So the blog is finally looking like a finished product, the archives are working the way I want them, the Pandora Radio is embedded properly even though I just want it to display only chill music. Blog software has developed a lot in the past few years but it’s still free if your time is free I have spent hours fixing the theme, the widgets and the various plugins that go into it. But hey it feels like home now 
What is it about the French ? Why do they insist on going out of their
way to annoy people ? Steve has always disliked the French. When I ask why he shrugs his shoulders and says well they are French. I used to stick up for the French, I lived in Belgium for a few years and it’s right next door to France, I speak French. Sure I don’t have a deep love of cheese and wine and that’s probably just a cliche but when I see French movies or an article in English and French I feel a bit smug, oh yeah I speak French it’s cool no biggie.
Well the French suck. There I said it, sure for years I’ve defended them but it’s time to come clean, the French are lazy in addition to being overbearing. I was reading this article which reminded me how annoying the French can be.
A minute later we gave the game over to the French: “Who wins, Coca-Cola or Uma Thurman?”
The French didn’t answer and remained staring out the windows—it might have been Battersea, or Shepherd’s Bush. Then the French director said, “That is not a game.” He started coughing. “It is so Anglo, this game. It is not a game. How do you judge this? It is a soda and a woman. Then how do you decide?”
“One wins, one loses. Just pick,” I said. But he refused: “It is nothing a French person would think is a game. It is so stupid.”
The traffic wasn’t moving. I asked him to suggest a French game instead that we could play. “OK, OK, here is a French game,” he said. “We will talk about something for a little while. It will be about nothing. We will talk and talk and talk about it. Sometimes I will take the other side of the conversation, just to say you are wrong. And then we will stop.”
He resumed his brooding silence. The composer turned to say he agreed, this was a classic French game.
See that’s why people don’t like the French and until yesterday I didn’t care. See yesterday I finally decided that I had enough of carrying around books with me when I traveled. I am one of those people who can’t sleep much on planes and I am a fast reader so I tend to take at least two books with me on every trip and most times that’s not enough. The other problem is that in most destinations and airports you can’t buy any decent English books or if you can they are prohibitively expensive. For example an English book in the Rio airport costs about $22, that’s a soft cover book.
So I decided to invest in an ebook reader. The Amazon Kindle looks like crap, the Sony reader is only compatible with Windows so that left the Booken Cybook. I ordered one 2 days ago and got an email that said they got my order and charged my credit card. Their website explicitly states that the Cybook is in stock and they will ship asap.
Like a kid waiting for Santa Clause I waited and waited for the shipment order. Ok so I waited a day but in our wired age I expected to see the shipment order right away. Except for one thing, Booken is a French company. It is Easter weekend right now and there is no way you could pay anyone in France to work over a holiday. So they have charged my credit card and I will be lucky if they ship the damn thing in the next 2 weeks. After all I am just a customer and it’s easter weekend. This is classic French customer service. I’d complain but then I am worried they’d cancel the damn order.
Update: Ok the cybook arrived today, I take back everything I said about the French, even though they never responded to my email to customer support.
So I am back in Rio, that’s Rio de Janiro in Brazil for those people who are not cool enough to know where Rio is, or so I imagine I would tell people I met in fancy cocktail parties. Except I don’t go to fancy cocktail parties and so I never get to casually mention that I am in Rio again, you know no big deal it’s just a work thing.
A few things about Rio that you probably don’t know, it’s been raining ever since I got here. Another thing everyone speaks Portuguese and there aren’t that many tourists around. Finally it’s dangerous, not in the 007 sexy women want to kill me with their toned thighs dangerous but rather in they hey that geek that has a laptop and is a gringo we should rob him right now way. Which is not as cool.
You might say to yourself, Asad is a pussy I bet Rio is not that dangerous, I bet me and my Lonely Planet guide would have a blast in Rio. You’d be wrong, feeling a bit confined with having our Brazil team drive me everywhere a few nights ago I decided to walk back to my hotel after dinner. Now it took at most about two minutes to walk back to the hotel. I was by the beach on one of the biggest roads in Rio, it was well lit, toned hot girls were running on a path by the ocean and police cars were parked nearby with the lights on. By the way Policia sounds a lot cooler than Police is there any word that doesn’t sound cooler by adding a to the end of it, says Asada.
So I felt very safe and walked back to the hotel thinking that hey maybe I’ll take the bus next time or try taxies on my own. The next day I hear that someone was kidnapped on that same road and taken to an ATM so that he could withdraw money for the robbers. *sigh* with my luck I would be kidnaped by robbers who would not speak any English at all and so it would end badly for all involved.
Business travel is more about tolerance and enjoyment. You tolerate the wait at the security line, you tolerate the old ethnic lady with 4 bags and a crying baby, you tolerate the custom official who makes you wait even more. Then you tolerate the hotel who has lost your reservation, for some reason has no clock and the room that smell of cigarettes even though there’s a big sign on the door that says no smoking.
Most of all you start to hate everyone else who is not a frequent flyer. You hate that they didn’t realize they had to take their laptop out, you hate that they brought too many carry ons and now they are arguing with the stewardess and delaying the take off. You hate that they want to take over the arm rest which is clearly yours.
That’s not to say that it’s all bad, the girls in Brazil live up to their reputation and the steak is amazing even though they serve it for lunch and dinner on most days. You also get to build up your miles for when you go on a personal trip somewhere although I haven’t had the time to do any of that this year.
So now I am back in Frisco, San Francisco for the people who don’t travel in my imaginary cocktail party. I’ll let you guys know how it goes, so far I am still waiting for a spontaneous game of baccarat to break out. Apparently even in imaginary cocktail parties I am disappointed.
Wow, it’s been a while, I could tell you that nothing has been going on but it would be a lie. Life in general has been very busy, part of the reason I have put off posting. Every time I sat down to write something it seemed like it would take forever and so I Put it off again until another time feeling a bit more guilty each time someone reminded me to post.
As you guys know I got married in 2007 (by the way is it just me or does it still feel like it’s 2007 and not 2008). Our wedding ceremony was very simple, just me, my wife, my sister and a friend of my wife. Two of my friends were going to attend but one forgot about the wedding and the other didn’t think of buying his airline ticket until he was on his way to the airport at which point he decided to call me and see what time the wedding was. My friends rock!
So we had planned on having another wedding or weddings this year. We were going to have a wedding in Taiwan so that our families could meet, then have another one in California where my friends co-workers could come as well as the rest of my family in the US who didn’t make the trip to Taiwan. Talking to my dad and cousins in Iran I decided to have yet another one in Iran.
If you are keeping track at home that’s 3 weddings, I kept asking my wife why was spending so much time on the food, flowers,… She reminded me that she was taking care of the Taiwan wedding and that I was responsible for the US one. Here was my plan for doing all the work. Have a super simple wedding at the beach, everyone can come in jeans and flip flops. Hire a wedding planner for 5k, and a Persian bad from Santa Barbara. The Iran wedding my dad would take care of.
Sounds great in theory until the actual wedding in Taiwan happened. It turns out that weddings have a lot more drama/work than you would expect. The Taiwan wedding went well and everyone who has seen the pictures keeps telling us we look very happy, I suppose that is in contrast with other peoples weddings who seem pissed off and unhappy ?
So here is my solution for CA wedding, I am canceling it. Nice and easy, if you were planning on coming to my wedding sorry guys it’s just too much work. I’ll be happy to come to yours or you can organize mine for me and let me know how it goes . A much better idea in my opinion is to just meet and have some good food. So I will owe you guys a meal, let me know when you are in the bay area and we’ll go out.
As for the Iran wedding well our honeymoon was planned for Greece. It’s a hop away from Iran and instead of a wedding I think we’ll just meet more family members and eat.
More wedding pictures