doesn't have to carry the negative connotations it does, it makes me sleep better at night you could say. In that vein I have some of the geekiest confessions to make.

One day this week it just hit me that I dreamt of Windows Vista the previous night. I had dreamt that Microsoft "called it off" and the whole company was in jeopardy because of the announcement. This has got to be one of the geekiest things that happened to me, or maybe even to anybody. Don't ask.

I happen to have another confession in the same vein that I've kept a secret for a long time.
Sometimes, in real life, when someone says something really funny, instead of laughing I find myself "LOLing". That is actually saying the word 'LOL' instead of actually doing the act and laughing out loud. Weirdly enough people didn't seem to notice the 3 or 4 times I've done that. Apparently few people actually listen to me, not that it's a bad thing.

There, I said it all. Got Geekier?

Shar el baleya ma yod7ek

2006-09-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Apologies if you can't speak Arabic. I can't think of an equivalent saying in English but roughly translated the title is an Arabic saying that means "The worst type of tragedy is one that makes you laugh".

I couldn't really think of a more suitable quote when I came across 2 news articles today.
I had been looking for news about people who were killed in an accident when their bus rolled over while driving them to Saudi Arabia to do omra because one of the victims is a friend's aunt. I'm not one to read websites written in Arabic in general but when my attempts to locate the news on the bbc website failed I thought I'd give masrawy a try.

I eventually found what I think is the news item I wanted here where it says in one and a half lines that 36 people died.
But I also found this article which describes in great detail and 6 paragraphs how the American embassador in Egypt spent his night at a cafe in Egypt smoking shisha/hookah. Including, but not limited to, the exact cafe he was at, other ones he considered, and the all important facts that he ordered apple shisha, a cup of tea, and rice pudding for dessert while watching a football game.

As one of my friends put it, they forgot to tell us if he wiped his ass afterwards.

We 3agaby

Anniversary we ramadan kareem

2006-09-25T01:49:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago (Saturday the 23rd to be exact) marked 1 year since I set foot on US soil. I had thought about synchronizing the post with the day and time but couldn't really be bothered.

Ironically (or maybe just weirdly) enough, I had to go to the airport on the exact same day, only a couple hours later than I'd landed, to pick up a friend who's starting with Microsoft this October. The traffic was nothing like I've seen before that it took me around an hour to get there. The upside was lots of time for reflecting on a very different and maybe significant year of my life.

-Ramadan Kareem
Once again it's upon us. To all my friends I haven't called, Ramadan Kareem! Kol sana wento tayebeen. To some of my friends I haven't called, Khefo 3al la7ma, you know who you are :)

-Useless tip of the day:
I'm pretty sure most people know this already, but to my surprise I recently found out that some don't so here goes.
If a given calendar day falls on day x of the week, the same day falls on the next day of the week the year after, except when it's a leap year. For example, September 23rd was a Friday in 2005. In 2006 it's a Saturday and it's going to be a Sunday in 2007.

-Uplifter of the day:
It happened to everybody, you remember something that happened in the past and think 'God I was stupid/foolish/naive/an idiot'. If you're in the habit of writing some of your thoughts anything written a year or 2 ago will sound to you like it was written by someone else. A slight hint of remorse would usually follow when this happened to me, if only I was smarter/more knowledgable/more eloquent back then.
Think like me no more, all thanks to a quote I stumbled across
'We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish' F. A. Hayek
There! It's the sign you're growing wiser everytime this happens to you.

Tidbits

2006-09-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

It's been long since I posted something, and I'm having second thoughts about keeping the blog altogether. But for now I'll try to push through.

So here are a few news items and thoughts that were of note to me:

-California Sues Automakers
It says here that California is suing the 6 largest car makers in the US (including japanese ones with operations in the US) over global warming seeking millions of dollars.
Now regardless of how green I try to be, I just can't see the logic in this (other than it being an election year).
Even if you disregard the ongoing debate about global warming, whether it is actually happening, or what its causes are. Even disregarding all that and looking at the distribution of sources that contribute to producing greenhouse gases, fuel for transportation comes 3rd after industrial processes and power stations. Agricultural processes come a close 4th. Why doesn't California sue all factories and power stations, and after those maybe farmers as well?

-Crime and Punishment
The topic seems to pop in my head quite often for reasons beyond me.
The more I think about it, the more prison seems like a really bad idea. If someone who knows how to pickpocket goes to prison he'll graduate with a doctorate in serial killing. If there is such a thing as bad influence then it really doesn't get any worse than prison.
Only "solution" I could think of is solitary imprisonment and apart from the increased costs I think over any significant period of time it'll turn the prisoners all crazy. So we might as well just kill all criminals while we're at it.
Expulsion sounded like a good idea while it lasted, society gets rid of a bad seed and the bad seed is deprived of something that should be of value, but I can't think of somewhere you could expel criminals to nowadays.
Any ideas?

Memories

2006-09-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

They're weird. You'd think it's a good thing to have so many good memories with people you've known. But you look at the photos and remember the silly stuff. They might make you giggle for a bit but it feels bitter sweet and before you know it you're all nostalgic. They really don't make you feel any better. If anything they make you feel worse.

Would we be better off with a selective memory where we would just keep the stuff we need for things like 'burning stuff hurt don't touch it again'.

Economics a.k.a El Banzeen Ghaly!

2006-08-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Almost all Egyptians know that gas prices are subsidized, people outside Egypt might not but if they're reading now they do.

As a consequence, Egypt "enjoyed" one of the lowest prices for gas (petrol if you're a brit) anywhere in the world. Up until a few weeks ago 1 liter of 90 octane gas was being sold to the public for 1 EGP (around 18 US cents), that is less than 70 US cents per US gallon. For a quick comparison gas in the US is cheap because it goes for around $3 US a gallon, and is expensive in the UK where people pay around 1 sterling pound for a liter. That's more than 10 times as much.

A few weeks ago, the price at which gas is controlled rose 30% to 1.3 egyptian pounds, and while I was not there when it did, I can definitely imagine the major uproar on the streets following that. If conversations with friends and family are anything to go by, I actually bet thousands, if not millions, of people are still uttering swear words in disapproval of the government's action.

I, too, think this was a wrong step to take, gas prices should not have slidden up 30%. The subsidies should have been lifted and prices should have been let to shoot up to the 5 or 7 times the current price that it's estimated to be worth. I am not being sarcastic either, hold on to your guns a little bit before you declare me crazy and hear me out.

Subsidies mean that the government is paying the price difference between what you're paying at the pump and what it actually cost to get the gas to the pump. It does *not* mean that the cost of gas is less, it was just transferred and is being paid by someone else.

Now, a basic economic fact is that demand increases with lower prices and decreases at higher prices. That is why not everybody is driving around in cars costing millions of pounds, and why on the other hand almost everybody can eat bread.
In fact it is so basic that it's almost considered common sense, and is ultimately portrayed by the common saying "Abo balash kattar meno" or translated "Get more of that which is free".

Combine both facts and you get a better picture, taxpayers' money is used to buy gas and people are using more of it because of exactly that.
If subsidies were removed, and gas prices are allowed to fluctuate according to free market conditions, prices will shoot up to maybe 6 or 7 times their current values. This will naturally cause people to use less and prices will go back down a bit. Not back to the point they're at with subsidies but to the point where equilibrium is reached between supply and demand.

And before thinking that this would be a life threatening situation for low income people let me explain what I think.
What would people do if they found out their dinner is free? I say they will probably eat more than what they usually do, much more actually.
This is no different than the gas situation. I know that I drove around for much more than 500 Kms on the first day I got my first car in Egypt. I also know that it would have been prohibitively expensive for me to do that if gas prices were 5 times their values back then.

Nobody likes high prices, specially those who can't afford it themselves. And even though it might be nice to imagine a world where everyone affords everything, the underlying scarcity of resources makes that practically impossible.

What subsidizing gas is doing is taking from tax payers, many(most?) of which are low to middle income, and paying it for gas much of which is consumed by the higher income classes who own the bigger and more gas guzzling cars.

Still not convinced? I'll leave you with a few statistics I just looked up.

-The FY 2006-07 budget earmarks EGP 40 billion for fuel subsidies, up from EGP 22 billion in 2005, and more than is allocated to health and education combined.

-According to Boutros-Ghali, the rich benefit by EGP 1,700 per capita from fuel subsidies, while the poor benefit by only EGP 300 per capita.

Economics* is interesting isn't it?

*Most of my recently acquired and embarassingly little knowledge of economics has been through this book, Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. A highly recommended read.

Layout

2006-08-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

I know it's long overdue but somehow whenever I decide to blog I end up doing something else... I assume this is a good thing (that I'm busy with other stuff) but I also promise I'll keep on blogging (even if just photos :P).

Anyway, I just have a quick question, does the blog layout show correctly on your computer? Ever since I modified it to be wider so that I can post bigger photos inline it's been showing up great on my laptop but kinda funny on my desktop. Is it just my desktop?

Appreciate the feedback!

Rebel!

2006-07-19T14:59:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I last posted and I don't feel like typing a lot. And while most people use lyrics to fill in the gaps, I feel photos are more my style.

Of course the fact that I just got the Canon Digital Rebel XT that I've always wanted comes to play very conveniently. I'm extremely happy with it even though I only have one low end lens for it thus far (50mm/f1.8, yes fixed focal length and no zoom)

Instead of boring you with a review which you can find better done somewhere else I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Enjoy, but be forewarned, lots of sexy cars in the photos amongst other things. :)

Not all that looks like politics is

2006-06-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

The subject is an early disclaimer that I'm not politically inclined. I'm not a lawyer, all characters and events -- even those based on real persons -- are entirely fictional, of course your mileage may vary, and you should eat your greens.

Anyway, so a good discussion today was brought up at lunch out of the blue. Usually we'd discuss... errr pretty much nothing, but somehow today we ended up debating whether punishment should be applied to "insane criminals" just as well as their sane counterparts, specially in a murder case where a sane person would've been sentenced to death.

The discussion evolved to include ethics, right and wrong, free will, what it means to be human, the philosophy of imprisonment and the death penalty amongst other things. And the answer is not 42 (a joke if you're a galaxy hitchhiker). Actually we never came up with any answers, as is often with such highly enjoyable and rare debates. I was playing devil's advocate most of the time just to fuel the debate more and it worked. Good mental exercise.

- Waking life
An excellent movie (beware the spoilers on that link), one that can actually be watched many times over always finding new hidden ideas to think about. Warning: it's not for the faint of mind and will make you ponder themes you might have never thought of before.

- Women vote in Kuwait
While this should be good news. I can't help but think of how sad it is that the date this news item is published is in the year 2006.

- Bogs
By complete accident I learned this is not just a typo people make when trying to type blogs. It actually is something.

- Typos
Open notepad (or kpad if you're on linux or something) and type the word ratio. Seriously, try to do it. I can safely bet that at least 90% of the people will type it 'ration' first before correcting it (or not). It is one of the most popular typos out there. It's probably because we're used to typing 'ion' as in "relation", or "nation", come to think of it. 'io' is an uncommon ending for an English word. I find the typo that usually results amusing.

Congratulations, you just lost 5 minutes of non refundable time.

We eih kaman

2006-06-22T00:33:00.000-07:00

Life can get boring sometimes, living seems to be the one action you can't just stop doing when you're bored with it to take a break and do something else, dying for example.
At a very high level, there's really nothing much to do out here but living. And living takes its toll on you eventually, they say smoking is dangerous because it might kill you at the age of 50 or something, but living is about as dangerous as smoking. In Egypt, for example, it kills people at an average age between 68 and 73.

Anyway, I'm done with the nonsense, here is a few things that might make slightly more sense:

- Drama
For some reason we all use the word Drama when we actually mean tragedy. Drama turns out to be a greek word that means "Action", kinda ironic, and something to think about the next time you watch a Jackie Chan movie.

- Ratatouille (rat.a.too.ee)
The funniest trailer I have ever seen, a definite must see. It played while I was waiting for Cars (an excellent movie too) to start and I was still laughing 10 minutes into the movie. Even though it's still a year away I can't wait.

It's getting late so I'll just wrap it up here.
Over and out.

Mom, what is a planet?

2006-06-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

You thought you'd learnt it in school. Everybody knows what a planet is. And if you didn't you can always pick up a dictionary and look it up, right?.

Well I thought so too, but then I saw this on the news and I kid you not.

"After over seven years of debating, the International Astronomical Union announced that it expects to announce the official definition of a planet in September. After many-a-deadlock, they handed the task of deciding exactly what a planet is to a new committee, which includes historians and educators. 'They wanted a different perspective from that of planetary scientists,' said Edward Bowell, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory who is also vice president of the IAU's Division III-Planetary Systems Sciences group. If all goes according to plan, the wording will be proposed in their 12-day General Assembly meeting in Prague." (Courtesy of /.)

Unfortunately, they're serious.
Some people have too much time on their hands obviously.

Tourism And Marketing

2006-06-11T01:25:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the multi-point posts I had these 2 separate subjects in mind. Only when I put them together in the title did I notice they are actually related. My post however is agnostic of that and you'll hardly notice any relation, it's more of something for you to think about.

-Tourism
At the start of the last century (the 1900s) Leavenworth, WA was a city that depended on commerce for its economy. The railroad tracks used to go through it and a railroad track going through a city back then meant a healthy commercial economy. But then the railroads were rerouted, the city's economy fell apart gradually and for some 30 years the city was on the brink of extinction.
In the late 1960s they decided to try and do something about it.
Ideas were thrown around and an idea to turn the city into a mock bavarian (Bavaria is a state in Germany) village was chosen to turn the city into a touristic destination and help revitalize economy.
And it worked. Even though the city had nothing particularly Bavarian about it, they started remodelling their hamlet to look Bavarian. People started festivals, signs in German were erected, and with all the remodelling work the city looks very refreshing.
Today the city whose area is 3.2 Km² and population around 2000 people gets more than a million tourists annually.
It would be a healthy exercise to think about the story of this city and compare it to how we're "investing" our priceless monuments and potentially touristic areas.

Actually, I take that back, this is not a healthy exercise at all.

-Marketing
I've noticed a few things about ads and marketing that I find oxymoronic. Let me illustrate.
Quite a few ads or statements on product packaging proudly boast "Better taste or less fat or more cleaning power than the leading (beverage, or chocolate, or detergent) brand(s)"
Well, if I, the advertiser, willingly admit that some other brand is the leading brand what am I basically declaring my brand to be... the following brand perhaps?

The other thing is just as popular, I would be watching TV or listening to the radio when the announcer declares '60 minutes of music brought to you "commercial free" by Mercedes Benz' or 'The Closer, series premiere brought to you "commercial free" by Audi'
What exactly is this statement if not a commercial?

Anyway, I'm done talking. I'll leave you with a few photos of my visit to Leavenworth that triggered parts of this post.

Game Theory and the Luring Lottery

2006-06-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

I've been fascinated with Game Theory ever since I was introduced to the concept by the movie "A Beautiful Mind"(see, watching movies can be useful). To be honest the movie didn't say much about game theory itself and whatever little was used in the story line was mostly wrong. (the solution given by the movie to the bar pick up problem is not a true Nash equilibrium for this type of game, see here[pdf] for the true equilibrium point for this game)

Still it made me look up John Nash and his work and I was hooked.

The nice thing about game theory is that the problems it tries to solve will sound very familiar to you and hence it is more likely to have a readily applicable value to you. To illustrate here's an example of a problem.

Now one of the first games you'll read about if you poke around looking for stuff about game theory is prisoner's dilemma, and I'm sure many of you will have heard of it. And that's exactly why it will *not* be my example.

Instead, why don't you think of the following:

In the June 1983 issue of Scientific American, Douglas Hofstadter announced a largest-number game open to anyone who sent in postcards before midnight, June 30, 1983. The prize was $1 million divided by the total number of entries. To enter the contest the rules say that all you have to do is send in a single 3 by 5-inch card with your name and address and a number indicating how many entries you wish to submit. Everyone is allowed unlimited entries, or rather limited only by one's ability to write a number on the 3x5 card.

Now think about how would you play this game... or rather how it should be played...

Don't look here, you should still be thinking :P

When you're done thinking, you can check for solution, rationale, and what actually happened in this contest here[wikipedia], and here[heretical.com].

Fun ha?

Of the thin and thick

2006-05-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

A previous attempt at multi point blog posts failed miserably. I just babbled on for a few paragraphs and when I'd realized I intended on talking about more stuff it was just too late. So maybe this one will succeed where the other has failed.

-Fear of Death
Why? It's understandable to me that we can be afraid of pain, or living a worse life than we'd anticipated. But why are we afraid of death? It's not like when you're dead you're going to be regretting the fact. Some (religious) people would say it's fear of eternal punishment if they think they might be deemed not good enough for heaven but atheists, too, fear death. So either atheists believe in eternal punishment and reward at some subconscious level or there is something else in play here. Go figure.

-Baseball
I went to my first live baseball game yesterday. In the spirit of doing new stuff (we keda). And now that I narrowly escaped death by boredom I can safely say it's my last.
Well that might not be entirely true, the game is boring to death to watch, and I suspect to play too although I've never tried. But you see, you might still want to go to a baseball game. The logic might not be readily obvious but it's pretty straight forward. Baseball games would be a great idea for dates, or so I am theorizing. The game is ridiculously long (150+ minutes), and it's even more ridiculously boring. That means you get time to talk about stuff with your date and generally fool around. Who wants to go see a good movie when you're both pinned to your seats with your eyes fixed on the screen for 2 hours. Go to a baseball game and it'll bore her as close to death as possible that she would just have to listen to you, and better yet, you'll sound interesting!
However, if you think you're more boring than a baseball game then obviously you shouldn't take my advice. But then again if you are, you really have bigger problems to worry about than a failed date.

-Karaoke
Been meaning to go for a long time, and a friend of mine is now determined on making it happen. Weirdly enough I jumped off a 53 meter high bridge and a 5 Km high plane but I'm still afraid of singing in public (my bathroom is not public even though it might share a thin wall with the public). We'll see how this one goes.

-Free Audio Books
Courtesy of BMW, go to BMW audiobooks and you can download 4 audio books for your listening pleasure. Nothing about cars there don't let the name fool you. They're in mp3 format and free as in beer, no strings attached. They might add some more in the future but these should keep you busy for some time.

So there, I did it! A quad point post! (counting the bullet points not the actual literary point)

Speechless

2006-05-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Project Melokheya

2006-05-15T00:37:00.000-07:00

First off, a note to international readers. Melokheya/Molokheya is an Egyptian national dish, translated it's Jute Mallow. Now that we got this out of the way....

Finally I did it!
Been meaning to cook a nice meal since I came to Uncle Sam's land. I know how to cook but it takes so much effort and time that I kept delaying it, till today.

So I woke up late and was looking for a mood lifter. Now, If you think melokheya is just a good tasting meal you're sadly mistaken. It can also be an excellent mood lifter and cooking a good one will give you a feeling of self accomplishment very few other things can. And just imagine how much Karma you gain when you cook a hearty meal for 4 single guys who are 7000 miles away from home and all they'd eaten in months is frozen meals reheated in the microwave.

So in order to commit to my ambitious project, I called up a few friends and invited them to dinner. We were to be 5 guys. Next was getting the raw materials, not an easy task in Redmond, but I learned of a mediterranean deli and supermarket close by so I made the trip, got myself 2 bags of frozen Melokheya (Montana, made in Egypt no less!) and some Cardamom pod (habahan). I already had rice, garlic and oil and I got 2 young chickens on the way back.

With the raw material ready it was time to start cooking, 4 young men collaborated in the kitchen orchestrated by your truly. We boiled the chicken, Helal single handedly cooked the rice (very well too!), and an hour or so later mission melokheya was accomplished!

It all turned out well and everybody actually liked the food. I felt so proud of it that I came to blog it out :) I even have a few photos to commemorate the day when Redmond got a taste of my melokheya

Probably the first time I hold a raw chicken.

We had to boil 2 chickens to feed the crowds :)

Making "El Ta2leya", didn't forget the "shah2a" shortly afterwards.

And the final product, yes I know our kitchen could use some tidying up.

Apologies for the blurry photos, it wasn't me taking them :P
Happy melokheya day!

The speed records part II

2006-05-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

So I didn't get to post it the next day like I'd planned but better late than never I guess.

The thing is that I've always wanted to try skydiving. Thought it should be cool, new perspective on old things maybe, and hearing that the speeds involved during free fall go up to 120mph I really couldn't pass.

We made a group, and we went together to a local airbase where they do skydiving lessons and tandem jumps. Tandem jumps is a cool concept, it's highly recommended that you start out skydiving with a tandem jump. It's kind of feeling the waters and seeing if you like this type of thing. You jump strapped to a professional called the tandem master. Your tandem master has the parachute, takes care of everything. You more or less jump and tag along during the trip back to the ground. You don't have to worry about checking your altitude, opening a parachute, landing in the right spot. And that's the way I went.

The experience was incredible.... Actually when I did the bungee jump I had predicted that the skydive might be less scary. And I was right!
For some (weird and unknown) reason, standing at the door of a plane and then jumping off is not scary. While standing on the edge of a bridge looking down on a river _is_ scary. My theory is that it's the conditioning throughout our evolution. Man has been over mountains and heights that "look like" what it what you see when you're about to bungee jump, and somehow this fear was encoded in our DNA. Planes have been around for far less time and the conditioning just doesn't seem to be there yet. Looking down from the plane with the door open looks more like what you see on google maps or virtual earth than anything else. And somehow we're not pre-conditioned to get scared from maps and satellite photos.

Anyway, enough with psychology for the insane. The long story short is that I jumped from 13500 feet (around 5Kms) high, went down at a speed of 120mph for less than a minute, and then back on the ground a few minutes later. It was amazing, a lot less scary than most people think and a lot more fun.

A few photos will probably relieve me from writing any more (Can you tell already I'm not in the mood for writing?)

^ That's me thinking I'm a pilot

^The plane that carried us up

Mid air

And landing

Cheers!

140mph on the ground, 120mph in the air

2006-05-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

The speed gods seemed to be ever so present last weekend for I broke a couple of my personal records.

I had organized another drive for Saturday, although on a smaller scaler. I wanted to go out to enjoy the weather, get a healthy dose of spirited driving, and pay more attention to shooting some photos. a bit more than the usual on such group drives that is, therefore a smaller number of people/cars was preferable. Specifically, we were 5 people in 3 cars. An 2001 Lemans blue M5, a Toledo blue z4 3.0, and a black E90 325i.

Being that small (and that crazy) of a group we decided on a 350 mile (around 560Kms) route that would take us to and fro the beautiful city of Yakima down south. That's record number one, the longest distance I have ever driven in a day.

We met at 8 am and little had I known that I'm gonna be in for such a weird adventure. 10 hours, 18 gallons of fuel, 350 miles, 50 degrees fahrenheit temperature change, and 250 photos later I was back in Redmond. With a new speed record of a little over 140mph (~230 Km/hr) under my belt for the fastest I have ever driven*. On the trip I saw waterfalls, snow, mountains, rivers, endless greenery, and got sunburnt in 90 degrees fahrenheit (~32c)
It is beautiful down here in the summer. I'm sure a few photos will say it better than I can do:

Hope you liked the photos, would have loved to ramble on some more and tell you about the other speed record. But blogiquette tells me this is long enough, so I promise this will be the next story. A demain :)

*Performed by a professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt. (:P)

Moussaoui: "America, you lost, I won."

2006-05-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Kind of a disturbing thing to say don't you think?

Pick your favorite to read about how the unrepentant 9/11 plotter escaped the death penalty and got away with life behind bars instead.
CNN, BBC, or Al Jazeera

What else could a death penalty be good for....

A Geisha

2006-05-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've always been fascinated by the Japanese culture and the term Geisha came up quite a few times recently that I decided I should know about it.

So I glanced over the wikipedia page about Geisha and got the movie to watch.

The movie is good, it's not excellent in my humble opinion as far as movies go. But it does shed some light over something I never knew existed till now.

If you're too lazy to read the wikipedia page, the word Geisha is japanese for art-person. A Geisha is a sort of entertainer that spends a lifetime learning various arts (music, dance, poetry, story telling) to be able to perform their jobs.

This is all, of course, just fine. The intriguing point (and the one that comes in focus in the movie) is that up until (very) recently being a geisha was not a career decision women take after high school. Rather they were *sold* as children to geisha houses (okiyas).

At the end of the movie I found myself wondering. How come slavery or the practice and school of thought that you can buy and sell a human life lasted so long. For thousands of years this was happening in various forms in various places all over the world, and it was only a few tens of years ago when we could truly say slavery was becoming extinct. How is it that human beings were able to accumulate this mind boggling amount of knowledge, including relativity theory and quantum mechanics, before they grasp the simple concept that one man shouldn't be able to buy or sell another.

Dahab

2006-04-25T02:24:00.000-07:00

Had a bunch of things all lined up for a post, but then I learned of the news about Dahab and I just didn't feel like posting anything else.

I really don't know what to say, reiterating what a tragedy this is stating the obvious.

Between this and what was (is?) happening in Alexandria, I really don't know what Egypt is coming to. Are things going way down or is it just me being out of touch and watching things from afar?

The worst thing about this trend of explosions is that they are occurring at a frequency that's low enough so that whoever who did it can get away with it, and yet high enough that they are effectively killing tourism all year round.

I really can't see how anyone whatever his motives are can justify killing/injuring hundreds of people and effectively screeching economy to a grinding halt.
If you're opposing the government what good is it killing tens of people with a bomb and then killing hundreds or even thousands more over the course of the following years with unemployment, starvation, and despair.

For some reason it seems developed countries go in a spiral upward towards more development, while developing countries take the plunge towards... errrm, I don't really know where we're heading, but it's definitely down.

*sigh*

Interest meter

2006-04-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

What is it that makes us call a person "interesting"? Are we born interesting/boring or is it acquired?

Chicken and Egg

2006-04-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

Are we good at doing what we like or do we like what we're good at doing?

Autocross

2006-04-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

One more new thing for me. I participated in an Autocross! If you're not really sure what an autocross is this link should help.

A couple of people from MS were going and they were asking if we would caravan there together as the track is 70 miles away. It looked really fun and I asked the more experience people about it. At first I thought I'd go and watch first before participating but everyone told me I'd be kicking myself if I go and do not drive the track. It really didn't take much convincing for me to do it so I just went for it.

I went out and got a helmet, and based on many people's advice some blue painters tape to protect my bumpers from accidental "meetings" with cones. Sunday morning I headed to the track. I was really surprised how serious some people can get. Lots of people were running on full slicks and rain tires, some people even came with 2 extra tire sets, race tires and rain tires.

After all the preparation, this is how the car looked like:

I didn't end up turning really great lap times, but it was good enough for a first timer I guess. Worst thing is that I had 3 "fun" runs at the end of the day after my 4 official timed runs and every single one of them was far better than the best of my official ones. The best I managed on official runs was 62 seconds. On the fun runs I ran 60, 59 and 58 second laps!

The video here(divx 6.57MB) is for one of my official laps. It doesn't really look that fast on video but it's a totally different thing inside, on the fast parts you'd be hitting 60mph (100Kmh) doing slaloms. Also a part of the track is not on the video because it's obstructed from view by the timing car.

All in all it was such a great time. I'm definitely gonna be goin back for more. Next event is in May and I'll probably be there.

Ethics

2006-04-06T00:17:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen it in a thousand movies, read it in hundreds of novels, but do you have an answer?

The question and (mini) discussion was started after Helal and I saw the movie "Saw II", it's kinda hard to know how we went from Saw to ethics but we made the jump.

And the question is, would you go beyond what's normally considered ethical to achieve a seemingly ethical/righteous/good goal? Were you a cop, would you plant evidence to get a conviction on a drug dealer? One that you know for sure (and actually) is a drug dealer. Would you steal your stolen car back from the thief who stole it provided that you can't get it through the lawful and ethical channels?
Would you vote to punish someone who did?

Rollerblading

2006-03-31T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I decided it's been long since I learned something new. So I took on rollerblading.
Actually, the proper name is inline skating. Rollerblade is a trademark for a company that makes inline skates. The term has however come to be used to refer to inline skates in general, just like Kleenex is to tissue and hoover is to vacuum cleaners.

Anyway, I got a pair of those, some elbow, knee, and wrist pads for protection and went with my friend George to give it a go at Alki beach.

Alki avenue in Seattle is a really nice place, specially for summer activities. I'd been there before on a couple sunny days and the place is always full of people when the weather is good enough. You see beach volley, people biking and rollerblading, flying kites, or just having a walk enjoying the weather.

Back to the skating, having put on the skates I realized that even standing in them is a challenge which is not really surprising. If moving around on wheels was a good idea we would have been born with them in our feet.
Surprisingly it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I'd thought for my first time I'd get 15 or 20 minutes max of falling down and getting back up till I call it quits. I'm glad I was wrong, for my first time ever in rollerblades I skated (well in my own way of course) for around 4 miles. Took a little more than an hour and was so much fun.
And not only did George help me how to do it but he also shooted a video and a few pictures to go with it. So there goes my very first steps in a rollerblade (divx 3.6MB, right click and save target as). Don't laugh I was doing good to still be on my feet!

I was hooked and today we had a sunny day so I went for a quick run around one of the parking lots on MS campus with Steve (another friend who learned how to skate when he was 5). I dunno if I'll ever get to be as good as him (divx 2.36MB) but you can judge for yourselves and see if I'm getting better (divx 3.93MB).

It's a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that learning inline skating is gonna help later when I tackle ice skating. Wish me luck!

Cheers

Photography Reloaded

2006-03-26T12:53:00.000-08:00

It's been some time since I've put my camera to good use. There sure was a multitude of reasons for that but that's not important. What's important is that I wanna practise more. So over the last few days I've been trying to get back in the game and this post is to immortalize some of the photos that came out better than my usual mediocrity as well as motivate me to go out and shoot more photos more often.

Click on any of the photos for a slightly larger version.

A shopping area at Whistler, BC, Canada

On top of one mountain at Whistler, BC, you've guessed it, Canada

Some random spot on the way from here to Canada.

Bon jovi concert, Seattle.

Alki beach, Seattle.

Alki beach, Seattle.

Again Alki beach, one of my first pan shots. Not the best, but at least I'm trying :)

News Flash

2006-03-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Great (geek) news!

It just came to my attention that I am now the numero uno result for web searches on the term "v0od0o". And not just on google but all major search engines, MSN Search, Live Search Beta, yahoo, and altavista

Definitely a nice surprise.

Blind Dreams

2006-03-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

Been thinking about this for a few days. It's nothing as profound as the title would suggest though.

Are the blind (born blind) able to dream during sleep in the same manner those with eyesight do? We seem to perceive and recall dreams in a visual manner, even though it has nothing to do with the eyes. So how about the blind?

Thoughts anyone?

Languages, beyond expression

2006-03-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

It happened kinda gradually, but the more I've been exposed to different languages (in a context other than a classroom) the more my fascination grew with the concept.

Being around so many people speaking so many differnt languages is an experience. Everytime I hear someone speaking Chinese or one of the 22 languages that are ripe in India, I wonder how what appears like merely weird sounds conveys thoughts and ideas to people who know the key to decipher those sounds. The sounds feel so foreign to the untrained ear that they are not even reproducible. And everytime I speak in Arabic around non Arabic people I know I'm reciprocating.

And I came to know that reproducing phonetics from a foreign language is hard not only because of vocal restrictions or lack of (vocal) training. I would try with English speaking people to pronounce the h (7ah) in Ahmed and when they fail I just used to assume that they can't because of lack of training to their vocal cords.
The day then came when I tried to learn a chinese word. My chinese friend would pronounce the word, and I say what I think is a faithful reproduction of it. He answers "No, that's not it. Say chinese_word_here". I could swear I was pronouncing exactly what I heard, but he can hear a difference. Turns out it has to do with training the ear too (or maybe the auditory part of the brain to be exact). It's as if the brain gets the signals from the ear but tries to approximate them to the nearest known pattern and that's what you actually end up "hearing". These are all my totally made up assumptions and ideas, no significant research on my part have gone into the matter. So take my "conclusions" with a grain or two of salt.

The other thing that I noted about the subject is how most bilingual people would mix and match both languages in everyday usage. I do it a lot with Arabic and English. Sometimes what I have to say just flows in one language or the other. Trials to translate are usually either time and effort consuming or altogether futile.
Anybody who speaks another language fluently other than his mother tongue knows that the key to mastering a language is learning how to "think" in that language. Translation almost never works word for word with the obvious, and famous, proof of the statement "Open God wrote his book on in-in in a night egg"

Is language just a way of expression? A tool for communication? Or does it have to do with how our brains think? Is mastering multiple languages likely to give your mind a tool or a way for exploring more ideas or constructs? If we always think in a language will more languages translate to more creativity?

Logic And Mystery

2006-03-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

"I find fish mysterious, especially their ability to breathe underwater. It has something to do with water passing through their gills, I know, but beyond that it gets rather hazy.

My finding fish mysterious tells you nothing much about fish and nothing good about me. You will conclude, rightly, that I have failed to look into the matter with any dedication. You will not conclude, I trust, that fish are intrinsically mysterious -- that my ignorance is no such thing but, rather, the proper appreciation of the mystery of the fish."

Probably many will instantly tell that this is a paragraph written by a British author. They have this distinctively dark sense of humour that I just adore. Many people like the British for their accent, they probably think it's "inherently funny" (to borrow a term first brought to my attention by karembu). I personally like them more for this sort of unparalleled sarcasm.

The paragraph is written by Jamie Whyte in his book Crimes Against Logic, in which he takes a stab at some of the severe logical flaws one encounters in everday arguments and debates. The book is a fascinating read both for its subject and the witty writing style of the author. This is the opening paragraph to the section dedicated to how people like to use the mystery fallacy to try and lend some credibility to concepts that are otherwise either not supported by evidence or just plain false.

Interestingly, when I tried to look up the biography of the author, Jamie Whyte, turns out he was born in New Zealand but left for Cambridge to read philosophy. He seems to divide his time now between New Zealand and London. That would either mean that something is broken with my british sarcasm detector, or else that he acquired the British sense of humour during his stay in London.

I, of course, like to believe the latter. Although I have never witnessed an incident whereby somebody "acquired" a sense of humour.

Adiós

Weekends

2006-02-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

I really get to feel the weekends here. For some reason hardly anybody does anything recreational around here mid-week, most people save that for the weekend. This, of course, stands in stark contrast to Cairo where a weekend night is really no different than any other night. Every night is a weekend in Cairo! Just cruise the streets of Heliopolis, Nasr City, or Mohandessein on a Wednesday night to see what I mean.

So anyway, this is more about recreation than weekends. What I've been doing for fun more or less.

The Drive:

We have a quite a few email groups here at MS. One is called Microsoft drivers and the rest are usually for specific car brand owners, like BMW Performance groups, Merc Owner groups, stuff like that. Luckily every now and then someone posts a nice route for a drive for the rest to enjoy. Having had a few sunny days a couple weeks ago I decided to go for one. So I got off work at around 3pm, printed the map and instructions, took my roof down, and started the 1.5 hour drive.

It was simply amazing. The route was out of this world, I never even imagined there are such scenic twisty roads around here. The roads were mostly bi-directional two lane roads (one lane for each direction) and they had all types of corner and elevation variations. It was thrilling to say the least.

Of course I was hooked, so I started campaigning for a group drive on the MS email groups. And it worked! So tomorrow (Saturday), around 2 dozen people who are passionate about driving here at Microsoft are gonna go together for a longer drive on similarily scenic and twisty roads. We're planning on going early in the morning to evade traffic as much as possible. The cars that are coming? Thought you'd never ask. Here's a few of the cars that I know should be there:
Honda S2000, Porsche 911 Carrera4S, A3 3.2 quattro, Porsche Boxster, Mini Cooper, Lotus Elise, Unconfirmed Dodge Viper, Unconfirmed Corvette, Impreza STi, BMW 540, BMW 325, Unconfirmed NSX, RX-7, BMW Z3, and last but definitely not least 2 BMW Z4s.

Needless to say I'm really looking forward to it. I'll make sure we make a few stops to take group photos of the cars. Will definitely post when I'm back from that one.

The Concert

A few weeks ago I heard of a Nawal El Zoghby concert happening in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Seeing that it's around 120 miles away from here we decided to go for it. The concert turned out to be kinda different than what I had in mind. It was a moderate size restraurant where people were seated at tables, more like a hotel ballroom type of concert than a stadium/beach type. Accordingly the average age of attendants was significantly higher than my own. It was still enjoyable, you don't get the "arabic" atmoshphere in a lot of places around here and it was sure fun to be around people singing and dancing to arabic tunes.
A pleasant surprise was that she sounded exactly like you hear the songs on the CD, which is unfortunately not the case for most singers out there these days. I sure respect singers/bands that are not "sound engineering based".
I could also walk away with a few nice photos of Nawal El Zoghby and being so close to the action sure helped. So here goes a couple for your viewing pleasure, click on any photo in the post for a larger version.

That's about it for today. A bien tot.

Selling your info to the devil

2006-02-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

Surfing the web I decided to click an ad to see what it's about.
The ad promised free stuff of course but the proposition was a bit different than what I'm used to. You get money to spend on shopping at a retail store of your choice and then provide feedback about the store. And you keep what you shopped for. When I went to the page I found they were offering a 1000 dollars for you to shop when you sign up. As if that was not extravagant enough, they are carrying a special offer that gives you a Sony Vaio laptop too. So around $2000 worth of stuff all in all.

Of course nothing really is for free, except parental love maybe. I decided to read the license agreement (the long text in the too-tiny-scroll-your-a$$-ad-infinitum) box at the bottom. I knew they had to be getting something in return. I'm "adapting" the important parts here.

We store and use the information you give us in accordance with the terms of this Policy.
Fair enough.

Our registration form requests that you provide certain contact and profile information (like your name, e-mail address, postal address, and phone number)
That's the definition of your information, you'll see how this info is treated now.

We use all of this information in the following ways:
to provide you with personalized marketing information via electronic delivery and/or direct mail
to send you targeted advertising via electronic delivery and/or direct mail;
So they will market stuff to you..

to contact you for feedback and surveys via electronic delivery and/or direct mail;
Market research too..

to provide your contact information to CRC marketing partners to allow them to send you special offers via electronic delivery and direct mail.
And then they'll sell your information to "partners" who will basically do the same.

to deliver products to you for the purpose of review and testing
I'm just praying these are not "beta" medical products.

Those are basically the snippets that I found to explain how the thing works. I now have 2 questions:
1. How come a person's information is worth all that much from the firm's point of view? $2000 to be exact...
2. How many people think they would go for something like this? Do you think your information and convenience is worth $2000? More? Less? It's said that everything has a price, can you put one on your info?

The Ticket

2006-02-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite a while. I've been super busy with work, trying to absorb all what I need to and get some stuff done while at it. It's getting better on that front, but this is not about work.

In order to catch up with some of the things that have been happening I decided to post my first multi-pointed post. The post about everything and nothing :)

So bad news first, I got my first speeding ticket here. It might not come as a suprise to those who know me. The cost might be though. The fine policeman who stopped me said I was going at 85mph (on a 60mph highway). He was particularily upset about the fact that I was "switching lanes passing other cars in the rain" (read: ghoraz in Arabic) so well, the ticket was for a whopping $183. I didn't pay that though.
I paid $250.
The thing is, speeding tickets stay on your record here. Insurance companies check your record and adjust premiums accordingly every 6 months. Get an 85mph speeding ticket and watch your insurance premium skyrocket in front of your eyes. So it is usually in your best interest to keep a clean record.
There are 2 known ways to do just that. Never speed, always be extra careful and keep your fingers crossed, *or* get an attorney to contest your tickets. I chose the second path. Granted, it's much more costly that way but what else can I do.
And in case you think speed limits save lives, I beg to differ. Studies of the data coming from Montana and the auto-bahn begs to differ.

Montana is an interesting state, they had no speed limits. The law just instructed drivers to be "reasonable and prudent" and to travel at speeds that are appropriate according to the road and conditions. A federal law and other incidents caused Montana to revert to having speed limits, when statistics of fatalities on the roads were compared under the two contrasting legislation schemes the data proved a very nice surprise. Fatalities *doubled* after the introduction of the carved-in-stone numerical speed limits.
Need more examples? The autobahn (a no speed limit highway in Germany, the most famous in the world) boasts lower fatalities than American highways till today. And I'm not making this up, there is hard data that supports this. if you're still interested, you might want to check out a few of these:
Fatalities reach an all time low in Montana despite an increase of 12% in traffic volume during the no speed limit period.

Fatalities double in Montana after enforcing highway and interstate speed limits.

Why the autobahn is safer than most american highways at speeds twice the national speed limit.

Well, I am definitely not saying you should go flat out in your Fiat 500 and waive the no-speed-limit flag. However, most people do not walk around with death wishes. Give him a speed limit of 60 when he -and his car- can clearly go at 90 and he'll most probably sleep at the wheel. Empower the driver to judge the speed he and his car are comfortable going at and more often than not, he will do surprisingly well.
Egypt could be an exception :P

Anyway, this has gone for too long and I can't possibly add more stuff to this one, so wish me luck contesting the ticket, and take good care. I'll be posting again in no time. I promise more exciting stuff and maybe even photos ;)

Ciao

General Wonderings

2006-01-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

Well a few of these just hit me today in the shower. I've always found the shower to be an inspirational place, no idea why, but many of my great ideas are brewed in the shower. Well alright there aren't that many great ideas of mine, that was a bit of a stretch.

It maybe worth mentioning that these are again a pastime. Maybe I'll include the disclaimer somewhere on the blog's homepage once and for all :).

Here they go:
1. Why does the word "yesterday" have day in it while "tomorrow" doesn't. Both are days.

2. Why do we have a word for that period of the day that is only 1 second long (if your watch's resolution is seconds) or 1 minute long (if you're using the clock in your mobile). The period in question is noon.
The only use we get out of the "noon" word is the "afternoon" which is the part of the day between noon and sunset. If I were making the language I would have ditched "noon" altogether and assign the name to the "afternoon" period instead. It seems it's the part we care about anyway.

3. In a very similar vein to an old wondering brought up by Kareem Mostafa I believe about why Donald Duck throws a towel around his waist when coming out of the shower while he actually never wears any pants/shorts. This was brought up while discussing the above mentioned touchy subject with Helal. He referred to the fact that Mickey mouse actually does wear "lower body" wear. So how come? Does this mean Mickey mouse had stuff to hide while Donald duck didn't? :)

4. In Arabic how do you differentiate between snow and ice? I don't know of two different words for those things.

Home Improvement

2006-01-16T01:07:00.000-08:00

So last weekend Helal and I decide to invest a full day in home improvement efforts. We really did need it. The living room was a mess and we'd gotten lots of furniture only to leave it unassembled. The major motivation though was the arrival of the kick-ass home theater system whose powers had yet to be unleashed.

We spent the day hammering and screwing our way through seemingly endless pieces of IKEA furniture, and then later scanning through a pile of cartons, paper and plastic bags that contained stuff we'd packed during our move from temp housing. Stuff that we'd forgotten even existed in the first place. But the results have been really worth the effort.

A few days earlier we'd gotten professional help for wall mounting the plasma TV.

Wall mounting stuff turned out to be quite a tricky job around here mainly because walls are not made of brick and concrete, but rather something called sheet rock, a white-powderish thing.
I found out the hard way when I tried to bolt on a few book shelves in my bedroom. I fixed the shelves using a few screws and then with a proud move patted the shelves saying "Now I got shelves for my books", only for the shelves to fall off the wall as if they were fixed by scotch tape.

Of course after that incident I decided I am not willing to take my chances with mounting the plasma TV.

I will spare you the technicalities of how to mount a TV on such a wall, maybe for a later post. For now I'd rather present you with a few photos of how the results now look like. The living room is still missing more than a few things, but the shots will be focused mainly on the complete part. Here goes:

Random

2006-01-11T03:26:00.000-08:00

Oh well, nothing very important. It's just that I don't really have the time or the mindset to post a very serious hmmmm oh well, post.

So here goes, a few random observations that I took notice of during the past couple months. Most if not all of them is about MS or the US. Some might find them amusing, some will find them boring, and in any case if you have something more important to do then go do it. This is just a pastime for a few minutes :).

So here goes:

1.Well it maybe stating the obvious, but many americans (at least in my experience) are indeed unilingual. I can't really blame them, maybe if most of the world spoke arabic as 2nd language we would've been like that. And it usually impresses to tell an American that you can speak 2 languages fluently and a 3rd fairly well so I can't complain. Some even guessed we speak English in Egypt when they find us using it comfortably.

2. This is really useless, I have no idea how it came to my mind but pocket handkerchief packs around here are usually 15 2-ply tissues, instead of the ones in Egypt with 10 3-ply tissues. Ultimately the same number of plies but I think the US version makes better use of the resources :)

3. All conference rooms and offices at Microsoft have motion sensors that would turn off the lights when no motion is detected for a few minutes to save energy. Pretty cool idea. I have yet to find out the exact timeout for those though. Someday I'm gonna perform my own experiment and find out.

4. I just noticed today what seemed to me like tiny braille writings on the restroom signs at MS that seem to identify men's/women's restrooms. Very thoughtful.

5. It does indeed rain a lot in the Seattle area. Again stating the obvious, but what most people who never lived in similar weather probably don't know is that it's always warmer when it rains. On the non rainy days we get -4 degrees celsius weather. It can never go below 6 degrees celsius when it's raining on the other hand.

6. You hardly ever need to carry cash around here if you have an ATM/credit card. You even pay tips at restaurants/cafes by writing the amount on the store's copy of the visa receipt. I find myself usually carrying zero cash, not something you can get away with in Cairo at all. Another side effect is that I have yet to get used to the banknote and coin shapes. I still have to stare and read to know a given US banknote/coin's value.

7. I'd probably wasted enough of your (and my) time by now :) So I'm wraping this up. Merry Christmas for the folks in Egypt, and Kol sana wento tayebeen for everyone celebrating 3eed El Ad7a everywhere!
See ya

Christmas in the US

2005-12-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

Well, today marks Christmas in the US. It's an experience, my first christmas abroad. Egyptian christians are mostly orthodox and they celebrate Christmas on January 7th though.

It's actually quite interesting the story of how the whole thing of dec 25th vs jan 7th Christmas began. Because actually when you think about it, Christmas should have been Jan 1st, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ and the calendar widely in use today is based on the same event. So it only makes sense for Christmas to be on Jan 1st.
However, It seems that at some point in time people thought we had a slight glitch in the calendar system and that the calendar year did not accurately represent what a year should be. They then started calculating the time difference to compensate for it and "move" Christmas. Everybody agreed the error was around 7 days, weirdly enough, they could not then decide on whether to add or subtract those days. They calculated miniscule difference in the calendar year, and added them up across centuries, but they couldn't determing the "sign" of the magnitude. One would think they knew what they were doing doing all those calculations, but one would be wrong.
So some ended up adding those days and some ended up subtracting them. That's supposed to be how the whole December 25th vs Jan 7th started, and that's how they are equidistant from Jan 1st. Kinda funny.

So, back to Christmas here. It's been totally commercialized of course. It's almost all about holiday shopping and then gathering with family and friends and opening up the presents. It is still kinda nice to see the festivities everywhere. Huge Christmas trees, lights on the houses.

One thing I'd noticed is that people at stores, restaurants, etc. make sure they are politically correct. They never tell you "Merry Christmas", rather "Happy Holidays", and you make out of that what you may :)

I also got the best Christmas present. Helal, Mostafa, and Khalid got me this super nice shelf stereo unit. Plays mp3, audio cds, and FM. Helal knew I liked this unit since we saw it together at Best Buy, so I came back home last night (Christmas Eve) to find it neatly wrapped and placed right in front of the door. It was awesome, and I have no idea how they managed to keep it as a suprise since we're together 99% of the time :) Thanks guys, you made my Christmas, you're the best!

Morality And Economics

2005-12-13T01:57:00.000-08:00

I just started a new book called freakonomics. I have no recollection of how it came to my attention but it's been sitting in my amazon shopping cart for a few weeks now and then I discovered it was available at the MS library. I have no recollection of how I discovered this either but it just happened.

So I checked out the book, and I'd just laid it down right now after reading the table of contents and introduction.

Of course, I do not mean this as a book review because obviously I hadn't read enough of it yet and secondly I will probably suck at writing a review.

There is however this phrase that really caught my attention:

Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work--whereas economics represents how it actually _does_ work

Now how about that as food for thought....

The Ultimate Adrenaline Rush

2005-12-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

So, I guess now that you know the mystery of slow updates I'm entitled to do them more often :P

So well, home improvement efforts were kinda hard the past few days. It's getting better now, I almost have a decent bedroom. That's for another post though.

Today it's gonna be about the ultimate adrenaline rush. Even though the past few days have been packed with fun (it snowed for the first time in Redmond), including 270 degree spins with my car in the snow (nothing to worry about) today I had the ultimate adrenaline rush. _THE_ ultimate.

I'm in Canada right now with the Microsoft shipping party. Having loads of fun and will post more about that later. For now I'll just leave you with a first for me and the blog.

Below you'll find a link for a video that you can stream to watch what the ultimate adrenaline rush is. I am just hoping it's not too prohibitive bandwidth wise for you guys. Tell me if it is and I'll disclose more information verbally :)

For now, enjoy the vid here :)

P.S.
Mom, I know you might freak out when you see this. It's totally OK, just remember I lived to post it ;). I'm doing great and having loads of fun.

The mystery of the slow updates

2005-11-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

No, not SQL stuff in case you were wondering. Now you can relax.

I can read your mind though, Chris doesn't update his blog all that much these days. I know I'm not blogging as much as I would like to these days. And it's not about suffering a "blogger's block" either.

It's just that so much is happening and I have so many things to attend to. The main highlight would be the move to the new apartment.

Now unfurnished rental apartments here come a bit more equipped than in Egypt, because in Egypt you get pretty much nothing but a floor and some walls whereas here you get a fridge, dishwasher, washer, dryer, stove, and sometimes even a microwave (not in my case). This should make things easier right? Well a bit easier maybe, but not easy enough.

Since my Microsoft temp housing term will end on November 21st, I thought I should get the basic things first, you know, at least to be able to sleep in the apartment. So I went shopping for a mattress. And I was in for a real surprise.

In theory, shopping for a mattress should be easy enough. At least that's what I thought. I mean, I got my laptop in 10 minutes online so how hard could it be to get a mattress.
Wrong wrong wrong.

My shopping trip began with the only place I'd heard of during my stay, through ads and stuff. Sleep country. I was under the impression that mattresses typically cost a couple hundred dollars and I was willing to pamper myself and maybe spend up to a ridiculous $500 for a mattress, because, you know, I'm a spendthrift and stuff. It's true that I had no real evidence or data to get me "under" this impression. But the fact remains that I was under it.

I enter sleep country and I'm greeted by a nice salesman. I tell him I'm looking for a mattress and that I'm completely clueless about the sizes/types (yes there are many types of mattresses in case you are as mattress-ignorant as I am (or was) ) etc.

He was trying to ask me about my preference of whether I like firm mattresses vs. plush ones, I just kept staring blankly at him. He probably thought I just landed from the moon. Heck, even _I_ felt as if I just landed from the moon.

So anyway, he asks me to "test drive" a few mattresses to find out more about my "sleeping preferences". Good enough. I try a few ones (a few as in 5 or 6) and he tells me that I seem to prefer the less firm mattresses.I had no idea I did.
The guy then takes me to try another "type" of mattresses. The ones I've been trying were Sealy, a well known brand of mattresses here. The other type was called BeautyRest, which features different "technology" if you will.

The man then goes on to explain that a BeautyRest mattress uses "individual coil springs" rather than Sealy's "interconnected coil springs" This causes the mattress to have more controlled vibrations and the end result is that each part is more free to move independently which supposedly provides for better back support and the added "feature" that you don't feel it as much when someone else is getting on the bed on the other side.

Now I'm 100% positive you don't really care about mattress technology, but neither do I. I just have to recreate the atmosphere for you to live the experience just as I did.

So anyway, I am kinda impressed with the BeautyRest and proceed to ask about prices. And then my jaw drops to the floor. A queen mattress set would be around the $1300 mark. I probably need to explain a bit before I go on.

Queen is the size of the mattress, mattress sizes have their own names here. Queen is generally bought by couples because it's wide enough to fit two. You probably know I am not a couple and so wonder why I need one.
Problem is that the master mattress architect who invented those sizes here seems ot have been under the impression that couples are usually much taller than single individuals. And hence for some (weird and unknown as Nag would say) reason decided to make sizes grow in both width and height simultaneously. In short, if you get a smaller size you get a narrower as well as shorter mattress. So to sleep alone I need to cut off a significant part of my feet, which I'm really not too excited about doing right now.

The really observant amongst you would have noticed the word "set" in "A queen mattress set" too, you don't usually buy just a mattress. Instead you want to get a mattress set, which is the mattress plus a box spring. A box spring is what you put a mattress on, it comes in normal and low profile versions and serves as support for the mattresses. This is probably the equivalent of "el molla" in Egypt, but beds are designed here just as frames (and an *optional* head board) so you need this to support the mattress and rest on the bed frame.

If you feel you're not entirely confused and/or bored by now I would encourage you to visit this where you could "learn" about the mattress jargon. It should do it.
And you thought computers were complicated.

So anyway, to cut a long story short. I didn't get a mattress. I decided I need to "research" the matter a bit more, seeing that mattresses seem to go anywhere from $700 to $6300, it is now an investment. So I'm taking my time researching brands, types, technologies (there is more than just the two technologies described earlier, msnsearch (not google! ;) ) for memory foam mattress if you're still awake), and prices.
Sleeping on the floor is not off the table either :)

May you never need to buy a mattress ever.

SQL Server 2005 Launch!

2005-11-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sure most of you in the IT business know that last Monday, November 7th marked the launch of SQL Server 2005.

It was actually a joint launch featuring SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and Biztalk server 2006. The biggest tools launch even in the history of Microsoft at that too.

And while the main worldwide event was in San Fransisco we got a bit of action going on here too. And yours truly was making sure to catch a glimpse of it, as well as the preparations preceding it with my trusty camera.

As for the employees, we had celebrations going on in all campus cafeterias, with some nice freebies. Cups, stress balls, T-shirts, and breakfast were there. And we had a big screen broadcasting the live show from San Fransisco.

As part of the SQL Server team myself we get some more cool stuff. We got a special hilarious T-shirt that almost all of us wore to work on the launch day. You'll see me wearing it in one of the pictures. On the front the writing goes like: Select Joy, Relief & Exhaustion FROM "SQL Server 2005" WHERE Status = 'Complete'. On the back the writing is: Join Me I'm a *. Pretty clever I think, should sound funny if you know SQL. I was told they had an entire email thread picking up the lines to go on the T-shirt :) We're also gonna be going on a skiing trip to Whistler BC, Canada for the shipping party December 2nd to 4th. Excellent timing for me to join the team I guess :)

So well, there goes the pictures, inside MS on SQL Server launch day.

People lining up to receive the freebies.

Helal, Fernando, and I. Fernando is also a new hire at Microsoft. He's spanish and has become a friend of ours. He's also the one taking care of most of the squash teaching for me now :)

After the event all of the sql team were asked to sign a life size SQL Server box. And that they did :)

Helal signing the box.

Can you figure out where my signature is? Come on, click for the large version and look for it ;)

Ok, you probably couldn't find it in there. Now should be obvious :)

Have a nice week everybody!

Helal's Car

2005-11-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I think it's time to let the cat out of the bag.
Actually one could argue it was time sometime ago already. But stuff has been happening faster than I can blog. This of course can be thought of as good for me, but it's definitely not so good for the blog.

So anyway, Helal, my friend and roommate, got his car a couple of weeks ago. And now that he did we finally answered a question we spent countless hours debating before we'd relocated. BMW vs. Mercedes Benz.

So without much further ado, I present to you this magnificent piece of machinery he acquired. A really amazing car.

The photos below are of the car which is a 2006 E90 BMW 325i with sports and premium packages, an auto box, and xenon headlights. Interesting thing to mention is that the E90 325i is actually a 3000cc with 215 bhp, that is just 10bhp less than the previous generation 330i. Of course they also increased the power on the new 330 which now has 255bhp (although still 3000cc)

So anyway, here are the "initial" pics. Planning for a drive on a scenic road with both cars to do some group shots but this will have to wait a bit.
Click on any image for a larger version.

Eid El Fitr in Redmond

2005-11-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well, being in the US doesn't mean I can't celebrate Eid El Fitr, right? ;)

And celebrate I did, it was an eventful day and full of "first times" for me. Sushi, learning how to use chop sticks, and karting were some of the main highlights. Read on for the details :)

At first we were not sure if Eid El Fitr is gonna be on November 3rd here in the US or November 4th, because Ramadan started one day later in the US than in Egypt. But I woke up on November 3rd to find Helal telling me he's going to pray because Eid El Fitr turned out to be on the 3rd after all.

We had already planned on taking a floating holiday on the day and spend the day together with the Egyptian group here at MS. So I woke up at around 10am, had a pretty late breakfast and took my shower only to find a call from one of the guys asking me if I'm gonna join them for lunch at this sushi place "Todai" in Redmond town center. I'd already told them I wanted to try sushi before so perhaps I was part of the inspiration for this.

I dressed quickly and caught up with them over there at 12 or something, turns out the place is an open buffet sushi place and all the better for it. No better way to try just about everything at once :) I took a quick tour around, took one of everything they had on offer and returned to my table with my plate full of stuff I have never tasted before. The guys were wondering if I should have tasted a few ones first to see if I like it before I fill my plate, but I just love trying new stuff, I didn't really care if I'm gonna like it, I just like the opportunity to try the new tastes.

And for the first time ever I understand the rationale behind the chopsticks. I've been looking for the chopsticks' raison d'être, something that just can't be handled with a fork. And I found it in Sushi rolls. It was an excellent experience overall.

And continuing the "first time" theme we then decided we should go karting. So we went to the closest indoor track. The track (map here)looked kinda small at first, but I was really blown away with all the technology.

The races are about lap times and not an actual head to head race. So we would go 4 or 5 ppl at a time for 18 laps but it's your best lap that counts, you can go as slow (or as sideways) as you like for 17 laps and get that perfect lap just once and you'd come out first.

This was actually my first time ever karting, and did I enjoy it! It was a blast, we were 8 people and we each bought 3 races so they would mix and match between us for us to go against different competitors every time.
The thing is that I knew beforehand about optimal racing lines, and the whole concept of how to do a fast time around the track so I expected to have an advantage, at least over people who are also doing it for the first time. It seems the theory is very different than practice because even though I knew the basics, I did pretty horrible for the first two races, I was pretty much the last. In my defence I swear the kart I had for the first race was slower than the others because I would be goin at the kart's limit on the straight and still be overtaken by others. The guys of course wouldn't just watch. They kept teasing me with comments like "Maybe you should bring the z4, see if it can go faster around the track" and "There is no z4 to help you here". It was all in good spirit and we laughed for hours though :)

To their disappointment I do my last race and it seems that I'm finally getting the kart and the track. The last race was also special because the guys over there gave us a bit of an adernaline shot by giving us the turbo mode during the last few laps, where they put more power into the karts and we were allowed to go faster. 23 mph I think was the number which feels awfully fast in such a small indoor track.

And the biggest surprise of the day was that not only I won the last race. But I also got the fastest time of all for the whole day, pulling an 18.42 second lap (I was doing 23 seconds on my first race).
Actually the lap turned out to be the 3rd best laptime during this month (November 2005). And you can even check it out for yourselves here Of course I was jumping all over the place with excitement.

We then continued on to having dinner together at chili's and went home afterwards. It was a marvelous day and if any of the Egyptian MS guys are reading, thank you all guys for making that day the amazing day that it was. Special thank you to loay for arranging for the most part of this day and always working on keeping the group together.

Happy Eid!

2005-11-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

To all the people in Egypt, Happy Eid!!
Kol sana wento tayebeen

I really wish I could've been with you guys on a day like this but I can't. So you have the most fun and go easy on the food :)
We hato bomb we far2a3ohooly la7san mesh la2y bomb hena :)

Kol sana wento bel se7a wel salama, enjoy :)

Halloween At Microsoft

2005-10-31T16:44:00.000-08:00

Well, one of the best things here at Microsoft is that (maybe contrary to common belief) it's never all work and no play.

Want proof? Let me introduce you to my manager:

No kidding, this is a photo of my manager, Vasili Zolotov, in his office working on Halloween day. I just took this a few minutes ago actually, you're getting this coverage in almost real-time :)

To those outside the US, October 31st marks halloween here. You surely have an idea about halloween seeing the movies and stuff. Today was my very first halloween in the US.

Microsoft had made preparations for employees to bring in their kids starting 3pm for some trick-or-treating here on campus. Our administrative assistant already had prepared signs for people who will be providing candies in their offices to hang on their doors while Microsoft catering provided guests with food and more candy stands on each floor.

All in all it was a very interesting experience. Definitely a very memorable Halloween.

Of course I had to forget the camera and keep on regretting it all day while I watch colleagues and cafeteria staff at lunch wearing all kinds of funny costumes, but by 3pm when the children started flowing and more costumes were on display I just had to get back home and bring my camera which I did.

So here you go some photos of what's happening right now as I write here at Microsoft's main campus in Redmond.
Happy Halloween!

Candies in front of offices waiting for little trick-or-treaters

The signs on the offices and the candy bowl. The funniest thing is that this hand in the middle of the candy bowl detects motion and slaps you on the hand when you're taking candy :D

Yet another sign for candy seekers

Little trick-or-treaters helping themselves to some candy.

Cute kids dressed in all kinds of costumes

Baby: Where is all the candy?

The ghastly candy stand on our floor

No, Bob Marley is still resting in peace, this is Roger Fleig, my manager's manager in the wig over there

Candy and food everywhere

P.S.
I apologize for the poor quality of some (or all) of the photos, the lighting was very faint and I had to do without a tripod.

The week in review

2005-10-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've been getting lots of spam comments on the blog here from ad bots. And while the bots were courteous enough to tell me that my blog is great and that they will definitely bookmark me, I still prefer human commentators.

So unfortunately I will have to turn on word verification for comments on the blog. This will cause blogspot to ask you to write some word you see generated in an image just to make sure you're human. I have been trying to do without this for some time but it went up to 8 to 10 spam comments a day on various posts from spam bots and this seems like the only way to go. I'm sorry for any inconvenience and I hope it doesn't deter anyone from commenting whenever they feel like it:)

With that announcement done we could go on with the news. Last week has been eventful to say the least. One of the main highlights was a team lunch arranged by my lead. It turns out it's kinda MS tradition for the team to all go on a lunch or something similar (yes, paid by MS ;)) whenever a new member joins, or sometimes when there is an event to celebrate, like someone on the team having a baby or getting married. So this one was called for not only because of me joining the team but it also coincided with one of our team member having a baby.

We all went to a restaurant called Thai Ginger and it was maybe my first time to meet all of the team. It turned out we are a dozen or so (The Query Execution team) and everyone was just so cool. It also seems that there are many car enthusiasts in the team. One guy drives a corvette and I think the dev lead drives an Rx-8, I am definitely on the right team here :).

Other memorable events were us (Helal and I) getting our new and kinda permenant rental apartment. We should be moving there first week of november (we are currently in temp housing provided by Microsoft), and while I'm not particularily excited about the moving hassles, the apartment is just super cool. We were so very lucky to find a vacant apartment exactly to our spec, 2 bedroom 2 baths, 1100 square feet, perfect floorplan, but the best thing about it by far is the lake view. Out patio/deck would have direct view over lake Sammamish. The complex also has docks where you can park your boat/jet ski and is an excellent place to hang out a bit.

Of course this now means we should start looking for furniture/appliances for the apartment. We will try to pass by the nearest IKEA. Feel free to remind us of any things we might need with a comment down here :)

One big highlight of the week is having being able to secure tickets for Bon Jovi's have a nice day tour when it comes to Seattle next march. We got the presale password through Microsoft and got a couple of excellent seats. 1 day later and I found the tickets going on auction with bids starting at $110, I got ours for around $50 a piece :D

I'm gonna go and try to start being productive now :)
Ciao Ciao

Last weekend

2005-10-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Well, thought I'd give you (and maybe myself) a break from daily blog posts. That's why I hadn't posted the past few days.
But anyway, the break is over so here we go :)

I briefly mentioned how the last weekend was kinda busy and fun. I'm gonna elaborate on the subject a bit, and then maybe post a few lousy pics as usual :)

So last weekend we had a visitor actually, Helal's friend happened to be in Texas so he flew over for the weekend before he went back to Egypt.

Of course we'd only been here for less than a month, but we had to act like pros and show him around. That was quite a challenge actually seeing that we still get lost very easily around here and had only been to a handful of places.

So anyway, with the help of friends here we were able to come up with something.

We picked Murad up from Sea-Tac airport (his name is Murad and I'm gonna start using it now) and first went back home. It was already past 9 so any hopes of going somewhere in Redmond were long gone (except maybe the nearest safeway supermarket as it opens 24/7) We decided we'd hit a pub in Seattle. We looked around on the Internet (yeah, what's a geek to do) and found this place called delrey. Looked good so we took the 15 minute way to Seattle, spent 30 minutes looking for parking and we were there. The reality was just a teeny tiny bit different than what we had in our minds. I mean the site said "crowded: yes", instead it should have said "crowded: extremely beyond imagination" maybe.

Seriously, the place was full of people, everyone standing (no places to sit) and just having drinks and talking. It was extremely noisy too. And you'd stand in line for the bar tender to wait on you for like 15 minutes. Anyway it was still fun, very different, would have been even more fun with a bit "softer" group, if you know what I mean, but anyway. We stayed for like 2 hours and then went back.

Next day was shopping day, Murad needed to go shop for stuff for himself and people back in Egypt and of course I am always up for shopping. We went to this huge place called Seattle Premium outlets. I'd seen some outlets here before but this is like a horizontal mall of outlets, they had virtually everything, I mean cloths-wise you could find Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Levi's, Dockers, Aeropostale, Quiksilver, Nike, Adidas, Banana Republic, and that's just off the top of my head.
So we spent from noon to 7 pm shopping, came back home, had some dinner/late lunch. We were then too tired to go elsewhere so we just stayed in, invited a couple of friends and had an intense Xbox gaming session. Dead Or Alive and Burnout are always so much fun in multiplayer modes.

Next day we were planning a hike, we'd originally planned on going to Mount Rainier national park, but we woke up late and we'd made reservations at Skycity in Seattle's space needle for dinner. So we had to be back at home at 5 to change (business casual dress code is in effect at skycity).

So we decided on Marymoor park instead, as it's very close to where we live. Marymoor park turned out to be a very good park indeed. They have one of the very few off-leash dog areas in the states. And it's not too small either. I also found out that Microsoft covers every acre of Marymoor park with free wifi internet access. Really dunno how or why they did that but it's just the facts.
So we played with the dogs, walked along the well treaded path for the best part of 3 hours and then went back home.

We made it at Skycity just in time for our reservations. We were 5 people. Skycity is probably the American version of the revolving restaurant in Grand Hayat in Egypt for the Egyptians amongst you. Actually the revolving restaurant might be the Egyptian version of Skycity, but anyway, you get the idea.

Food was good enough, the appetizers were exceptionally good though. We had a fun dinner looking at an extremely nice view of Seattle city. We went back home and I wrote the blog post that appears just below this one :)

So this turned out to be kinda prequel post.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some photos of Marymoor park and will "see" you soon in a later post.

Helal, Mustafa, and I (left to right) at marymoor park

Mustafa, Helal, and Murad walking down the trail.

The four of us at the end of the trail, behind us is lake Sammamish

More nature at marymoor park, you probably noticed I'm always behind. That's because of all the pics I take, they'd just stopped waiting for me, arghhhhh.

And of course, the post wouldn't be complete without a photo of my new girlfriend :)

See? I'm a good sportsman and I let my friends photograph with her :)

See you guys.

Inside Microsoft Photos

2005-10-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

It's been an exhausting but really nice weekend. It's coming to an end now that it's Monday 1 am. I'm dead tired and sleepy right now and will have to wake up again in 3 hours to drive a friend to the airport for his flight to Egypt, so I'll most probably skip on the narration this time and maybe tell you all about it sometime later.

For now I thought I'd give you some photos that I'd promised long ago and didn't deliver (till now that is). Photos of how Microsoft looks like. Of course not all of Microsoft, most of these photos were taken in building 35 (which is where my office happens to be, along with the rest of people working on SQL Server), and the building 34 cafeteria which is the closest cafeteria to my office.

So there goes the photos, I'll try to throw in some explanation too.

The building has many glass wall, and this is how it looks like outside one of them

One of the many many alleys inside any given building at Microsoft, this specific one is in my building, building 35.

Now you know why I still get lost inside my building

One side of the kitchen, there is one of these on every floor in every building, yes all drinks are free, and there is even popcorn too :)

A sort of a lounge area, you can just relax here or use your laptop and the corporate wifi inside all buildings to work.

That's what is on the table in the previous photo, a glass chess.

Foosball tables, lots of those lying around in every building, and they're pretty popular too, I'd seen some very intense games and I must admit, I never thought there could be that much skill involved in that game.

And of course, how could I work for a company that doesn't have a ping pong table ;) (an ITWorx joke if you will)

And that's the building on the outside, well a part of it.

Lots of parts around the campus are just like this one, thankfully :)

A section of the nearest cafeteria, yes a section, to get an idea of how big it is I have to tell you that the maximum occupancy for this one is 900 people. It's one of many cafeterias scattered around the campus. Lovely food too.

And never say that MS people are not fun. Those 2 photos are just samples of what people hang on the doors and windows of their offices :)

(Slightly) Better Photos Of My Car

2005-10-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

First of all I must thank you all for the warm congrats and responses I got on the last thread. It really felt amazing. I can probably never thank you enough guys.

So both you and I know the previous photos were not that good, I tried to rectify that and took some photos (again in a real hurry) that I think might be better if only for the daylight. She's probably gonna be the subject of many photos to come but I promise from now on I'll spare you the bad ones at least :)

So there they go

I G O T T H I S !!!

2005-10-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

I am just speechless right now and I do wanna tell you guys about it and celebrate, the thing in these pics is now mine and parked right outside my apartment!!!

So I'll skip the words I can't find and present you a few photos for now!

This baby is mine! Woohoooo!!!

I apologize for the bad photos, the conditions were not that good and I didn't have a tripod, will take more and better photos tomorrow morning isa.

Sight Seeing in Seattle -Part II

2005-10-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

So there goes some more photos continuing yesterday's post as promised.

And, I shot some photos of Microsoft today for you guys, long overdue I know. However, I'm gonna tease you guys a little and not provide those till tomorrow, it's just more Seattle photos for now :)

Actually some photos will be a surprise to the Egyptians amongst you.

And you can click on any photo for a larger version.

One aspect I really enjoy about downtown Seattle, street musicians. These guys play all sorts of music, sometimes even without instruments, and they usually are pretty good too!

Street musician

Another street musician

And another one

Big city tall buildings

And some more

and then some more

and.... I guess you know

First suprise of the day
A shop selling all Egyptian goods, didn't get to go inside though as I was in the car, it still felt good :)

And the biggest surprise of them all, Diwan in Seattle, I will surely go back to check what this is, I'm very curious as it uses the exact same trademark and it even has the registered trademark sign.

Diwan in Seattle

Sight Seeing in Seattle -Part I

2005-10-09T23:41:00.000-07:00

So today (Sunday) we went to Seattle, this is my 3rd time to go there overall and first time to visit in the morning. Weather was super fine and traffic is usually excellent here on Sundays so we decided to go for it.

We were in Seattle at around 1:30 or 2pm and we kept wandering around till 6:30pm, then we went back to chili's at bellevue because Helal had to eat as he was fasting (Ramadan, kol sana wento tayebeen:) ).
Seattle seems to be a very rich city, not in a monetary way, but rather rich in places, events, happenings, people, everything. I enjoyed every second and made sure Helal and Mostafa were constantly annoyed by taking a 103 photos. Helal is probably thinking about founding the official hate club for my blog and my camera (along with Khalid). However, don't hold your breath, the photos are nowehere as good as they could be, I was just snapping as fast as I could and in many cases from inside the car. Also no photos whatsoever will be able to capture the real thing. Seattle has lots of beautiful places and you just have to be there to capture the full ambience of some places like the public market and lake washington.

Anyway, without much further ado, I present to you some of the pics in this edition with a promise to post some more tomorrow.
As always, you can click on any photo for a larger version.

Over lake Washington
One of my favorite sightings, on the bridge crossing lake Washington, the photo doesn't really do it any justice, it's just breath taking everywhere you look

Skyscrapers
These are common place in Seattle, more to come in the next edition.

The Public Market
One of the must-visits in Seattle

Florist in the public market area
One of the virtually infinite shops on the public market, a very busy and diverse place.

Streets in Seattle
What I call stair step streets, looks very much like how they show San Fransisco in the movies, the altitudes vary so much in the city and lots of the streets looks like this with amazingly steep slopes, you do get the feeling that you're going to hit the floor when you're driving down those and going up on foot is an exercise in itself.

Essentials to start your life in the US

2005-10-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm learning and I thought I'd pass on some wisdom :) For those of you who may need to start their lives all over here in the US relocating from somewhere far far away as I did.

What I'm saying is that there are some absolutely necessary things that you would want to get as soon as possible if you're starting here. I will list those now in the preferable (and sometimes mandatory) order you should be getting them.

First, the Social Security Number. You must get this, and you must do it first of all because all other things are dependent on it. You will not be able to work in the US without a social security number. It takes 2 to 4 weeks for you to get the social security card with your number on it, however, it would probably be beneficial if you pass by the social security office a week or 10 days after you apply with your reference letter and ask for your number, you may be able to get it before your card is mailed to you which is always helpful.
If you're coming from a select few countries you can do this at the US embassy before you leave for the US, otherwise you have to check your local social security office after you land here. Everything you need can be found at ssa.gov

Second, a driver's license.
While waiting for your social security number you should try your best to read your respective state's driver's guide so that you are able to get a driving license as soon as possible. You can usually get a copy at your local dmv office. A good place to start is probably dmv.org You can find the guide that you need to study for your written exam online. Notice that you will need to just study and not actually apply for the test till you get your social security number. That is because with a social security number on the license it serves as identification, and you do need that. You will find through your stay that a driver's license is just as good as a state ID and is needed in lots and lots of places.

Third, a credit card. And although this may seem counter-intuitive to think of a credit card as essential, just read on for the rationale.

You will have lots of financial transactions when you land here, starting off you'll probably have lots of things you need to buy. Inevitably you will have to use credit or a loan at some point or the other.
And here's the catch, you can get some amazing deals here on financing and loans if you have a good credit history and score, I elaborated on that part in an earlier post. And you can't have good score and history without having previous financial transactions with the banks here. That's why you need a credit card here, as soon as you have your social security card, go get a credit card. And use that for all your financial transactions, even when the cash is in your pocket. Later you can go deposit the cash in the credit account. Over time, this will provide the good credit history that you need. Also credit history is generally not transferrable from anywhere in the world, not even Canada!
Back in Egypt a credit card was considered an unnecessary luxury, definitely not the case here.

That's what I've learnt so far, I will surely learn more over time here but I can't guarantee you I'll be blogging about it again :P

Catch ya later.

Mid week at MS

2005-10-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well today was my 3rd day, so no more orientation and I head straight to my office.

Well not really straight, I got lost first, I still get lost in Redmond, in campus, in the parking, and in my own building. They are all huge and everything is brand new to me. I do arrive at the end though.

So anyway, at my desk I found the monitor and natural keyboard, just as I was promised the day before, really impressive. I set up my OS, drivers, and basic stuff so now I got a working computer at work with connectivity and everything. One tiny step forward, still lots more to come.

My manager sent me a link for a page on our sharepoint with documents and help for new hires on our team. And I learnt today that I'm part of the QE team, no not Quality Engineer or anything, the QE team is the Query Execution team. Which is the team working on the part in the SQL Server engine that actually executes the plan produced by the QO team (Query Optimization ;) ), pretty heavy stuff it seems, but also so exciting.
It's amazing to think that I'm gonna be a part of a team that makes a product that is actually used by millions of users around the world, literally millions. Really exhilarating.

Now I have to get up to speed with everything, it's not gonna be easy, but I'm sure it's gonna be fun.

And speaking of fun, Helal and I got ourselves an XBox and a bunch of games today, yeah I know XBox360 is just around the corner, but first we don't have a plan for employees to get it at the company store, second it seems pre-ordering queues are all full, third it's gonna be expensive, so I'll settle for a "normal" XBox for now and get the 360 later. We actually never get discount on the XBox itself as MS is already losing on it so they can't lower the price even more, we do get all games for $10 and $20 though :) So I got my XBox at GameStop and the games and additional controller from MS company store.

Anyway, that's about me today, hopefully soon I'll put my camera to work at campus and capture some photos for you guys.

See ya

2nd Day @ MS

2005-10-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

So it was 2nd day at MS today, the first half was a continuation to yesterday's NEO program (New employee orientation), most of it was a legal 101, we had 2 representatives from the LCA department at MS (Legal and Corporate Affairs) talk to us about Intellectual property, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and everything.

It was pretty heavy stuff but to be honest the guys were so good, they made it sound like fun most of the time. Actually they opened with a lawyer joke that's too long to tell here, but it was funny :)

After the NEO concluded I got to finally pick up my blue badge, the blue badge is a card key that has my photo, name, and employee number on it. It is also a smart card and is used to open doors of all MS facilities I'm allowed to visit (which is basically all buildings except maybe some server rooms and stuff like that).

There is another type of badge, the orange badge, which is for contractors and vendors dealing with MS who need to stay on Campus for prolonged periods of time.

This is how it looks like, I did erase my employee number as I don't really know how "disclosable" the information is :)

The best thing is I got to meet my team for the first time, I met with Vasili Zolotov who is the person I'm gonna be reporting to. He was so very friendly, he showed me around, introduced me to all people, and we had lunch together at the cafeteria (which btw is very very very good) Most of the people were very busy as the team is preparing to ship SQL Server 2005 very soon, still Vasili took so much time out of his schedule to help me get onboard.

I was then shown to my office and computer, I have a pretty decent machine, 3.2GHz processor, 2 GB of Ram, 160GB SATA hdd and a Radeon X300 VGA card. I asked if I could get a natural keyboard and he told me I could talk to the administrative assistant for our team.

So while I'm at it I asked her for a second monitor too, she told me I'm gonna get my second monitor and my natural keyboard tomorrow morning :) She also gave me a smart card reader that I should connect to my computer at home (or laptop) and use to read my blue card key to enable me to access the MS intranet and work from anywhere in the world :)

I've also learnt that we have a huge event planned for the team to celebrate shipping SQL Server 2005 when it does ship (very soon), it's gonna be a skiing trip :) Now that's what I call warm welcome :D

In the mean time I have so much to do, set up my computer, settle in, read a lot, and get ready to be productive :) I've heard that they never expect you to be productive at work before around 6 weeks from your start date. Leaves me plenty of time but there is also plenty to do.

I hope I hadn't got rusty during this last month of unemployment :)

Wish me luck.

First day at Microsoft

2005-10-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

Well today was my first day at Microsoft, according to the New Employee Orientation program in effect I have 1.5 days of orientation sessions before I even get to meet my manager and team.

Overall impression is that those guys know what they're doing. I am probably too tired to explain everything in detail but I will try to mention the outlines.

The day started with a 4 step registration, for completing the legal documents and such. The moment I entered I was dazzled. The quantity and diversity of the newcomers was just totally unexpected. We were more than 200 people there, from everywhere you can possibly imagine in the world. And I do mean everywhere. US, Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland, Uganda, Bangladish, Italy, Russia, India, Korea, and of course Egypt :) and that's just off the top of my head.

The orientation was actually pretty interesting and at most times fun, we were asked to tell stories about impressions we got from friends and family about Microsoft, stories and myths we'd heard about MS before we'd come. No effort was exerted in order to refute the bad impressions, they were just acknowledged as an image in people's head that needs to be changed.

There was also a section dedicated to discussing diversity, how to deal with it, or rather how to take advantage of it not just deal with it.

And it seems that just about everything inside MS has its own portal on the corporate intranet, never mind the obvious things like the HR dept. There is a place where you could decide to send parts or all of your pay checks to 8 different bank accounts, there is one for new comers with everything they might need to know, there is even one for car pooling and finding a car pooling partner. You can see and adjust your current benefit plan, there is a huuuuge portal for security, all aspects of security including your own physical security, we'd learnt that there is even a 24 hour hotnumber you can call if you need security to escort you to your car if you're leaving late at night. And a paid cab to your home if you came to work on a bike or pooling cars with a friend and didn't find a way back home.

It was almost overwhelming, you get the impression that those guys never leave anything for chance. Everything is well accounted for. And some of the benefits were nothing like I've heard of before. Weight management for example, where MS pays for your consultation with a therapist, physicist, or even a personal trainer to help you lose weight should you decide you need to. Another benefit that I can't remember its name (and am too lazy to check the booklet we got) allows you to double whatever donations you make to non profit organization as Microsoft matches whatever donations you make dollar for dollar to the same organization you decide to donate to, and even pays $17 to such an organization for each hour you spend doing charity work. Just amazing.

Some really cool trivias I got to know during the day was that on average 8 new babies are born to MS employees, that last year MS recruited 5000+ employees in Redmond and another 7000+ elsewhere in the world. And those account for 20% of the current MS work force of around 60 000 employees.

It was a good day, tomorrow I'm scheduled for a half day more of orientation sessions and then I will finally get to meet my manager and team and get my office and computer(s)

And I thought I'd post a photo of me and Helal all dressed up for today just before we go to attend the orientation (business casual dressing was recommended for the orientation but I can go to work wearing shorts and slippers starting tomorrow :) )

Welcome, the Redmond way

2005-10-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

Well, at last Redmond showed me what it's like to live in the north west region. 2 days of rain ending literally thunderously :) I'd seen rain like I'd never seen before, only problem is that none of my friends here enjoy it and so none would join me for a walk (maybe singing) in the rain :(

All that actually reminded me to write about anything other than the fancy cars, my car shopping and the test drives, I'm sure I'd posted more than enough dose for everyone but the hardcore gearheads like me :)

My first impressions about Redmond is that it seems like the perfect place to live, quiet and beautiful enough, while also close enough to Seattle the city so that you can get your dose of noise and crowds whenever you want. It's the perfect blend.

Of course, I won't talk about the cleanliness and respect for law. But driving is a totally different business than what we do in Egypt. You just need to get used to the signs, but I now finally realize how you can accurately estimate time for a trip here. Driving around is not the voodoo art that it is in Egypt. Everything is very systematic, and predictable. You see a green light, just keep going, a red light just stop. Going right, there's a lane for you. It's just indescribable, traffic runs like a well oiled machine. I'd never seen an accident so far, I don't know how my car horn sounds like, and I would't even tell if my high beam lights are broken. You just don't need that stuff around here.

I am actually already feeling that I'm getting used to the system and organization here, I feel like I'm losing my skills in Egyptian driving :(

I'm still busy with apartment hunting and car shopping, but I also get to go out a lot, have dinner or lunch in different places, actually I'd just came back from the movies here. Saw Nicolas Cage's "Lord of War", very very good movie, dunno if it's out in Egypt or if it's gonna be but if it does you have to see it.

It's around 2:20 am now so I guess I'll have to go get some sleep, this is my first time to sleep so late since I came here. The city sleeps at around 9 or 10 pm max. That's one thing that's already changed about me. I both sleep and wake up early. I've never woke up any later than 9 am for the last week and most times I do at 7 am.

Anyway, I was trying to end the post, so here it goes.
Ta ta for now :)

The deal with the banks here

2005-10-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

Well last post ended without me telling you the news I got from the bank.

First you have to understand how loan and credit stuff works here. There is something that's called credit history. Credit history is a record of all your transactions made with the banks here, spendings on your credit card, any loans you'd taken, and the payments you pay back.
Your credit history is used to calculate what is called your credit score, this is basically a number, the higher the number, the more it means that you're a good guy who can be trusted with credit, loans, and mortgages.
The system works very well as it removes the subjectiveness from the assesment of your eligibility for loans and how much interest you pay. Only problem isfor people starting from ground zero like me. Credit history is not transferable from anywhere in the world, not even Canada. So I have zero credit history and no credit score here. That means that according to the banks here, I am in the high risk category. That means I get very strict and low limits on how much I can get, and I get it with very high interest (due to the "high risk" factor)

So normally I'd only be able to get up to 15K with 9% APR (annual interest), but there is this bank here that again has special deal for Microsofties and hence could give me up to 25K (maybe 30, not sure yet) with 5.9% APR, which is a much better deal but a far cry from what I should be normally able to get here with good credit history (70K with as low as 2% APR)

So what this means to me at the moment is that I can't get those cars I was considering, every single was of them was above 35K, so now I'm reconsidering my options.

I looked around for used cars, and also cheaper new cars. I am still undecided. I tried a new Mazda RX-8, used 2003 TT, used 2002 BMW 330ci, and a 1995 M3 (this is the cheapest and one of my best options right now)
Either that or leasing a z4 2.5 or a 2006 325.......

The plan is to have something for a year or two (either leasing or financing over short period) and then get my dream car then when I'd built up good credit history and score.

More details later...

P.S.
I miss everyone back in Egypt.

An even better day test driving :)

2005-09-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought it'd be hard to top the day I mentioned in my last post.
But the next day did!

I started the day with a visit to the BMW dealership, they'd fueled up the z4 and it was ready to go for a spin. I went with my sales consultant, I drove it with both top open and closed. It was a certified pre-owned 3.0 manual with sports and premium packages (including those gorgeous sports package 17" alloys!). And it was in my favorite color too! The Sapphire Black. The car was an '05 with only 4K miles on it, so it was just as good as new, you'd be very hard pressed to even tell it's used.

The car was just amazing to drive. That was my first experience with BMW's award winning 3.0 inline six engine. The engine is a real treat. It's creamy smooth all the way to its redline close to 7000rpm, never felt strained. The acceleration was neck breaking (specially to someone like me coming from a car that did 0-60mph in 12 seconds)
The engine also had a lot more torque than the TT's, it could pull in any rpm, unlike the 1.8T that I had to rev a bit to get the goods.
On the minus side the gear shift was not as good as the Audi's. The TT's gear shifting is just an experience in itself.
All in all the experience was wonderful, and I loved the car. It was also my first time driving a roadster, I used to like coupes but now I think I like roadsters just as much, driving with the open roof is definitely a delightful experience.

So we got the numbers on that car and headed on to the infiniti dealership. Those were the nicest people, the guy just took a copy of my international driving license and then let my friend and I go for a spin alone, he didn't even come with us. He asked us to be back in 30 minutes and provided a car with an identical setup to the one I wanted. A 6-speed manual with sports and premium packages. Part of the sports package is the huuuuuge 19" alloys and the premium packages includes bose audio system and a very impressive GPS with a screen that folds out of the way when not in use.
First of all, the car's interior is amazing, it has everything you can think of, and then some more. Don't believe me? Try this:
Dual zone climate control, leather seats and steering wheel (stitched too!), bose audio with 6 cd in dash changer and mp3 playback capabilities, GPS, digital compass, on board computer with tire pressure monitor and oil monitor, 8 way powered seats, auto-dimming rear and side view mirrors, powered sunroof, VDS (infiniti's electronic ESP program), ABS, brake assist, ventilated disc brakes all round (the z4 had discs all round but not ventilated), universal garage opener, and many more that I must have forgot. Simply stunning.
The car drove very well, gear shift nowhere near the TT's but very much like the Z4's, handling was very very good, engine noise just amazing inside as it is outside. The engine probably needed to loosen up a bit because it was brand new (unlike the z4 that had 4K miles on it) but still, it was very very fast, very composed with a better ride than the stiff sport suspension equipped z4. And I didn't feel that the handling suffered because of the smoother ride.

And when we were back the dealer told us that because I'm a Microsoft employee I get infiniti employee pricing on the car because of some agreement infiniti has with MS. That meant around $3K discount on that specific car I was testing.

I headed back home with my mind set on the new G35 as the car to get....

When I got home I called the bank to ask about my auto loan requirements and limits, and I was in for a surprise.

But I'll save that for a later post ;)

Best day in my automotive history (so far)

2005-09-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

Well I don't really know how excited you'd be reading about this, but I am very excited that I have to write about it.

Helal and I went today to shop for cars, we wanna pamper ourselves a bit but we're not yet entirely sure about our budget. So our plan was to sort the cars in descending order of "desireness" and test them one by one. This was we'd be testing the best cars first and then see how far down the ladder we can go without feeling too bad :)

Well so today we started executing the plan. And what a day it was!
In a few words, I drove a 2006 C230 Kompressor Sport sedan, and a 2005 Audi TT 1.8T (manual ;)
Both cars were new.

Read on for the full reviews :)

The mercedes was very nice, the 2006 model has a very nice interior specially that the one we tested had my favorite trim choice, the aluminum trim.
It has a very smooth ride and was fast enough. The brakes were the star of the show though, the salesman going with us on the test drive asked us to accelerate in a parking lot and then jump on the brakes before we hit the wall. It was just phenomenal. The very tight turning circle was also very impressive, this car can do a U-turn in any 2-lane street.

And then was the star of the show today, the TT.
I wasn't actually planning to test drive a TT today, but when we told the people at the Mercedes dealership that we're working for Microsoft, the sales manager came over for a personal greeting, and they gave us a reference for the Audi dealership sales manager, and they even called them and told them we're coming. More about MS power later in the post :)

So we went to the Audi dealership, we met with a very very nice sales person. I told him I was interested in a manual 1.8T coupe. He was able to find the last one they have over there. We checked it out and he told us he'd let us (Helal and I) go for a test drive alone since the back of the TT can't hold anything bigger than a baby. He then came back apologizing saying his manager told him neither of us can drive it because we don't have insurance. So we managed to stuff Helal into the back so-called seats and the sales person took us for a spin. I sat as a passenger and then he told he could let me drive it provided that I don't tell his boss. I was more than happy to comply (I hope his boss is not reading my blog)
And oh boy! The car was just amazing. The gear change is very slick, it slots into place with a very nice re-assuring mechanical click. The throttle response is very good, and the car just rockets away on anything higher than 3000rpm. The interior is amazing too with all the aluminum touches. I was just blown away given that I have never before driven anything remotely similar. And the guy was more than happy to let me rev it hard up to 6000 rpm. The car goes up to 40mph (60Kmh) in absolutely no time, I didn't even have time to change gears up to second in the time it took to reach 40mph in first. Pretty amazing stuff.

We then headed for the BMW dealership. That was quite an experience too. Not only because of the car, but for the live demonstration of the MS power in action.

We went to the salesman, we told him we were interested in a 2006 325i for Helal, and maybe a z4 for myself. He was very helpful, gave us the brochures, and provided a car with the options Helal wanted for us to check out. Then it was time for a test drive, and the guy went for a few minutes and then came back to tell us the same thing as the Audi dealership. We can't drive it because we have no insurance in the US. So I ask him if there is anyway around it because we can't get insurance till we get a car and we won't get a car till we test drive it and we can't drive it till we have insurance. So it's basically an infinite loop. He apologized politely saying that it's dealership rules. I try to entice him once again saying that the Mercedes dealership let us drive the C-class, again to no avail.

So he took us for a test drive as passengers, he demonstrated the car's capabilities with himself driving and took us back apologizing once again that we can't drive it.

When we were back in the dealership I told Helal that we now have no other option than to wave the Microsoft card.
I then told the sales person that we're gonna be working for Microsoft. And I couldn't possibly imagine it was gonna work this time. But I was wrong.
In a few seconds the sales manager came to greet us, he talked to us about our financing options, offered us drinks. (to be frank the sales person asked us if we wanted anything to drink previously, but not his manager:P)
I then took the chance and told the manager it's too bad we didn't get to drive the car because a BMW is all about the dynamics. He then said that we can take it for a spin ourselves.
So with Helal in the driver's seat we went off. He tried the sports mode in the autobox and he took 90 degree turns at 40mph. I didn't drive it myself as I'm not interested in a sedan right now but as a passenger I noticed the car was pretty amazing. It revved harder than the merc, pulled harder, and cornered absolutely flat.

When we went back they asked me what kinda car I'm interested in, I told them it's the z4, and they happened to have a 3.0i z4 with premium and sports package, and even a manual box! just how I like it!
It was already past the dealership opening hours, so he showed us the car quickly and asked us to tell him when we can pass by tomorrow for me to drive it myself :) This time I didn't even have to ask for a test drive! All by just mentioning we're working for Microsoft. Now that's a perk you don't get in a lot of places. It's just amazing how much influence the name has around here :)

So, tomorrow at 10am I'm gonna be test driving a 3.0 z4, I'm gonna make sure I give it some stick and report back the results :) I already like it and it's even in my favorite color (black) and it's the last one they have so I'm really considering it. We'll see if it tops the TT :)

Live From Redmond

2005-09-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hello guys!
I am finally able to access the internet from where I am in Redmond right now, the last few days have been a bit tiring, all new, but lots of fun (el 7amd lelah)

We passed by Amsterdam airport on our way, and the strangest thing happened while we were boarding our plane to Seattle, the airport officials seem to have been very worried about security, Me and Helal were sort of interrogated separately, the guy who asked me the questions was kinda weird. He asked me about my job, MS, my previous employer, what my job entails, why clients have I worked for previously, and lots of other questions. He asked for my MS offer letter, and contacts. But anyway, he let us in in the end :)

Having experienced that we were expecting more of the same in Sea-Tac Int'l airport, but the officials over there were far more relaxed. They just asked a few questions and let us in immediately. My friend Helal had a sort of a special case because he failed to de-register on departing from the US in an earlier visit so he was escorted to special registration where he was asked a few more questions but also let in with the official's affirmation that she'll try to erase that incident from his record. So Nice people overall :)

We then took our avis rental car, and went to our key pick-up location. The key pick-up location is where we get the keys, driving directions and map to our rental apartment provided by Microsoft for the first month.

We then headed to my apartment (Helal's was not ready yet), it was very nice and ready, all furnished and equipped with everything we might (and might not) need.

We stayed for an hour or so and then went back to get Helal's keys, it turns out (although he seemed very unlucky so far) that Helal's apartment is a 2 bedroom
, we called my relocation specialist and asked her to cancel my apartment and instead extend Helal's so that we stay together (and save a month on rental, $1000 ;) ) She said it was no problem.

We then met Khalid Aggag (not the singer, a friend who also went to MS a few months ago, and the founder of this blog's hate-club) and he took us shopping at Fred Meyers, we got some food and essentials and headed to Helal's (now our) apartment. We finally unpacked and then went down on a tour with our guide Khalid. He took us to Redmond town center, we had a meal at a nice Thai restaurant called Thai Ginger. Both the chicken curry and steak were very tasty, we then had some ice cream and went back to the apartment, had a shower at last and went to sleep dead tired at 9pm.

I will soon post about the next days. For now I'll let you enjoy some of the photos I took so far. Click on any pic for a larger version.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, a very nice and huuuuuge airport, we spent just 3 hours there

Our rental Chevrolet Classic the moment we found it :)

The key pick-up location described in our maps, we entered our security code provided earlier via e-mail on this numpad and the door automatically opened exposing our envelopes (among lots others), each envelope had 2 key copies, garage entrance pass and a map the apartment location. No human beings involved and very game like :)

Khalid Aggag coming to our rescue

Bigger is better has never been more obvious than in the shot from Fred Meyers parking lot

Our apartment's living room

Our humble dining room

The welcome package we found as soon as we entered the apartment, very neat

Our living room couch and where I am sitting right now at the moment of writing :)

The view from our balcony and bedroom windows

P.S.
I will upload more pics soon hopefully, I have more but blogger is giving me a very hard time uploading them, fails a lot, it took me around an hour to post these few.

Zero Hour

2005-09-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Heading to the airport in a matter of minutes, all packed and loaded.

The day was pretty packed too, I met so many people, and it was pretty amazing, I thought nothing would top yesterday but today did.

I saw Nagia, Duke, her highness (meyo), Nevine, Rania, Bassem, my aunt and her family, my best friends Amgad and Michael, Dina, my cousin, and even my dentist (for a report to take with me:))

Duke was so incredible he got me another model of another magnificent car, a Mercedes McLaren SLR in 1:18 scale, I was again speechless. Sherif and Meyo thank you so so so much.

Dina got me a book from Diwan, and one that I wanted to read too. Dina you're amazing.

Bassem gave me the sweetest souvenir for me to remember our Lithuania trip, it's very thoughtful of you ya Bassem, and I would never need a reminder for me to remember you and the days we spent together.

I will now have the toughest hour of my life saying goodbye to my family in the airport. And then out to discover a whole new world. I do need your prayers please.

I know I suck at goodbyes, so if anyone thought this maybe easy for me, it really is not. My eyes are almost dry although I try not to show the tears. I will miss each and every one of you and live with the hope that I will meet everyone again anywhere in the world. I will try my best not to lose touch with a single person, even if at times I seem too busy or too occupied (and I know it must sure happen), but it would be out of my hands and believe me, I will always come back.

Will write as soon as I can from either Amsterdam or Seattle and will post pics of everything I can see.

To everyone I know, I love you. I really really do.
God Bless.

The Final Countdown - 1

2005-09-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, now the next number in the title will be the absolute lack of quantity, this must mean that the number is getting real small.

Was quite a hectic day today, started with a visit to the bank, and then another one to the barber's, went back home for a quick shower and then out again to see some of friends for the what maybe the last time for a long time to come. Came back home and took family for a visit to my aunt, left them to see my friends from work in an outing, and then drove like crazy to catch my dentist at a time very close to midnight. Finished the dentist to go see friends from college and then finally back home.

The feeling is indescribable, the outing with the work people was very very special. I expected to see 8 or 10 people, I was amazed to find that close to 20 people came. Maybe even more. I was blown away by everyone's kindness and care to schedule some time in their very busy schedules just to come and say goodbye. They made me feel soooo precious. I was torn between the happiness and the love I feel for and from everyone around and the bitterness of the goodbyes. It was all so very overwhelming, never before have I experienced so many emotions simultaneously. *sigh*. I really don't know what to say.

And then the college friends I went out with starting 1 am. They all have jobs and busy schedules but they still set aside some time to see me at that very late hour just to say goodbye.

As if I needed any reminder, this is it. To remind me that I know some of the best human beings there ever were. The support, the care, and the love I felt from everyone around me is what keeps me composed and will probably keep me warm for so many nights to come when I just think about it.

To everyone I saw today, and even those who couldn't make it. I love you guys and gals. I can never ever forget about any one of you, and I will do my best to keep in touch with you. The relocation may change anything and everything about me. But it can never change the love and the place that you guys have earned in my heart.

I am forever indebted.

The Final Countdown - 2

2005-09-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Now the number is getting real small and scary.

Had quite a full day today, Went to worx to say goodbye to all the people. I'd originally thought I'll be there for a couple of hours, but instead I stayed there from 2 to 8:30pm. There were so many people I'd missed and will miss even more when I relocate.
Everyone was just so nice, they were even amazing enough to throw not only 1 but 2 farewell parties in a day. One in each building.

It was very very dramatic, even I had no idea it'd shake me like that to say goodbye to all those people. But at the same time it felt amazing to see people around you show so much love and affection. It was just surreal.

If any of you guys are reading, I can never ever thank you enough. Specially Nevine (I know you sent out the email a month ago), and Nagia (Nagaiaia! I can't even begin to think of how much I'll miss you).

Nagia even consulted a car specialist (Thanks duke, you're amazing) to help her choose the proper die-cast car model for me. And boy did he choose the best! A 1992 Jaguar XJ220 in british racing green. Simply awesome.

And everyone else who participated in making this day what it was for me, no words in the whole world could describe my feelings when I'd found that many names signed on the card.
You guys didn't just make my day. You made many more days to come for me. I will forever have a smile on my face whenever I open that card, see your names, and remember our memories together.
To everyone at worx, thank you for making the past 3 years that experience that it was. Beginning with the very day I joined this family and ending with today.

I then managed to go see both my cousins for a quick farewell, and even some good college friends of mine.
It was all overwhelming and I had to work really hard to ket the tears from flowing many times through the day.
But it was also a day full of excellent memories.

I don't think I'll ever be able to explain, so I'll just end it here.

The Final Countdown - 3

2005-09-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

Only a little less than 72 hours remaining.

Was a relatively quiet day today (practically yesterday now that it's 3 am), a visit to the dentist, a quick drive to get my passport from the shipping company, and a night with friends.
I left my friends at 1 am but didn't feel like going home, instead I went for a cruise around Cairo and some time by the Nile in my favorite spot in Zamalek (yes, alone). Was quite pleasant albeit tinted with I'm-sure-gonna-miss-this feeling.

I feel weird, it's one thing to feel nostalgic or homesick and another thing to just sit and wait for it to happen. Sometimes the wait is even harder.

Beginning to get nervous about the few coming days, so many last-times and so many first-times to expect. It's very perplexing....

The Final Countdown - 4

2005-09-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

And the drama begins.

Had to say the first few goodbyes today, my friend Kadrianoz is going to Lebanon for a week so I'll be gone when he's back. Spent the morning with him and then dropped him off at the airport with Helal (a common friend who is also going to MS with me). It was fairly dramatic and as is becoming a habit these days, I don't want to talk about it.

And then spent the evening at my uncle's, hadn't seen him in quite a while.
I have actually enjoyed it, till the part where we had to go and I had to say goodbye, for the second time in one day there were tears involved and things were getting very emotional.

Nothing in life comes for free.

I'm now trying hard to keep the (at least superficially) good mood. It's getting harder to play a fool and I'm wondering for how long will I be able to pull it off...

The Final Countdown - 5

2005-09-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

Ignorance is bliss.

I believe the statement is true in most cases. Look at our fears for example. You wouldn't fear anything that you don't _know_ is dangerous. Your knowledge of what consitutes a danger is what causes you to get scared. Granted, in some cases your reaction of fear to some danger may help you evade it. Adrenaline and stuff. But in others you have nothing to do. And you just spend precious moments of your life in fear.

You need another example? Another very well known statement, You don't miss what you don't know exists. I don't think we need to prove this one. And again knowledge is crucial. When you know and experience something, and when this experience results in positive feelings, you are bound to miss that something later on. So again, ignorance of that something will have spared you the missing-the-something part.

It seems to me as if feelings come in signed quantities, positive and negative. And on average our sum will hover around the zero. The more "positive" feelings you experience, the more "negative" feelings you can expect to experience later on, or maybe in cases you'd get the negative part earlier on. Still, the (in maths talk) limit of the sum will be equal to zero, as human beings approach death.

I won't elaborate on how all this relates to my current state of affairs (relocation and stuff), I will though pose this question:
If ignorace is bliss (No I won't say then why aren't more people happy)
If ignorance is bliss, then why do we naturally seek knowledge? Is the natural human curiosity just a fancy name for looking for trouble?

The Final Countdown - 6

2005-09-17T04:41:00.000-07:00

One more day consumed.
Spent it in El Ain El Sokhna with friends, it was a very nice as well as exhausting day. We took off at around 8:30 am, went there, swam in the sea, played some beach volley, and then had some fun in the pool.
Was back in Cairo by 7pm so we spent the evening in Grand cafe till midnight, and then it was off to my bed.

Of course as all days now do, the whole day seems now like it was just a couple of hours. Time flies and it seems to be getting better at it every day.
Today I have to go shopping for an HDD (to take with me), and then I have a dentist appointment in the evening. Will try to finish that early enough so that I can still see some people I hadn't seen in a long while.

I'm trying to keep myself busy, keeps me from thinking and reflecting upon everything. I guess I'll have so much time on my hands later for meditation and reflection, but now is not the time.