October 16, 2007
Vanes, gyro-stabilised, not lanes!
Vanes are what gave the vehicle control. And coupled with vehicle gyrostabilisers they became the backbone of the early second millennium transportation revolution.
Those vehicles with lateral control vanes did much better than all the rest and the world had mostly to thank the explosive demand for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the days of war against terror in early 2000.
UAV's and their manned counterparts took full advantage of the direction and control offered by vanes.
Those vehicles with lateral control vanes did much better than all the rest and the world had mostly to thank the explosive demand for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the days of war against terror in early 2000.
UAV's and their manned counterparts took full advantage of the direction and control offered by vanes.
December 03, 2006
direction and control
What if the vehicle could be given ultimate maneuvering capability in 3 dimensions equally? What if the vehicle took on the burden that now was carried by the infrastructure – that of providing automatic, constant direction and control to vehicular movement, again, in 3 dimensions equally? What if the vehicle was given ultimate navigational capability, ultimate safety and proximity assurance capability? What if propulsion issues were no longer a limiting factor? What if these capabilities could be provided at a reasonable price for the global consumer? These really were the questions that Raww Baww Tii Kii existed to address and bring forthright, affordable and reasonable answers to.
“The infrastructure is the vehicle and the airspace around the vehicle, and in that sense, the infrastructure is limitless.” Mike recalled the presentation he had been called to make on many occasions. His favorites were the occasions in which executives from the automotive sector, world wide, would attend and listen with wide eyed interest and edge of their seat anticipation to his spiel. He liked presenting his company's advancements to these kinds of people because they understood the level of chaos that had to somehow be organized into something of value, the levels of engineering involved, the significance and impact that the work of the people at Raww Baww Tii Kii would have in a global innovation sense. They understood what it really meant if you were to actually place the burden of the infrastructure on the vehicle, through maximizing the capability.
Back in the year 2007, Mike had read a white paper published by the AMERICAN HELICOPTER SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL and HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL titled: “DEVELOPING A SAFE AND EFFICIENT VERTICAL FLIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE”. It was this white paper that catalyzed Mike’s compulsion to take on the same kind of revolution in transportation as the AHS had taken on for their vehicles that, for their time, indeed had ultimate capability – though still at such a high cost and complexity when it came to “the average Ahmed”.
The goal of the AHS in publishing the white paper was to spur, by all parties affected, the development of an air and ground infrastructure for rotorcraft operations based upon the concept of simultaneous non-interfering operations, which included heliport to heliport all weather operations, by an Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) integrated product team, which included operators and manufacturers, the FAA, NASA and the Department of Defense.
The AHS’s frustration was with the old fashioned, limited infrastructure within which their ultimately capable vehicles had to operate. And this was now the problem that existed for Mike Strathomre in 2027 sitting here in traffic in his classic Infiniti “M”. You see Mikes company had developed a vehicle with capabilities far advanced compared to conventional automobiles that relied on a physical infrastructure in the same manner that the conventional helicopter had broken free from the need to rely on runways and the traditional airport infrastructures at a typical 2007 airport. The advancement in capability led to a frustration in actual use of existing physical infrastructures.
The reason d’etre of Raww Baww Tii Kii in 2027 was to rid the world of a need to rely on a physical transport infrastructure by extreme advancement in vehicular capability – incorporating the infrastructure burden in the vehicle itself.
“The infrastructure is the vehicle and the airspace around the vehicle, and in that sense, the infrastructure is limitless.” Mike recalled the presentation he had been called to make on many occasions. His favorites were the occasions in which executives from the automotive sector, world wide, would attend and listen with wide eyed interest and edge of their seat anticipation to his spiel. He liked presenting his company's advancements to these kinds of people because they understood the level of chaos that had to somehow be organized into something of value, the levels of engineering involved, the significance and impact that the work of the people at Raww Baww Tii Kii would have in a global innovation sense. They understood what it really meant if you were to actually place the burden of the infrastructure on the vehicle, through maximizing the capability.
Back in the year 2007, Mike had read a white paper published by the AMERICAN HELICOPTER SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL and HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL titled: “DEVELOPING A SAFE AND EFFICIENT VERTICAL FLIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE”. It was this white paper that catalyzed Mike’s compulsion to take on the same kind of revolution in transportation as the AHS had taken on for their vehicles that, for their time, indeed had ultimate capability – though still at such a high cost and complexity when it came to “the average Ahmed”.
The goal of the AHS in publishing the white paper was to spur, by all parties affected, the development of an air and ground infrastructure for rotorcraft operations based upon the concept of simultaneous non-interfering operations, which included heliport to heliport all weather operations, by an Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) integrated product team, which included operators and manufacturers, the FAA, NASA and the Department of Defense.
The AHS’s frustration was with the old fashioned, limited infrastructure within which their ultimately capable vehicles had to operate. And this was now the problem that existed for Mike Strathomre in 2027 sitting here in traffic in his classic Infiniti “M”. You see Mikes company had developed a vehicle with capabilities far advanced compared to conventional automobiles that relied on a physical infrastructure in the same manner that the conventional helicopter had broken free from the need to rely on runways and the traditional airport infrastructures at a typical 2007 airport. The advancement in capability led to a frustration in actual use of existing physical infrastructures.
The reason d’etre of Raww Baww Tii Kii in 2027 was to rid the world of a need to rely on a physical transport infrastructure by extreme advancement in vehicular capability – incorporating the infrastructure burden in the vehicle itself.
November 24, 2006
The pink copy goes to the lady...
The motorcycle traffic police arrived on scene about twenty minutes later from the Garoud Station and observed the position of the ML350 and the M, had a chuckle between them, and then spoke in Arabic in soft and tender tones to the Black-abaya-clad lady who, when first stepping out of 50% tinted darkness . inadvertently revealed her Henna’ed ankle, a silver, diamond-studded anklet, five of her perfectly pedicured, flesh-painted, white tipped toenails, and one of her extremely fashionable, minimalist-in-form, four-inch-heeled straps-free, sandal-stiletto affairs that looked very dainty and very feminine but at the same time, as though it could hold up a tower in a strong wind. And Mike, naturally, marveled at the perfectly engineered Arabic-lady, foot-form thus in post-graunch haste unwittingly, whimsically, revealed before vaulting himself, almost automatically, into another foray of English language cusses such the likes even a former British naval officer would cringe at having to aurally endure lucky for any former British officers that might have been in the vicinity, Mike expelled the cusses this time with clenched teeth and lower volume, remembering suddenly that his top was down, out of respect for the lady who had just gotten out of the ML350, the fender of which still wedged its bulging intention firmly against the bumper of the “M”. It was after all a classic 2007 Infinity “M”, full-insurance coverage aside. The police gave the Sheikha the pink copy of the report and gave Mike the white copy. She was the guilty one. Had the police heard any one of mikes many profanations, the pink copy, just as night turns itself into day, surely, would have been his to take home.
Mike was in the midst of moving Raww Baww Tii Kii LLC HQ to its new location in Festival City Dubai. Why festival city, many people outright asked the owner, Mike. Not one being able to resist the pull of doing business WITH pleasure 100% of the time, Mike had told everyone who asked that he felt it was just the natural progression of Raww Baww Tii Kii’s original vision since its inception in 2007 “Fun Moving, Moving Fun”. Festival City deemed itself: “a unique and eclectic destination transforming the upper reaches of the historic Dubai Creek.” A true all-in-one destination, Dubai Festival City seamlessly blended hospitality, entertainment, business and residential in one superb setting. This was the Middle East’s largest, privately funded mixed-use real estate development. Revitalising the down-town soul of Dubai, this waterfront ‘city-within-a-city’ provided a safe, relaxed, friendly and exclusive setting for residents and visitors alike. From Riviera-style scenery and lush green landscapes to iconic towers and luxury hotels, Dubai Festival City claimed itself to be: “all you can image in one place.”
The logistics involved in moving a 5000 employee, Multi-national Mechatronics research and development organization like Raww Baww Tii Kii in a two week window brought forth the best in those responsible to Mike for making it happen just so.
Mike was in the midst of moving Raww Baww Tii Kii LLC HQ to its new location in Festival City Dubai. Why festival city, many people outright asked the owner, Mike. Not one being able to resist the pull of doing business WITH pleasure 100% of the time, Mike had told everyone who asked that he felt it was just the natural progression of Raww Baww Tii Kii’s original vision since its inception in 2007 “Fun Moving, Moving Fun”. Festival City deemed itself: “a unique and eclectic destination transforming the upper reaches of the historic Dubai Creek.” A true all-in-one destination, Dubai Festival City seamlessly blended hospitality, entertainment, business and residential in one superb setting. This was the Middle East’s largest, privately funded mixed-use real estate development. Revitalising the down-town soul of Dubai, this waterfront ‘city-within-a-city’ provided a safe, relaxed, friendly and exclusive setting for residents and visitors alike. From Riviera-style scenery and lush green landscapes to iconic towers and luxury hotels, Dubai Festival City claimed itself to be: “all you can image in one place.”
The logistics involved in moving a 5000 employee, Multi-national Mechatronics research and development organization like Raww Baww Tii Kii in a two week window brought forth the best in those responsible to Mike for making it happen just so.
November 23, 2006
Mike and the Mechatronics
The year was 2027. The future was now. Michael Strathmore lived in this time. He had no one to turn to, no where to run, by the time he turned 30 and so began a life of solitude funded, mostly, by a rather badly misplaced inheritance bequeathed to him by the passing of a very rich uncle in the business of micro-upping efficiencies and improvements to assembly processes by automation who, after equal apportioning most of his vast estate amongst the family members immediate, had no heirs left to give his vast amounts of money to, gave the rest, to his sole surviving nephew, Mike. Mike deemed himself extremely fortunate and not even a little bit guilty to be thought of as somehow worthy enough to receive such a vast sum at such a time in his life.
Mike’s latest game and the deepest, surely, of his multiple passions, was Mechatronic engineering and he was at the top of his game. He had sensed that economically the world’s center would shift. It did and Mike, being one who easily became bored with his personal advancement in the field of Mechatronic engineering, decided to buy himself rraw baww tii kii LLC, a dynamic, leading company in the Mechatronics industry, which had recently moved to the center of the new world economy, Dubai, UAE.
Raw baw ti ki’s bread and butter came in the form of a massive Dubai Road Transport Authority grant wherewith which to germinate citizens ideas for solving Dubai’s chronic and critical traffic issues. From jams to chock-a-blocks, from rush-hour parking lots to rubber neckers causing tailbacks, this grant was given almost in desperation to Raw baw ti ki LLC in the RTA’s attempts to finally curb the tiring daily mess RTA had made of its own transportation infrastructure.
Solving a traffic problem was not Micheal’s idea of a good time in the workplace. No, he would have rather been doing exactly what he had been given license to do by now owning and operating Raw baw ti ki. That was basically to spawn the new age of personal transport in this ripe for transportational revolution atmosphere. He was driven to this sort of a mandate by fate it would seem for in his passion he found reason finally to give to a community that had given so much to him already in the past years of dwelling in the centre of it all. If it weren’t for the daily raunch of traffic issues, Dubai would be a perfect place to live, thought our man Mike.
One day in November, in the cool 26 degrees of evening winter air in Dubai, on the road that lead to the new, new Garhoud 36-lane bridge while sitting stock still, with the top down, "ready to go", in his convertible, 8-cylinder, 365 hp Infinity “M” classic from the year 2007, in the regular 16:15 chock-a-block, jammed, parking lot style traffic, behind a china great wall pickup truck (A Toyota-like form stamped from toy tin and run by 60 hampsters all blowing blue smoke out the 7/8 inch exhaust pipe straight into mike’s eyes nose and mouth, Mike momentarily lost control of his mental faculties and decided to escape.
Maybe it was the fumes. Maybe it was the cool 26 degree breeze blowing through his close cropped top. Maybe it was his need to escape that very moment from feeling the need to depress fully, the gas pedal of the Infinity “M” and unlease the full fury of 365 horses right up the dog gone 7/8 inch tail pipe of China great wall truck with six persons of at least three different East Asian nationalities in front of him. What ever the motivation was, Mike decided to simply escape his current traffic reality by imagining him self simply, to be elsewhere. Fully and completely, mike escaped from that impulse, lucky for him, lucky for the great wall in front of him, lucky for the three kilometer tail back just snaking around the edge of the Dubai World Trade Center round about snaking. Yes so very lucky. And mike began to day dream help hailed on by the blue smoke blown on down the pipe by sixty of the Great Wall’s wee hamsters.
He dreamed right there and then of how and what could be more satisfying than ridding oneself of the need to remain trapped by an inefficient and strangulating infrastructure when, by gooly and by gosh one could render with a few twists of coat hanger ingenuity a dreamy solution to the problem of being a sitting duck amidst a waiting crowd of idling hamsters. “Toss the infrastructure!” he thought blithely to himself, being brought back to reality by a fleeting thought of what his wfe might think of his crazy idea. Then just as fleeting, the meandering Mike-mode was in full swing. His silent rationalizing, analytical monologue began again, as it had day after day after day while being repetedly strangulated along with ten thousand other driver car combinations down in this same spot in the infrastructure that demanded so much of its users but gave so dang little every day.
“The time is ripe for this.” He thought again to himself. “Surely the time is ripe for this thing that I have in my head. Rid ourselves of this bloody inefficient infrastructure that’s what’s gotta happen!” Dubai RTA simply can not see and plan and build infrastructure upon infrastructure and expect that this huge, seething mass of too many cars per minute will NOT but bottle neck if the infrastructure is flawed at the outset!” Feeling quite smug with him self for having condemned this day yet again in one, self-righteous, selfish sentence, yet another whole bleeding sector of the Entity that governed him, Mike and mind meandered on. “What if we focused wholly on the vehicle rather than the silly infrastructure?” And in this moment of truth Mike’s eyes lit up a smile began in the corners of his crooked left side slightly down mouth and became a wide grin and he yelped: “Eureeka!!! I’ve found it!!!” just for the hell of it, really, he’d always wanted to do that.
Just then, an ML 350 van/car/truck/4by4/grocery getter with 50% black tinted windows revealing nothing but seeming blackness with Dubai plate number A44 edged the bloody corner of his bloody fender just a few millimeters in front of the Infinity M’s Bumper just as the Hamster-powered great wall moved ahead. Mike’s foot moved before his brain had a chance to tell it not to and GRAUNCH! There he was. In the middle of 10,000 trapped souls. 18 lanes on either side of him an ML 350’s Fender copulating unceremoniously the M’s bumper. Mike resorted to English language profanity at high volume for about a minute, for it was the only outlet he had at this point.
Continued in tomorrow’s edition of Might Mike and his Magubious Murano. I know, I know, there’s narry a mention yet of any sort of a Murano but hang tight me wee ones and you’ll begin to see where the tale will wag ya to. Tally ho!
Mike’s latest game and the deepest, surely, of his multiple passions, was Mechatronic engineering and he was at the top of his game. He had sensed that economically the world’s center would shift. It did and Mike, being one who easily became bored with his personal advancement in the field of Mechatronic engineering, decided to buy himself rraw baww tii kii LLC, a dynamic, leading company in the Mechatronics industry, which had recently moved to the center of the new world economy, Dubai, UAE.
Raw baw ti ki’s bread and butter came in the form of a massive Dubai Road Transport Authority grant wherewith which to germinate citizens ideas for solving Dubai’s chronic and critical traffic issues. From jams to chock-a-blocks, from rush-hour parking lots to rubber neckers causing tailbacks, this grant was given almost in desperation to Raw baw ti ki LLC in the RTA’s attempts to finally curb the tiring daily mess RTA had made of its own transportation infrastructure.
Solving a traffic problem was not Micheal’s idea of a good time in the workplace. No, he would have rather been doing exactly what he had been given license to do by now owning and operating Raw baw ti ki. That was basically to spawn the new age of personal transport in this ripe for transportational revolution atmosphere. He was driven to this sort of a mandate by fate it would seem for in his passion he found reason finally to give to a community that had given so much to him already in the past years of dwelling in the centre of it all. If it weren’t for the daily raunch of traffic issues, Dubai would be a perfect place to live, thought our man Mike.
One day in November, in the cool 26 degrees of evening winter air in Dubai, on the road that lead to the new, new Garhoud 36-lane bridge while sitting stock still, with the top down, "ready to go", in his convertible, 8-cylinder, 365 hp Infinity “M” classic from the year 2007, in the regular 16:15 chock-a-block, jammed, parking lot style traffic, behind a china great wall pickup truck (A Toyota-like form stamped from toy tin and run by 60 hampsters all blowing blue smoke out the 7/8 inch exhaust pipe straight into mike’s eyes nose and mouth, Mike momentarily lost control of his mental faculties and decided to escape.
Maybe it was the fumes. Maybe it was the cool 26 degree breeze blowing through his close cropped top. Maybe it was his need to escape that very moment from feeling the need to depress fully, the gas pedal of the Infinity “M” and unlease the full fury of 365 horses right up the dog gone 7/8 inch tail pipe of China great wall truck with six persons of at least three different East Asian nationalities in front of him. What ever the motivation was, Mike decided to simply escape his current traffic reality by imagining him self simply, to be elsewhere. Fully and completely, mike escaped from that impulse, lucky for him, lucky for the great wall in front of him, lucky for the three kilometer tail back just snaking around the edge of the Dubai World Trade Center round about snaking. Yes so very lucky. And mike began to day dream help hailed on by the blue smoke blown on down the pipe by sixty of the Great Wall’s wee hamsters.
He dreamed right there and then of how and what could be more satisfying than ridding oneself of the need to remain trapped by an inefficient and strangulating infrastructure when, by gooly and by gosh one could render with a few twists of coat hanger ingenuity a dreamy solution to the problem of being a sitting duck amidst a waiting crowd of idling hamsters. “Toss the infrastructure!” he thought blithely to himself, being brought back to reality by a fleeting thought of what his wfe might think of his crazy idea. Then just as fleeting, the meandering Mike-mode was in full swing. His silent rationalizing, analytical monologue began again, as it had day after day after day while being repetedly strangulated along with ten thousand other driver car combinations down in this same spot in the infrastructure that demanded so much of its users but gave so dang little every day.
“The time is ripe for this.” He thought again to himself. “Surely the time is ripe for this thing that I have in my head. Rid ourselves of this bloody inefficient infrastructure that’s what’s gotta happen!” Dubai RTA simply can not see and plan and build infrastructure upon infrastructure and expect that this huge, seething mass of too many cars per minute will NOT but bottle neck if the infrastructure is flawed at the outset!” Feeling quite smug with him self for having condemned this day yet again in one, self-righteous, selfish sentence, yet another whole bleeding sector of the Entity that governed him, Mike and mind meandered on. “What if we focused wholly on the vehicle rather than the silly infrastructure?” And in this moment of truth Mike’s eyes lit up a smile began in the corners of his crooked left side slightly down mouth and became a wide grin and he yelped: “Eureeka!!! I’ve found it!!!” just for the hell of it, really, he’d always wanted to do that.
Just then, an ML 350 van/car/truck/4by4/grocery getter with 50% black tinted windows revealing nothing but seeming blackness with Dubai plate number A44 edged the bloody corner of his bloody fender just a few millimeters in front of the Infinity M’s Bumper just as the Hamster-powered great wall moved ahead. Mike’s foot moved before his brain had a chance to tell it not to and GRAUNCH! There he was. In the middle of 10,000 trapped souls. 18 lanes on either side of him an ML 350’s Fender copulating unceremoniously the M’s bumper. Mike resorted to English language profanity at high volume for about a minute, for it was the only outlet he had at this point.
Continued in tomorrow’s edition of Might Mike and his Magubious Murano. I know, I know, there’s narry a mention yet of any sort of a Murano but hang tight me wee ones and you’ll begin to see where the tale will wag ya to. Tally ho!
November 04, 2006
Lunar, baby!
And so it is a game of life in the spaces between. And I have survived the weekend of waiting to this hour at least. Not having heard a wit about things. I feel odd.
Like I have a brain full of ideas ready to record and yet no access to them now because of the torpor filling my spaces in between life; it seems to take snuffing pleasure in settling on and surrounding every synapse I lay claim to have provided a path for in the confined, winding pathways of that which floats in cranial fluid beneath my noggin.
The spaces in between, when torpor settles, are hard to navigate, and torpor, though quick to disappear, like fog in the morning sun, it still hangs in the interim hours, the hours that will end up costing us the most. For instance, in the interim hours we drive to work, in the morning in the settled fog, and have not the time to sit outside the yellow line, engine idling waiting til 10:00 AM when the sun methodically burns a visibility factor through the veil. No, we drive, squinting, our nerves on high alert, the coffee well within reach, so as not to, even for one second, miss the chance of serving to the left or right of a looming Semi’s rear end. So it is when the torpor fills the spaces in between.
Oh it will lift. There is no doubt in everyone’s mind that it will lift, but by the clock struck eight we all don’t wait for the sun’s rays to alleviate at only 10:08, no. We all don’t wait.
I feel odd. As though not knowing what lies ahead need not be thought of or planned for at this stage. How does one plan a skillful avoidance of the Semi’s sudden looming rear end in fog when it has firmly settled?! Wait til 10:00? No way, just merrily drive away - not only today, but yesterday and last week Monday. This is the game of life we play even when odd feelings come our way and the moon so bright in its fullness tonight brushes away the sweat of angst, and even squeals of delight. With a single beam it razes the shimmering tide and draws in to it’s pale, lucid luminescence, the portending dwellers of Um Suquiem, the augers of Al Satwa, the blue ribbon jurists of Jumeirah and… every dweller of the spaces in between.
There we dwell. There we live. There we feel odd, brains full of ideas ready to record and yet no access to them now because of today’s torpor; and of tomorrow’s foggy quota of the same, sure to filled. Perhaps I’ll wait till 10:00 then.
Like I have a brain full of ideas ready to record and yet no access to them now because of the torpor filling my spaces in between life; it seems to take snuffing pleasure in settling on and surrounding every synapse I lay claim to have provided a path for in the confined, winding pathways of that which floats in cranial fluid beneath my noggin.
The spaces in between, when torpor settles, are hard to navigate, and torpor, though quick to disappear, like fog in the morning sun, it still hangs in the interim hours, the hours that will end up costing us the most. For instance, in the interim hours we drive to work, in the morning in the settled fog, and have not the time to sit outside the yellow line, engine idling waiting til 10:00 AM when the sun methodically burns a visibility factor through the veil. No, we drive, squinting, our nerves on high alert, the coffee well within reach, so as not to, even for one second, miss the chance of serving to the left or right of a looming Semi’s rear end. So it is when the torpor fills the spaces in between.
Oh it will lift. There is no doubt in everyone’s mind that it will lift, but by the clock struck eight we all don’t wait for the sun’s rays to alleviate at only 10:08, no. We all don’t wait.
I feel odd. As though not knowing what lies ahead need not be thought of or planned for at this stage. How does one plan a skillful avoidance of the Semi’s sudden looming rear end in fog when it has firmly settled?! Wait til 10:00? No way, just merrily drive away - not only today, but yesterday and last week Monday. This is the game of life we play even when odd feelings come our way and the moon so bright in its fullness tonight brushes away the sweat of angst, and even squeals of delight. With a single beam it razes the shimmering tide and draws in to it’s pale, lucid luminescence, the portending dwellers of Um Suquiem, the augers of Al Satwa, the blue ribbon jurists of Jumeirah and… every dweller of the spaces in between.
There we dwell. There we live. There we feel odd, brains full of ideas ready to record and yet no access to them now because of today’s torpor; and of tomorrow’s foggy quota of the same, sure to filled. Perhaps I’ll wait till 10:00 then.
October 23, 2006
balconies with stills
It feels good to have covered some real territory today. The computer is running again, very well and the Norton Internet Security does its job equally well. I am quite proud of myself right now, as you may be able to judge through the tone of my writing. And why not?
The thing is, one has to write things when one has the mood and the will to do so or else the dross is what gets published and the distilled is that which doesn’t.
Speaking of distilling spirits, I’d like to imagine that there be one, there is a still in no mans’ land, beneath a rather large rock, in the shadow of a singled out palm, beside the Dubai’s or confined to my balcony at least.
What with ethanol and percentages lethal of methanol that even a crude boiler could not reach in ten thousand years of boiling the yield of drinkable still far far outweighs the yield of lethal.
Yes, yes, a man’s capacity for methanol is low indeed but you’d have to be a red man with Lysol in your mit to appreciate just how much you DO need ta kill ya!
And so the dream of distilling one’s own cleaner gasoline in one’s own homemade/kit still, continue on in this middle aged head of mine. I can’t bear the thought of letting such a low key underhanded, protest “idea”, agin the state of current affairs and current location – that is under the regulation as it were of this banner called ‘Slam, go, you know?
The thing is, one has to write things when one has the mood and the will to do so or else the dross is what gets published and the distilled is that which doesn’t.
Speaking of distilling spirits, I’d like to imagine that there be one, there is a still in no mans’ land, beneath a rather large rock, in the shadow of a singled out palm, beside the Dubai’s or confined to my balcony at least.
What with ethanol and percentages lethal of methanol that even a crude boiler could not reach in ten thousand years of boiling the yield of drinkable still far far outweighs the yield of lethal.
Yes, yes, a man’s capacity for methanol is low indeed but you’d have to be a red man with Lysol in your mit to appreciate just how much you DO need ta kill ya!
And so the dream of distilling one’s own cleaner gasoline in one’s own homemade/kit still, continue on in this middle aged head of mine. I can’t bear the thought of letting such a low key underhanded, protest “idea”, agin the state of current affairs and current location – that is under the regulation as it were of this banner called ‘Slam, go, you know?
October 22, 2006
accomodation
Propel thy self towards destiny! Reap the rewards of perseverance! Stand tall among the native shorts. Run swiftly through the glades of green, green grass and breathe deep the sense of purity that wafts through the space and time you currently habit. Know that destiny wends it way towards your open heart. Understand that through these doldrums your ship without billowy sail will pass and catch the unseen wind beyond that which is knowable or doable except that it be done in the future tense.
Of what do I speak? Of things left undone during the lows and those things passing due to having no way to accommodate them on a meager budget of both Cash and Time. No way to accommodate, for example the buying of a present for a two year old because the cost of staying here without accommodation paid for is EXHORBITANT! No way to accommodate the pending electricity bill.
No way to accommodate even our own selfish reasoning about the staying or leaving this place – whether it be right for us or not to move out from here and travel the 35 minutes required into the vast desert into Dibba village for scant less than ¼ of the price. Why not? It is not permenant? We could have easily made do at least until the concrete on a new job was set, no?
These are questions moot. The way we live becomes the way we pay for the way we live and it renders us in waiting breadwinners useless as yet un-split amoebae. Couch dwellers anonymous. TV channel clickers bisplintovous. And Islamic purple haze of Ramadan and Eid choke the living daylights out of survivalist me while I wait….
Of what do I speak? Of things left undone during the lows and those things passing due to having no way to accommodate them on a meager budget of both Cash and Time. No way to accommodate, for example the buying of a present for a two year old because the cost of staying here without accommodation paid for is EXHORBITANT! No way to accommodate the pending electricity bill.
No way to accommodate even our own selfish reasoning about the staying or leaving this place – whether it be right for us or not to move out from here and travel the 35 minutes required into the vast desert into Dibba village for scant less than ¼ of the price. Why not? It is not permenant? We could have easily made do at least until the concrete on a new job was set, no?
These are questions moot. The way we live becomes the way we pay for the way we live and it renders us in waiting breadwinners useless as yet un-split amoebae. Couch dwellers anonymous. TV channel clickers bisplintovous. And Islamic purple haze of Ramadan and Eid choke the living daylights out of survivalist me while I wait….
October 21, 2006
Truth
I swear to you, I made it all up completely.
Jonny Islam, Joe Arab
Jonny Islam, Joe Arab
September 29, 2006
Endurance Technical writing
I am a Freelance technical writer. I make good money at it. I bid for projects, get the contracts and I write them to completion on time, and I get paid. How is possible to make a living doing freelance technical writing? Well, I’m writing this article to tell you not only is it possible to make a living as a technical writer, it is possible to do quite well financially, keep employed and keep writing about interesting stuff for a long time. As a technical writer it is possible to cross many borders, and learn new things in multiple industries and gain fantastic experience while you’re on the job. There are many books and articles already out there on how to become a technical writer. I am a technical writer and I’ve worked in the aerospace industry for most of my technical writing career.
Many types of writers are depicted as a bit eccentric, not fitting into “the mold” that the world wants to fit them in to. In many cases this is true even for technical writers. They don’t fit “the mold.” They are not your average nine-to-five workers in a company. They tend to flourish when given the independence of contacting their services to an employer on their own terms – work at home schemes, freedom of access into departments that they have no other qualification to enter into other than as a technical writer wishing to find ou how and whay stuff works and how best to portray the reason for being of compex equipment or processes in a very clear and easy to understand way. They tend to operate best in situations where they can circumvent the normal day to day business activities in order to gather information, to do research, to sit and talk with engineers and technicians about how equipment is supposed t work and how it’s best maintained, and of course, to write, a lot. Technical writers tend also to be concerned with exactness and clarity in their writing to almost freakish levels. On top of all that technical writers
Technical writers are a unique blend of coffee in that they thrive in the spaces between the day to day business processes and yet with their access to virtually every department, have a better overview of the organization than most of the middle managers and in fact, likely a good part of the upper management. Technical writers are expert communicators when they write, this ability is enhanced further when they’re given the environment, the tools and the time to do so. Trouble is most companies don’t know what to do with you when you are their technical writer. They don’t know where to put you. They don’t know how to categorize you. This is all well and fine since it is exactly this sort of ether to operate in that you need for the ‘bringing to light’ of what a product means for the masses or bringing to light of how a product or service is supposed to be used by the masses or whoever it is you’re writing for. However, because of the difficulty of categorizing you or knowing what to do with you another difficulty presents itself at payday. It becomes the question of: “what is the right sort of reward for this unique ability to communicate so very well on paper?” What is fair? What is just?
No we’re not typists but hey, we type faster than most‘yer typists, yeah. We’re not secretaries or clerks, though we know the office procedures and business procedures, having written them, better than your secretaries and better than your clerks. No, we’re not middle managers, either. But we know more about how the department and how to run it because we listen to everyone every day tell us about how and why they do their jobs then we write that all down in procedures and processes manuals, listen to and propose changes as we see the big picture.
No we’re not Engineers who design things but we are intimately familiar with everything about the designs the engineers in your organization design and we saw it from concept to product in the same way your engineers did. But too we saw further than your engineers because where their purpose of designing something that works ends our purpose of asking whay it was designed for whom was it designed, how exactly doe it work for the customer and how does using one of these designs make things better and easier for the customer in life, begins.
Many types of writers are depicted as a bit eccentric, not fitting into “the mold” that the world wants to fit them in to. In many cases this is true even for technical writers. They don’t fit “the mold.” They are not your average nine-to-five workers in a company. They tend to flourish when given the independence of contacting their services to an employer on their own terms – work at home schemes, freedom of access into departments that they have no other qualification to enter into other than as a technical writer wishing to find ou how and whay stuff works and how best to portray the reason for being of compex equipment or processes in a very clear and easy to understand way. They tend to operate best in situations where they can circumvent the normal day to day business activities in order to gather information, to do research, to sit and talk with engineers and technicians about how equipment is supposed t work and how it’s best maintained, and of course, to write, a lot. Technical writers tend also to be concerned with exactness and clarity in their writing to almost freakish levels. On top of all that technical writers
Technical writers are a unique blend of coffee in that they thrive in the spaces between the day to day business processes and yet with their access to virtually every department, have a better overview of the organization than most of the middle managers and in fact, likely a good part of the upper management. Technical writers are expert communicators when they write, this ability is enhanced further when they’re given the environment, the tools and the time to do so. Trouble is most companies don’t know what to do with you when you are their technical writer. They don’t know where to put you. They don’t know how to categorize you. This is all well and fine since it is exactly this sort of ether to operate in that you need for the ‘bringing to light’ of what a product means for the masses or bringing to light of how a product or service is supposed to be used by the masses or whoever it is you’re writing for. However, because of the difficulty of categorizing you or knowing what to do with you another difficulty presents itself at payday. It becomes the question of: “what is the right sort of reward for this unique ability to communicate so very well on paper?” What is fair? What is just?
No we’re not typists but hey, we type faster than most‘yer typists, yeah. We’re not secretaries or clerks, though we know the office procedures and business procedures, having written them, better than your secretaries and better than your clerks. No, we’re not middle managers, either. But we know more about how the department and how to run it because we listen to everyone every day tell us about how and why they do their jobs then we write that all down in procedures and processes manuals, listen to and propose changes as we see the big picture.
No we’re not Engineers who design things but we are intimately familiar with everything about the designs the engineers in your organization design and we saw it from concept to product in the same way your engineers did. But too we saw further than your engineers because where their purpose of designing something that works ends our purpose of asking whay it was designed for whom was it designed, how exactly doe it work for the customer and how does using one of these designs make things better and easier for the customer in life, begins.
Regress to progress
To be careful when writing is such a lofty thing to achieve for me. My writing process has always been a bit messy. I forget to go back and check essential things like whether all the words that should be there are actually there and whether some words are there that should no longer be there. These things I miss. I also miss little essentials like a comma here and a capital there, however I’m pretty good at ending sentences with a period at this point.
I’m still in Dubai. I’m forty and still haven’t done anything real with my life yet. That’s how I feel at least. I’m forty and I haven’t significantly contributed to anything in any sort of a lasting way in this world nor have I been innovative enough o have created something from nothing that contributes significantly to the progress of my generation or the ones after it. The closest I think I have come to innovation at this late point in my life is the very activity I am carrying out right now - stringing two and more words together on a line across my computer to CREATE. But if looked at closely, one could reveal the shallow secret of all writing in that writing borrows from all the great and minor compositions read previously.
I’m still in Dubai. I’m forty and still haven’t done anything real with my life yet. That’s how I feel at least. I’m forty and I haven’t significantly contributed to anything in any sort of a lasting way in this world nor have I been innovative enough o have created something from nothing that contributes significantly to the progress of my generation or the ones after it. The closest I think I have come to innovation at this late point in my life is the very activity I am carrying out right now - stringing two and more words together on a line across my computer to CREATE. But if looked at closely, one could reveal the shallow secret of all writing in that writing borrows from all the great and minor compositions read previously.
July 26, 2006
WW3?!
WW3? Really? From the acts of one militant crazy man? I find it hard to accept that Nasrallah will be the guy responsible for pulling us all down into the mire of the thing that ends our existence as a human race.
Sure he has a lot of charisma but have you seen his teeth up close? I mean completely yellow and black – like no one at any of his previous American institutions of learning took the time to explain to him the use of tooth brush.
Then there’s the question of his suitability as an authentic representative of Arab nationalism. He’s a Syrian. Syrian born people that I know are pretty nice as Arabs go. This guy though – look at him. Those glasses gotta go. He likes his turban tight (just like his young mullahs in waiting, we ask pointedly?) And the tightness of his turban, Homer-Simpsonizes his head, add a puffed out, black Mutawa, of course.
220 marines killed in Beruit by a suicide bomber from his Hezbollah gang in 1983. What an apprenticeship for the young Nasrallah.
Anyways, it’s a shame to think that this is the guy that will plunge us into WW3. What a way for us, as a race, to go, eh? Maybe he thinks he is himself the twelfth Imam – whatever the hell that means anyway. I just heard that one, today.
What do our dear friends in Persia see in this guy anyways? Dinkamabamabad even when I’m good ah’m a bad bad man…. He is a’building capacity and capability nuclear and otherwise, fer sure, man. The question is, what is HE planning against the great Satan, while his puppet rails agin the Yahudi, to blind us all to his strategic manoeuvrings, we have to wonder.
And poor, security-ensconced, Harari’s boy looks on, Powerless. Hezbollah, the cause of his fledgling government’s country devastation now through the facilitation of the same crazy gang’s man at the helm, Nasrallah that probably commissioned or at least knows about the commissioning of the offing of his dad two years back, poor soul. Did you see him, standing next to: fill in the: “his counterpart in country X” media slot? He’s whipped, completely. No way for him even with such a good Arab upbringing, to hide his vulnerable, beleaguered self on the TV.
Yet the nuns of Lebanon bring their calm, presiding hope to the parceled, piecemeal land, turn their charity now to these forced, stranger/neighbours in their midst; the wondering and wandering Hijabed women and children who finally took the HINT from all the little leaflets dropped and the loudspeaker warnings: “We will attack the Hezbollah strongholds in your village in a few hours. We advise you to evacuate. This is the Israeli army and yes, we are for real.” They got the hint alright, and got out in time. You might be tempted to muse that this sort of thing is exactly what it takes, I guess, for some stubborn people to finally make nice and get acquainted with the folks next door. And surprise surprise, even though they be “abhorred and to be regarded with suspicion”, Christians, these folks actually turn out to be really darn nice, eh! “Overwhelmed by the kindess shown….”, say the Hijabed Muslim women, household of little ones in tow, going there for shelter from the shelling of the “evil Yahoodi”.
Well pour warm milk and honey all over my gosh darned soul and roll me through white clouds of real and proper righteous living borne out of a natural personal response to the love shown by the resurrected saviour of the world, and then go right ahead and just nail me up side down to that cross-shaped tree over there, please! I’ll be humvee’d! Them Christian neighbours of ours are not only awfully nice folks, they’re also… bloody kind and generous!! Flabbergasting, isn’t it?
July 24, 2006
Well enough alone
Here it is another day and almost one o the clock. As for writing things today, Having fallen behind in the estimate of time to carry out to done, all my other work, I am now ready to plunge.
I plunge into the ocean of words fishing a few out for the consumption of the masses. Fried in adjectival butter, spiced with interjections and phrasal turns, hopefully not that predictable I speak merely of a fish fry of unexpected connections within the limits of the language. Corporate Jets. What of em these days? Personal business jets, the new generation of ultra fuel efficient very light jet aircraft. What of ‘em, then?
The revolution is in the Gas turbine engine and in the airframe weight reductions made possible by construction techniques like friction welding, and complete carbon fibre structures to yield a power to weight and power to fuel consumption ratio that has never been so good.
The boys and girls selling us this VLJ category are telling us that the VLJ’s they have in their stables are game changers, category smashers, and technology leapers all withstanding the urge to become at the same time budget exploders. Is it true? Shall we see a capped at one million dollar VLJ now, that by one pilot – even a private rated pilot – can fly up to 2500 kms at near sonic speed in comfort and with ease?
Doing so with very “sippy” economics? What if it is the case that purchase price easily rivals the venerable Beach King Air / Cessna Golden Eagle prices? Surely, turbine driving folks will show interest in making the move from propeller-driven, even if only from a wieldy corporate communications point of view, at the VL jet.
Unquestionabally the attractiveness is there for the corporate people for the 7 figure disposable income folks too. For the price of a Farrari Enzo you could be jetting around, Dubai - Heathrow, for example, actually drinking less jet A / per pound than your Enzo’d be drinking 98 octane per kilometer. Not that such comparisons do the average reader here any good. Most of us, writer included have little reason outside of yearning at slick machine sexiness, machismo, and boy with biggest toy, dreams to ever seriously sit down and crunch the budget numbers in any sort of a serious consideration towards a shared lessorship, let alone sole ownership of a little VLJ smooth and subtle beastie with winglets and a hand finish that speaks to the underlying game changing quality driven, weight conscious design and manufacturing process that conforms to the smooth lines of any of the pick one, game changers, category.
Much as I’d like the phrase: “I want one” to produce a miraculous bang and smoke clearing – on my front lawn, suddenly appearing within the wisp, a pearldrop of VLJ perfection, all for me - I know that “I want one” will remain an aviation fanatics dream yet to come true. And that’s just the thing about this crazy sector isn’t it? The more you confess your deep crazy love for for a lovely machine like the Gamechanging VLJ’s the less you seem to be able to afford the insurance on even the brass screws that hold in your redundant flight instruments let alone the dream of wanting one.
July 23, 2006
Effortless
Effortless. That’s how the transition should appear. Effortless, as in all one motion: the transformation of one to the next.
So what is then exactly I am touching the tip of here? Transitions are the target I suppose. How to make transitions smoothly, with dignity and grace. How to find the elusive combination of that which fulfills the needs accrued by simply living a life – a full life and of assuring a decent level of comfort in terms of earning power.
Here we go again, another piece on working for a living. How boring! Shouldn’t you better be writing about dreams and aspirations as you consider your actual time left on this planet?! Of course, it is true, I should be doing just that with glee. But instead I spend each day wondering about working for a living. Why? Because it deems itself so gosh darn necessary that to pass it by for a whim of I’m gonna throw away the planning, scheduling, waiting for the next interview in favour of a day of doing what I wanna…. Even ane hour of what I wanna, though seems now to be so difficult to manage. ‘Sides, if I do, the guilt of having been so selfish kicks me in the butt and I can’t even enjoy the hour taken! That, or duty calls within minutes reminding me of just how my wasted minutes of selfishness has just cost the dependants on me a fortune they don’t have and never did!
Sooooo. Here, now, with time to write is a bit of an odd and ‘adventuristic’ notion. An indulgence probably soon to be cut short anyways. But then what better to do with your indulgence than to delve and create within the minutes before the guilt consumes again.
Speaking then of the Huzb’Allah leader (That Huzbumuck/shmuck black towel too tight) known to most as Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, can you imagine a more strikingly pristine example of what it means to be a good Shiite these days? I mean for all your stocked kytushkas, (in the tourists-of-the-world-next-best-dest. when other dests. Are full up Southern “Les Banal”, n’ all), you go and offer yourself up. First as THE post Jamal Abul Nasser, post Saddam (Soddom), Arab nation unifier/hero, in regards bringing the final solution to the Palestinian problem and second, as macho-macho-macho, Jew-annihilator (supreme commander of the type), with added new-Arab-world flair.
Without regard to clock or consequence you begin with the Mullah’s (your own) blessing “from Allah” and the sincere belief that Huzbumuck with all its IRCG supplied kytushtas, and direct IRCG help to launch those too-fancy-for-an-ablutioned-terromullah’s hand, the C-802’s. You shout the fifty million dollar Syria/Iran shout of yet another fanatical Muslim Cleric with a big missile shaped penis that needs a deft cutting-off. Rocket t’ ya chest macho-macho-macho man. How many nation uniting heros does Arabia need? The only reason, habibe, that Arabia is ripe for hero worship is the autocratic, fanatic nature of the control mechanisim posing as peaceful religion Islam, that binds it, he says practo-philosophically.
Clever guy? Yeah. He a clever guy, awright. Clever guys lust for power and heroism too ya know. He’s also the leader of a movement called HuzBallah. The one that Israel will annihilate now, in the next few minutes – from a historical perspective. Israel knows how to defend its territory, of course. I am disgusted with BBC coverage and the UN and France, all of ‘em. Disproportionate response?! Descendants of the Ostrich!!! Nasrallah declared war on Israel. Now Israel must root out and destroy this element that never ceases to amaze with its audacity.
Israel withdrew from Gaza. And like Jason in Friday the thirteenth, the monster comes to life and strikes like a coward again from the rear. You give them the Gaza and they try to annihilate you! Sayed Hassan Nassrah will die a hero to a few people, yes. He will die. But before he dies, he will be captured by the ever efficient, ever present, Mossad, and have his big, missile-shaped penis cut off. No don’t worry, he won’t be soddomised after that by buff, young, muscular Israeli soldiers. Why not? Well, simply because he would take that sort of thing as a compliment and probably would enjoy it very much. The idea here is to torture and humiliate the leader of a terrorist org. Remember Al Quaidi’s hero Abu Musab Al Sarquawi and how he died? Far too quickly in my opin onion.
None the less, it’s quite a way to go to have a Missouri farm girl/marine’s boot to head while you struggle to get up from the ambulance stretcher, internal organs done in by surgical strike missile centerpiece instead of your regular byriani, eh? It is an interesting twist on the American hospitality that you and yours use and abuse all the time, eh? Woohoo!, and all that militia-style BS, eh? Abu Em got the shit kicked out of his guts by a girl soldier, til he died, ha ha. Where’s your CIA training, (gone wildly wrong), now, eh, JACKAL of Jordan? And so on.
Yup, in the same vein, Sayed ought to be sent back to his huzbumuck beloved “stronghold” naked, bleeding, penisless, in severe pain, with said appendage hung from his neck, below, a sign reading: “I am Sayed Hassan Nassrallah Arab hero and leader of huzbumuck. My penis is shaped like a big missile and I wish I never had heard the word Katyushka. Allah, prepare us all to die under the hand of the Yahudi that we continue to anger without provocation.” You useless piece of Irani/Surria puppet Shiite. Then, with a piece of rope strung around his ankle dragged back, beaten by olive tree saplings til he dies. his place is already marked out beside his brother Abu Musab. It’s a matter of time til the Israeli defenders of their nation against this outrageously foolish move by macho-missile-penis, root out and destroy the havoc-wreaking idiot and his fanatical black turbine wearing bum-buddy clerics. Who’s next please?
So what is then exactly I am touching the tip of here? Transitions are the target I suppose. How to make transitions smoothly, with dignity and grace. How to find the elusive combination of that which fulfills the needs accrued by simply living a life – a full life and of assuring a decent level of comfort in terms of earning power.
Here we go again, another piece on working for a living. How boring! Shouldn’t you better be writing about dreams and aspirations as you consider your actual time left on this planet?! Of course, it is true, I should be doing just that with glee. But instead I spend each day wondering about working for a living. Why? Because it deems itself so gosh darn necessary that to pass it by for a whim of I’m gonna throw away the planning, scheduling, waiting for the next interview in favour of a day of doing what I wanna…. Even ane hour of what I wanna, though seems now to be so difficult to manage. ‘Sides, if I do, the guilt of having been so selfish kicks me in the butt and I can’t even enjoy the hour taken! That, or duty calls within minutes reminding me of just how my wasted minutes of selfishness has just cost the dependants on me a fortune they don’t have and never did!
Sooooo. Here, now, with time to write is a bit of an odd and ‘adventuristic’ notion. An indulgence probably soon to be cut short anyways. But then what better to do with your indulgence than to delve and create within the minutes before the guilt consumes again.
Speaking then of the Huzb’Allah leader (That Huzbumuck/shmuck black towel too tight) known to most as Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, can you imagine a more strikingly pristine example of what it means to be a good Shiite these days? I mean for all your stocked kytushkas, (in the tourists-of-the-world-next-best-dest. when other dests. Are full up Southern “Les Banal”, n’ all), you go and offer yourself up. First as THE post Jamal Abul Nasser, post Saddam (Soddom), Arab nation unifier/hero, in regards bringing the final solution to the Palestinian problem and second, as macho-macho-macho, Jew-annihilator (supreme commander of the type), with added new-Arab-world flair.
Without regard to clock or consequence you begin with the Mullah’s (your own) blessing “from Allah” and the sincere belief that Huzbumuck with all its IRCG supplied kytushtas, and direct IRCG help to launch those too-fancy-for-an-ablutioned-terromullah’s hand, the C-802’s. You shout the fifty million dollar Syria/Iran shout of yet another fanatical Muslim Cleric with a big missile shaped penis that needs a deft cutting-off. Rocket t’ ya chest macho-macho-macho man. How many nation uniting heros does Arabia need? The only reason, habibe, that Arabia is ripe for hero worship is the autocratic, fanatic nature of the control mechanisim posing as peaceful religion Islam, that binds it, he says practo-philosophically.
Clever guy? Yeah. He a clever guy, awright. Clever guys lust for power and heroism too ya know. He’s also the leader of a movement called HuzBallah. The one that Israel will annihilate now, in the next few minutes – from a historical perspective. Israel knows how to defend its territory, of course. I am disgusted with BBC coverage and the UN and France, all of ‘em. Disproportionate response?! Descendants of the Ostrich!!! Nasrallah declared war on Israel. Now Israel must root out and destroy this element that never ceases to amaze with its audacity.
Israel withdrew from Gaza. And like Jason in Friday the thirteenth, the monster comes to life and strikes like a coward again from the rear. You give them the Gaza and they try to annihilate you! Sayed Hassan Nassrah will die a hero to a few people, yes. He will die. But before he dies, he will be captured by the ever efficient, ever present, Mossad, and have his big, missile-shaped penis cut off. No don’t worry, he won’t be soddomised after that by buff, young, muscular Israeli soldiers. Why not? Well, simply because he would take that sort of thing as a compliment and probably would enjoy it very much. The idea here is to torture and humiliate the leader of a terrorist org. Remember Al Quaidi’s hero Abu Musab Al Sarquawi and how he died? Far too quickly in my opin onion.
None the less, it’s quite a way to go to have a Missouri farm girl/marine’s boot to head while you struggle to get up from the ambulance stretcher, internal organs done in by surgical strike missile centerpiece instead of your regular byriani, eh? It is an interesting twist on the American hospitality that you and yours use and abuse all the time, eh? Woohoo!, and all that militia-style BS, eh? Abu Em got the shit kicked out of his guts by a girl soldier, til he died, ha ha. Where’s your CIA training, (gone wildly wrong), now, eh, JACKAL of Jordan? And so on.
Yup, in the same vein, Sayed ought to be sent back to his huzbumuck beloved “stronghold” naked, bleeding, penisless, in severe pain, with said appendage hung from his neck, below, a sign reading: “I am Sayed Hassan Nassrallah Arab hero and leader of huzbumuck. My penis is shaped like a big missile and I wish I never had heard the word Katyushka. Allah, prepare us all to die under the hand of the Yahudi that we continue to anger without provocation.” You useless piece of Irani/Surria puppet Shiite. Then, with a piece of rope strung around his ankle dragged back, beaten by olive tree saplings til he dies. his place is already marked out beside his brother Abu Musab. It’s a matter of time til the Israeli defenders of their nation against this outrageously foolish move by macho-missile-penis, root out and destroy the havoc-wreaking idiot and his fanatical black turbine wearing bum-buddy clerics. Who’s next please?
July 12, 2006
Intended Ascension
Here and now the day is filled with a shift into neutral. ‘Coast’ is the order and word of the day. Students have all but gone. Mental gymnastics need to be employed in order to stave off the ‘shamal’ of boredom that whistles through the emptiness of a well-staffed, empty institute of learning. Without students present, and with such a wind blowing full knot wise, the mood is - wait and see - what happens next.
Last year was different as there was at least a drummed up, semi-legit target to shoot towards; progress yourselves towards the completion of a final version of a new curriculum in this subject that fascinates ever. This year, that collective motivation towards a target, any target no longer exists. Sheikh ordered restructuring looms dark grey overhead and pervades and dictates every little move collectively and individually from here on in, seems. And so individual mental gymnastics needs become the centering ‘will-producer’ in this present game of keeping a professional modicum of actualities in deliverables vs. fantasies in the realms of dream jobs, that is, the ultimate look-busy-do-nothing position.
With no target and but at least notification of when is my actual end date, finally, in terms of future prospects what else is there to do but F the D? I suppose I could act the part, show initiative, drum up a project to complete make work for myself and perhaps those around with less dose of cynicism flowing through their veins at this time. No. Better not to stick my neck out and show to the boys in uniform the depth to which the blankness of nothin’ doin’ does go. Besides, there are many facets of ‘drift’ through these dole-drums yet to navigate, appreciate, and mull.
For example, ____________________________________________________ ....
So then instead my language of keyboard to screen transmission of thought occurs with single-minded innovation of word. Why? The alternative is numbness of mind and encroachment of lackadaisical languishing, the hour of closing too eagerly anticipated. Enjoy then, and therefore the moments of seeming nothingness passing. Plan nothing less than your future, man.
There is something sinisterly soothing about being in the hands of the notice givers who have to this point over-looked me in this regard. Yet I am sure as the 200 odd that have already had their fates sealed that there is definite reason for my no-less-than paranoiac, under girding belief of serene finality even in the passing moments of waiting for the seemingly imminently inevitable.
What company culture, I ask you politely, is employed in a restructuring of a desert base? This remains a mystery to me. Buildings of purpose close their doors around us and yet this building, this one here, with its unique equipment and stock of severely smart personnel remains quite normally open. As if it believed itself to be self-sustainable to the next century or millennium if we as a race make it that far.
How does one focus on skills and experience that are supposed to ensure a certain level of earning power at the end of one stint while steadily yet rote-wise, still reeling, in the midst of seeking another stint? With family depending on you and waiting for the solid shift to the next higher plane or at least a plane of an equivalent combination of package, responsibility, and veritable assess ability. Suddenly there are bigger things to consider, wider loads to manoeuvre through your docking gates of life.
Perhaps these days, poetry, prose, and art are really the more lucrative option. Perhaps now, in the game of thought process prowess display, the creation of highly saleable quoth he’s and ingenious copy-writable groupings of whence forth and henceforth never grouped in such manner, such words, should surely be as well or better compensated than the engineered language of emerging and long since emerged technology should it not?
Wed July 12, 2006
And here the end of another comes nigh. The week was a goodie. Flew. Really. Why? Because of discovery of, realisation of, motivation. On Saturday I got my notice by Wednesday I had pocketed not only 3150 dhs (approx) from this Boss-forsaken zone but as well an extra 1020 from the moonlighter special. And the moonlighter special Boss also went hisself overboard and offered me a full time gig. Imagine the deep feeling of satisfaction that had then and there welled up in this writer’s soul…. Unfortunately, the moonlighters special become full time gig at most will bring 11000. Not enough to keep a full set of disposable diapers on the young’n nor not near enough to take care of learnin’ the older one.
In the mean time, no serious searching yet on my part though for those types of positions that quell the thirst for the explication of roaring birds as it were. What? Never heard of them before? Yes, they are fascinating and huge and roar. That’s all I’m saying.
Head in books for two years, refresher on the subject at hand, the opportunity to read full on a curriculum filled with the stuff of actually catching a break; a leg up, finally.
What are we talking here? We’re talking a real industry job is what we’re talking here. A potentially large enough package to make it worth’s one’s while to don the "covies" again and get in on the hangar floor action again.
Hell-dwelling snakes posing as soops of this and that thing they don’t have a f’ing clue about, it’s both comforting and disconcerting at the same time, to converse with men 15, 20 years your senior and be able to understand very quickly on, that you, my man, know at least twice as much as they do about TECHNICALLY how it should all come together.
However let not their poseur filth bother your intended ascension my dear one. Chronic fibbers too can be used as stepping stones. Continue on then. Say exactly what you think still, loudly. Express exactly how you feel when confronted by widespread ignorance, lack of technical knowledge, secrecy and brown politicking.
July 07, 2006
Setting the scene
From one mind beguilingly beautiful African Manor Estate to another, Byro’s family moved to Banso. Built into a hillside, as well with a long drive up to it the yard was big the car port drenched in Bougainvillea. The grass was yards grass was green and made a flat bottomed bowl, hedged by an evergreen hedge and overlooking the town of Nso, it was in this bowl in which Byro and his brothers fine tuned all their mischevious boy-adventures.
Ramp for with to jump the Mini bike, all of them evil keneevils in making.
Learning to driving the kuble (umlaut) wagen, popping clutches and lurching around.
Dad raising his ever patient voice a notch er two
It was a paradise cleared from a surrounding green forest. The forest in and of itself was an adventure: "to all who dared enter". Byro and his brothers did time after time.
Underground Fort in forest
Sally the pig raising
Riding bikes down treacherous mountain forest paths
Life in the Tree house in the forest behind
Careening down through long needle pine evergreen trunks, narrowly missing, pushed by brothers on a cool Dad-built wagon/soap-box cart, rugged machine of joy and five brothers delight.
And the house. Oh the house. Front wall of glass, peaked open roof, Iroko wood doors, spiral flint stone stair case, balcony above, carport below. Flower garden beside and in the center of that flint stone spiral staircase a bed too of flowers. Byro’s mom loved flowers. And sweeping slopes either side up around to the rear – a stone fire place / water heater. A backyard squared-in by short 2 foot flint stone wall which kept the rear forest as well at bay. And in the storage shed in that same backyard, of zink built, rough iroko beams, shallow concrete/flint stone foundations and chicken wire walls, lived the family pig….
Ramp for with to jump the Mini bike, all of them evil keneevils in making.
Learning to driving the kuble (umlaut) wagen, popping clutches and lurching around.
Dad raising his ever patient voice a notch er two
It was a paradise cleared from a surrounding green forest. The forest in and of itself was an adventure: "to all who dared enter". Byro and his brothers did time after time.
Underground Fort in forest
Sally the pig raising
Riding bikes down treacherous mountain forest paths
Life in the Tree house in the forest behind
Careening down through long needle pine evergreen trunks, narrowly missing, pushed by brothers on a cool Dad-built wagon/soap-box cart, rugged machine of joy and five brothers delight.
And the house. Oh the house. Front wall of glass, peaked open roof, Iroko wood doors, spiral flint stone stair case, balcony above, carport below. Flower garden beside and in the center of that flint stone spiral staircase a bed too of flowers. Byro’s mom loved flowers. And sweeping slopes either side up around to the rear – a stone fire place / water heater. A backyard squared-in by short 2 foot flint stone wall which kept the rear forest as well at bay. And in the storage shed in that same backyard, of zink built, rough iroko beams, shallow concrete/flint stone foundations and chicken wire walls, lived the family pig….
July 05, 2006
Al cHair in'sh'Allah (By Morning, If God Wills...)
Hope is that elusive ingredient that makes a story good. Change in it self, gives us hope. When we read a good story, we hope things will turn out good in the end. We give ourselves much license to accomodate the buildup of anticipation of our hope fulfilled. Yes hope is what makes a story good however, I think often that Byro’s life; all the things pertaining to Byro’s life, as stories go, would make a fairly bad story for there is no hope in it. No hope, that is, of ever being told exactly as he thinks it ought to be told by him to a willing audience. And yet the hope exists that one day Byro will get over his fear of getting it wrong or telling it badly. Where the hope for Byro does lie too, in this untold as yet story is in this: that He will be, soon, finally able get things right. After that, the Byromaniac’s hope lies in actually beginning that all too familiar, rigorous, process of committing that right writ to paper - to write the story that needs should be wrote. Also there exists a hope that the right writ will not point its gleeful fingers at Byro himself the author. there exists a hope that the right writ will not point gleeful fingers at his life as reported in the third person singular, as if the hope-filled story is readying itself from the start to shift blame for the inevitable unrighteousness, gaps in reason for the sake of poetry, and similarities that don’t or ought not to bear any resemblance to real persons therein.
The hope that drives Byro forward to eventually write this story right is the hope that the expose’ doesn’t expose too much. Yet too, that enough will be exposed so as to be believed as a good story, accepted; it’s main character(s) identified-with, redeemed by and forgiven of and loved by and liked by, even, readers wide. For what is the point really of writing an "everyman" to a narrow readership? In the spirit of the "everyman" then, the story is not about Byro, as some who imagine, having done their thorough research into the author’s life and times. Rather what follows is the story of an everyman. It is a story correctly writ enough to be filled with the kind of hope that we are stayed for. It’s the story Byro’s supposed to write after finally getting many things right. Though by the profit margin dictated by the publishing schedule, still there remain the many almost right passages not only to be written from this day forth but also that could be a bit better in the next draft. In the mean time the beginning of Byro’s story is here published just so, for now. And so it begins, the story rightly writ, by Byromaniac.
Once upon a time there was a boy named Byromaniac who was born in the middle of the night, during a right nasty, ill –timed, Taurus in the sky Canadian blizzard, in the civilized-enough Canadian city of Edmonton. The doctor smacked his bottom and a black Bic pen fell from the heavens into one of the Byromaniac’s little hands to match the color of his thick wild black crew-do and into the other fell a little golden eaglet. Edmonton is a city of a million, planted smack dab in the middle of the largest wheat producing field in the world – the Alberta prairie. The Byromaniac was born surrounded by wheat and people saying "eh" a lot. For exactly three months, the first three months of his life. Then just as whisk is an onomatopoeic term connoting, denoting, downright meaning briskly changed from one state into a foamy ‘nother, his byromaniness was whisked off to Africa by blessed Parents with the compulsion and the churches backing offering a tangible vs intangible mission of healing to Africans and to do the many interesting things in Africa that make deep lifelong impacts on those family members along for the adventure that inevitably accompanies such, in the very vien of that ancient tradition that harkens to mission and the call of almighty God. This, rather than work three decades, retire, get a work-gift, and handshake.
A mind-bogglingly beautiful manor estate facing the west is built onto a bulldozed Plateau, near the top of one of Mbingo, Cameroon, West Africa’s many gigantic hillsides was Byro’s home for the first year of his life. Byro, mom and dad, Byro’s brothers, a dog, and a monkey lived here in a perpetual state of bliss me slowly, bliss me quick for a whole year in our African manor. It is of course all a fog for our young man Byro but in the telling of it, yet another hope in this yet to be told tale is that the reader can imagine and perhaps begin right here and now to appreciate with some degree clarity, the wonder of African manor living and the profound effect it would have on a toddler of one….
As inspriration kicks me gutwise so will I write further.
June 05, 2006
Lion Clown, Enlightened
To write is to write; when practised is better then, written well. What to write content looms and page is yet blank content looms as if the dyke stopper cannot be pulled for wont of a good enough reason to allow the flattening destruction of a dam bursting.
But then a light, a sign, is glimpsed. A glimmer flashes, visible. The distance is brought near, and the Lion lies down with sheep, so to speak. The wolf in sheeps clothing is revealed, though, in his stead, some might even say luckily. If they knew what it means…. If they experienced tha angst of being in amongst sheep posing as one and yet being fully wolf, oh! Yes Oh! The sheepanity of it all. The stress of staying under all that wool while knowing full well that by the by, I am WOLF. No wonder the pacified lion is the preferred intruder. He don’t even have to hide, man!
And so he lies down. The lion, the clown, the knight, he lies down. One Lion of a Clown he is, yes sir. And the end thereof is to whit the end, no more, no less. Nonetheless he survives the blight. He survives, and WINS the fight. Who’d a thunkit! He had all the might with which to dance and punch and prance and sting without the slight – est bite. Whipping like a kyte his eyes darting forth and back but not in fright; NO! In rhythm, rather, to the time of a man’s sprung bok, back-bobbing big head, rolled this way and that by hard and fast fists of flight and may I remind you: his name was Knight. Flying, flaying fists-a-bangin’. What a name his, that Knight! Word spread of his fists that fly like kytes. Word spread too that this knight could not, would go down to sleep without his precious wall-mounted night light. And sniggers of childish admiration lifted him and his glorious name and deeds to vast heights, forgiving him his night light blight.
But he supposed ta be a PACIFIED lion. What he doin’ with all them fists-a-flying. Off the cuff one might smartly remark that it someone must have tweaked him in the nose. Someone must have pulled the dyke stopper. The ones in the know, know what happened to the Lion Clown who lied down. Lets go ask them shall we? But before we go there’s some things for to you I must show. First of course that the way to the truth of the lying down lion clown is one of treacherous and steep slope. Then through the desert surrounding Dubai, this way, that way passing Bedouin Khaimahs billowing Shisha and Arabic lore… Then, in the distance LOOMING half covered in desert sand, the feet of an IDOL, a brought-down warrior and a plaque on the feets pedestal reading thus: “"My name is Bullooshimandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away, (with apologies to P. B. Shelley). Ready for your future Dr. Who?
June 01, 2006
New-world Monkey God, Hanuman of the Macaca Munzala
Fangs bared, the monkey gained on him with the effortless muscular coordination of a natural predator. In the quiet before sunrise, the sounds of the chase were weirdly amplified by the painted cement stairs: the panicked slap-slap of Buddy's bare soles, the monkey pushing off with his hand-like feet, the macho rippling of those simian gluteals. "Run!" I shrieked, unable to stifle my laughter. It would have looked less funny had Buddy's pursuer been a cheetah or a ferocious hippo, but even in the moment, there was something great about that monkey's indignation. Boy, you think you're evolved just because you're wearing pants? I'll show you who's the boss around here! Buddy leapt the final three stairs, thudding flat-footed to the roof. For some reason, the monkey drew up short. He probably reckoned it was beneath him to polish off such unworthy opponents.
Nonetheless, victory goes to Hanuman, Who is the ocean of knowledge and qualities, Who is the Leader of the monkeys, Who is resplendent in the three worlds, Who was the messenger of Rama, Who is the abode of immense strength, Who is the son of Anjani, and Who is known as Pavanasuta (son of the wind).
April 14, 2006
some dubai links
People's impressions of this place vary and the ones I've selected here below are ones that I think give a very objective and accurate view of Dubai
http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/
http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/2002/12/guide-to-uae-blogs.html
http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/
April 12, 2006
The Desert Yields
Around Dubai there is a desert, with camels, real dunes, shamals (dust storms), Nocturnal desert critters – desert foxes, black and white scorpions, and intense heat in the day, this is fact. But to find it takes effort and ever more a bit of a drive because Dubai, expands its limits at a meters per week rate.
Now, a new freehold property law (similar to but completely different from the Hong Kong of past decades, where permanent ownership of land in designated freehold areas is guaranteed, not only for a ninety-nine year lease) has been decreed and signed by Sheikh Kalifa, and investor confidence of course builds.
Some examples of Dubai's expansion:
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/index.asp
http://www.dubaisportscity.ae/
http://www.falconcity.com/projectdetails.html
http://www.dubailand.ae/
http://www.dubai-marina.com/
http://www.dre.ae/dubai-real-estate-projects-business-bay.html
http://realestate.theemiratesnetwork.com/developments/dubai/palm_islands.php
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/gazelle/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/alvorada/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/al_mahra/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/Hattan/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/mirador/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/palmera/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/saheel/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/savannah/Index.asp
http://www.emaar.ae/Developments/ArabianRanches/terra_nova/Index.asp
http://www.difc.ae/
http://www.dubaiinternetcity.com/
http://www.dhcc.ae/en/Default.aspx
http://www.jbr.ae/
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/uae/dubai/internationalcity.a
http://www.globalvillage.ae/
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/dubaimarina.asp
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/discoverygardens.asp
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/dubaipearl.asp
http://www.gowealthy.com/realestate/discoverygardens.asp
http://www.kv.ae/en/
http://www.dubailocation.com/
April 10, 2006
Contact!
Do you have a dime for every one that you can remember as a contact? I don’t but the closer I come to… to “the end of the day”, (every day) the more I mull over the matter that I don’t, but should have that prolific a list of ‘em. Why? Quite simply, mine freund, ze answer ist blovink in ze vind. CEO’s, VP’s, HR managers, direct soops, rejoice. Your miracle employee, your super modest woe-slayer is on the scene bro.
A prolific contact list alone doth not a grounded mareer coove make, does it now. Flit, float, fly, flam, flim, FLEM! The wasta that you want, you can’t quite get. Not for wont but want.
Lie back, let the cold winter waves wash up on ya and think of all the lovely trophy girls you’ve had in mind while posing at being loved ‘afore:
Marylyn, Loni, Crystal, Misty, Debbie, Sharon, Trisha, Tanya, Tawny, Tammy and who can forget the twins; ahde Begu & Eva Walkawalka– we had some good times, but would I call them contacts now?
See what I mean? The idea that momentary interactions necessarily induce a long-term suitability in terms of future contact cannot be relied apon as the norm. It would seem that we are left to chance, the luck of the draw. Chaos rules. There is no centring force no more. We are the hammer that’s been thrown.
We are the ones that have been released from the centrifugal force’s predictable circuit. We are the ones with which the hammer’s landing place must contend. Far flung and seemingly free to fly but in a trajectory determined.
There’s one thing left for us as flung hammers left to do to change our trajectory is to break apart in the air. That would affect our flight. That would change outcomes desired. There’s also outside influences to be relied upon here.
For example, suppose a child in the wings innocently tosses a large pebble into the air in what happens to be the direct path of the flung hammer that is us. We cannot but be knocked off our hoped for trajectory yes? It is the choice of the boy to toss the pebble at that time. It is the force of something greater than the hammer thrower, the hammer, the boy, the air we freely fly through now, even the eventual hammer landing place, that causes that arching, sacrificial pebble to hit the us that is the flung(ged) hammer. What are we to call that force that we cannot but feel the effects of? If it be called chance than by all means, hit me with the forces of chance again and again please and watch the flung me change happily my direction, once, twice, the thousandth time, I don’t mind a change in direction. I am a flung hammer, flying. Adventurer, I, would THIS, ruther than the oft-repeated, dull, predictable, precise, and predetermined flinging out of orbit, by a centrifugal force that’s with shouting, let go of the line that held this hammer, as yet unflung, and orbiting still, suddenly, attempting records.
Okay, FLINGER. You de' one left standing on the ground, ninkompoop. And I fly. What's new?
What’s next?
A prolific contact list alone doth not a grounded mareer coove make, does it now. Flit, float, fly, flam, flim, FLEM! The wasta that you want, you can’t quite get. Not for wont but want.
Lie back, let the cold winter waves wash up on ya and think of all the lovely trophy girls you’ve had in mind while posing at being loved ‘afore:
Marylyn, Loni, Crystal, Misty, Debbie, Sharon, Trisha, Tanya, Tawny, Tammy and who can forget the twins; ahde Begu & Eva Walkawalka– we had some good times, but would I call them contacts now?
See what I mean? The idea that momentary interactions necessarily induce a long-term suitability in terms of future contact cannot be relied apon as the norm. It would seem that we are left to chance, the luck of the draw. Chaos rules. There is no centring force no more. We are the hammer that’s been thrown.
We are the ones that have been released from the centrifugal force’s predictable circuit. We are the ones with which the hammer’s landing place must contend. Far flung and seemingly free to fly but in a trajectory determined.
There’s one thing left for us as flung hammers left to do to change our trajectory is to break apart in the air. That would affect our flight. That would change outcomes desired. There’s also outside influences to be relied upon here.
For example, suppose a child in the wings innocently tosses a large pebble into the air in what happens to be the direct path of the flung hammer that is us. We cannot but be knocked off our hoped for trajectory yes? It is the choice of the boy to toss the pebble at that time. It is the force of something greater than the hammer thrower, the hammer, the boy, the air we freely fly through now, even the eventual hammer landing place, that causes that arching, sacrificial pebble to hit the us that is the flung(ged) hammer. What are we to call that force that we cannot but feel the effects of? If it be called chance than by all means, hit me with the forces of chance again and again please and watch the flung me change happily my direction, once, twice, the thousandth time, I don’t mind a change in direction. I am a flung hammer, flying. Adventurer, I, would THIS, ruther than the oft-repeated, dull, predictable, precise, and predetermined flinging out of orbit, by a centrifugal force that’s with shouting, let go of the line that held this hammer, as yet unflung, and orbiting still, suddenly, attempting records.
Okay, FLINGER. You de' one left standing on the ground, ninkompoop. And I fly. What's new?
What’s next?
April 08, 2006
Subcontinent gunning to put the first Indian on MARS!
Project Dubai
Dubai is one of those places in the world where you can escape from at any time but at any time is no time ever that you can find it again.
Ach yah: Dubai. Sprinkling of white-distached and Ghuttra’d Arabs, a custom built lambo Murcielano, a Ferrari Enzo or two – one red, the other one – RED of course. New cars, Indian faces by the trillians, British faces by the millions, modern viceroys galore. Petrodollars may have driven this econ dev 100 % to its present state but it ain’t necessarily a petrodollar that fuels the growth of growth and progress of profgress from ‘ere on in. Diversification is the order of the day and the 10 percent richest of the rich fling and grab, African-country-sized-GDP portions into and out of the fledging UAE exchange with just the sort of regularity you would attribute to emerging growth fledgling exchanges wherein the majority of stocks are held by a minority rich elite. Havoc thrivers.
Faces of Americans, Canadians, South Americans, Europeans of every kin & Klan dot the miasma. Faces of lesser Arab nations lend their olive hue to the grand canvas. Chinese, Nepalese, Vietnamese, Malaysian and all the more East Asian Faces meld with “-istan faces, too many to name or list, but certainly, mostly, bearded.
Mother Russia’s default spills its steppe-dweller citizens, the ones with the means, the ones embracing the sound philosophy of business-driven, profit-driven economies run by merit-driven “-tocracies” into this area with a steady and increasing optimism.
Even deepest darkest South Africa pushes out of its nest its only fair-haired ones left. “Fly!!!” they’re commanded. And they do, being distantly Dutch and white and not afraid of hard work and not averse to success built in tough environments they fly and find their flock ever more firmly intrenched in this metropolitan metropolis of Dubai. The sensual Persians have their cake and eat it too here in Dubai. The flowing river of Farsi and its accompanying wealth finds a wide delta here.
This is Dubai. It’s being built, very very fast. And still, like its main beach road project – the Jumaira beach road project, it seems Project Dubai will never be finished.
Ach yah: Dubai. Sprinkling of white-distached and Ghuttra’d Arabs, a custom built lambo Murcielano, a Ferrari Enzo or two – one red, the other one – RED of course. New cars, Indian faces by the trillians, British faces by the millions, modern viceroys galore. Petrodollars may have driven this econ dev 100 % to its present state but it ain’t necessarily a petrodollar that fuels the growth of growth and progress of profgress from ‘ere on in. Diversification is the order of the day and the 10 percent richest of the rich fling and grab, African-country-sized-GDP portions into and out of the fledging UAE exchange with just the sort of regularity you would attribute to emerging growth fledgling exchanges wherein the majority of stocks are held by a minority rich elite. Havoc thrivers.
Faces of Americans, Canadians, South Americans, Europeans of every kin & Klan dot the miasma. Faces of lesser Arab nations lend their olive hue to the grand canvas. Chinese, Nepalese, Vietnamese, Malaysian and all the more East Asian Faces meld with “-istan faces, too many to name or list, but certainly, mostly, bearded.
Mother Russia’s default spills its steppe-dweller citizens, the ones with the means, the ones embracing the sound philosophy of business-driven, profit-driven economies run by merit-driven “-tocracies” into this area with a steady and increasing optimism.
Even deepest darkest South Africa pushes out of its nest its only fair-haired ones left. “Fly!!!” they’re commanded. And they do, being distantly Dutch and white and not afraid of hard work and not averse to success built in tough environments they fly and find their flock ever more firmly intrenched in this metropolitan metropolis of Dubai. The sensual Persians have their cake and eat it too here in Dubai. The flowing river of Farsi and its accompanying wealth finds a wide delta here.
This is Dubai. It’s being built, very very fast. And still, like its main beach road project – the Jumaira beach road project, it seems Project Dubai will never be finished.
April 05, 2006
NOTE TO SELF – GROW UP!
(more & more, yet here, oh hero Byro? Chained clown, idiot/savante & illiterary genius of the age that is ours and never was, for this brief moment and always, that thou art made out to actually be...?)
Teacher – I love you!
Wha’? Back OFF! Mojo's mud.
Comes a time in a man’s life to realize that it is not dad that is obligated to warn him that the way he takes in life, if it is to be a meaningful journey, is treacherous. Comes a time too in a man’s life to realize the boss may very well NOT have the epiphany holder’s best interest at heart.
Dad is not obligated to tell you all the fine lines you must cross and the ones you had better not cross until your damned well ready to fight. When being a hero to most and completely undesirable to the few that have the power to flick you off their high-powered noses in an augen blik whim, means that you cannot continue to bend like a young tree acquiescing whither the four winds do blow, no. Niether dad nor mom is obligated to tell you, you may not be well liked AT ALL when you open your mouth and out come tumbling, intensity of purpose, focussed precision, and building blocks of new creation in the pragmatic prose of life and in the hell-bent romantic poetry of existance, flowing, shape-shifting, symmetry & dissymmetry, pure and pure filth, annoying hypocrisy, annoying righteousness. That you may not be well liked when you lift your right arm high to lead the bloody charge and effortlessly wield the sword of your clan circuitously above your head then point its point straight ahead, with wide-mouthed shouts of sure victory. You wield it comfortably as if it were the extension of your right arm, your right side, your right heart, in fact. People may not like you at all when they find they’re suddenly face to face with he that holds the sword, you, and that by your hand they will vanish, flayed mercilessly through and through tissue and spine alike until decimated. Yes, DES – CI – MAT – ED is what I said.
Dad is not even obligated to tell you, dear Bryo about the enemies that exist and the ones that appear to exist during all the inappropriate times you’d care to manage in any particular moment.
Dad’s obligation is actually his choice only really, to yea or nay as he sees fit. And, if yea then it is to pray, the Lord your soul to keep, while you alone face and fight the enemies that may be related but are surely different, if by time’s partition only, from the enemies that his dad was not obligated to tell him about since effectiveness against enemies is best borne out, as all quest custodians understand, in a journey of self-discovery, in the process of finding them out for oneself in one’s life - alone, in studying them - alone, in knowing them when facing them - alone, in anticipating them – alone, and in the noonday showdown sun. Descimating done, what else better to do with an enemy but write for them a love poem as the good Mr Katrovas has so succinctly writ for his below:
LOVE POEM FOR AN ENEMY
I, as sinned against as sinning,
take small pleasure from the winning
of our decades-long guerrilla war.
For from my job Ive wanted more
than victory over one whod tried
to punish me before he died,
and now, neither of us dead,
we haunt these halls in constant dread
of drifting past the others life
while long-term memory is rife
with slights that sting like paper cuts.
Weve occupied our separate ruts
yet simmered in a single rage.
Weve grown absurd in middle age
together, and should seek wisdom now
together, by ending this row.
I therefore decommission you
as constant flagship of my rue.
Below the threshold of my hate
you now my good regard may rate.
For I have let my anger pass.
But, while youre down there, kiss my ass.
Richard Katrovas
Comes a time in a man’s life to realize that to nurture and keep alive for yet one more hour of this beautiful day that is ours for now, the good things in his life, the peace-bringing things, the beautiful things too - end up being the things that he has to fight hardest against things for, larges forces, others’ and his own many, many, many, many vices. And what a fight he must put up too, so subtle, so smooth, so exacting, that the outcome is decimation of the spoiler forces, the spoiler life-leeches that attach and suck the living chance right out of you, man, “thereunto” in legalese, let’s say – just for fun, spoiling you.
As time flies by, blights become harder to scrub out. Blunders become harder to recover from. On the other hand what’s a blunder but a recovery in the making? For if in the blunder one can not recover, your call to arms is defeat before you risk a blow even. So I say blunder on byro!!! Blunder on, ‘til you learn the art and science of it. The art and science of it and learn enough of it. That is, enough of what it takes as you observe and absorb every day, my dear Byro, to ever soooo subtly initiate then egg on til "completion" the ever soooo subtly anticipated blunder of a clolleague forward slash enemy - you know what I'm talkin' of yes?.
And, I struggle continually to find and actually read instead of skim an ever more appropriate stack o' books layin' around to ground the soundness of my latest philos on.
When the cockroach roller derby begins, it’s a pretty good idea to have your Sunday-best, big squashing shoes already, mate. Go for the overtly jealous-looking ones first and y'all should be alright.
Teacher – I love you!
Wha’? Back OFF! Mojo's mud.
Comes a time in a man’s life to realize that it is not dad that is obligated to warn him that the way he takes in life, if it is to be a meaningful journey, is treacherous. Comes a time too in a man’s life to realize the boss may very well NOT have the epiphany holder’s best interest at heart.
Dad is not obligated to tell you all the fine lines you must cross and the ones you had better not cross until your damned well ready to fight. When being a hero to most and completely undesirable to the few that have the power to flick you off their high-powered noses in an augen blik whim, means that you cannot continue to bend like a young tree acquiescing whither the four winds do blow, no. Niether dad nor mom is obligated to tell you, you may not be well liked AT ALL when you open your mouth and out come tumbling, intensity of purpose, focussed precision, and building blocks of new creation in the pragmatic prose of life and in the hell-bent romantic poetry of existance, flowing, shape-shifting, symmetry & dissymmetry, pure and pure filth, annoying hypocrisy, annoying righteousness. That you may not be well liked when you lift your right arm high to lead the bloody charge and effortlessly wield the sword of your clan circuitously above your head then point its point straight ahead, with wide-mouthed shouts of sure victory. You wield it comfortably as if it were the extension of your right arm, your right side, your right heart, in fact. People may not like you at all when they find they’re suddenly face to face with he that holds the sword, you, and that by your hand they will vanish, flayed mercilessly through and through tissue and spine alike until decimated. Yes, DES – CI – MAT – ED is what I said.
Dad is not even obligated to tell you, dear Bryo about the enemies that exist and the ones that appear to exist during all the inappropriate times you’d care to manage in any particular moment.
Dad’s obligation is actually his choice only really, to yea or nay as he sees fit. And, if yea then it is to pray, the Lord your soul to keep, while you alone face and fight the enemies that may be related but are surely different, if by time’s partition only, from the enemies that his dad was not obligated to tell him about since effectiveness against enemies is best borne out, as all quest custodians understand, in a journey of self-discovery, in the process of finding them out for oneself in one’s life - alone, in studying them - alone, in knowing them when facing them - alone, in anticipating them – alone, and in the noonday showdown sun. Descimating done, what else better to do with an enemy but write for them a love poem as the good Mr Katrovas has so succinctly writ for his below:
LOVE POEM FOR AN ENEMY
I, as sinned against as sinning,
take small pleasure from the winning
of our decades-long guerrilla war.
For from my job Ive wanted more
than victory over one whod tried
to punish me before he died,
and now, neither of us dead,
we haunt these halls in constant dread
of drifting past the others life
while long-term memory is rife
with slights that sting like paper cuts.
Weve occupied our separate ruts
yet simmered in a single rage.
Weve grown absurd in middle age
together, and should seek wisdom now
together, by ending this row.
I therefore decommission you
as constant flagship of my rue.
Below the threshold of my hate
you now my good regard may rate.
For I have let my anger pass.
But, while youre down there, kiss my ass.
Richard Katrovas
Comes a time in a man’s life to realize that to nurture and keep alive for yet one more hour of this beautiful day that is ours for now, the good things in his life, the peace-bringing things, the beautiful things too - end up being the things that he has to fight hardest against things for, larges forces, others’ and his own many, many, many, many vices. And what a fight he must put up too, so subtle, so smooth, so exacting, that the outcome is decimation of the spoiler forces, the spoiler life-leeches that attach and suck the living chance right out of you, man, “thereunto” in legalese, let’s say – just for fun, spoiling you.
As time flies by, blights become harder to scrub out. Blunders become harder to recover from. On the other hand what’s a blunder but a recovery in the making? For if in the blunder one can not recover, your call to arms is defeat before you risk a blow even. So I say blunder on byro!!! Blunder on, ‘til you learn the art and science of it. The art and science of it and learn enough of it. That is, enough of what it takes as you observe and absorb every day, my dear Byro, to ever soooo subtly initiate then egg on til "completion" the ever soooo subtly anticipated blunder of a clolleague forward slash enemy - you know what I'm talkin' of yes?.
And, I struggle continually to find and actually read instead of skim an ever more appropriate stack o' books layin' around to ground the soundness of my latest philos on.
When the cockroach roller derby begins, it’s a pretty good idea to have your Sunday-best, big squashing shoes already, mate. Go for the overtly jealous-looking ones first and y'all should be alright.
February 14, 2006
Yo! Mojo u da bomb, dude!
As the uproar over Danish Newspaper comic sections continues, Byromaniac jumps in here for a chance at scything things apart with just the sort of sarcastic wit that seems called for. Hush reader! Don’t you fret now. It’s a true and legitimate wit come by honestly, the wit’s possessor and purveyor having been immersed as a child in a great cauldron of global, intercultural interactivity. On to the subject at hand then.
Perhaps a depiction of the Profit Mojo (PBUH - Psst! Be a Upon Him! Make haste I prithee!), in bed with his “seven eleven” year old wife Ayesha, diddler that he reveals himself to be (fact un-refuted even by his most respected followers), in “his” famous work: “the holy quoran”, would have been more appropriate.
Picktall, in his: “The Meaning of the Glorious Koran” Explanatory Translation, Mentor publishing, Chicago, introduction to Surah XXXIII, lets us in on, and surrounds with a rather oedipal-sounding 'plea for normalcy’ excuse for; Mojo’s preferences and saviour-complex justifications. Read on:
Perhaps a depiction of the Profit Mojo (PBUH - Psst! Be a Upon Him! Make haste I prithee!), in bed with his “seven eleven” year old wife Ayesha, diddler that he reveals himself to be (fact un-refuted even by his most respected followers), in “his” famous work: “the holy quoran”, would have been more appropriate.
Picktall, in his: “The Meaning of the Glorious Koran” Explanatory Translation, Mentor publishing, Chicago, introduction to Surah XXXIII, lets us in on, and surrounds with a rather oedipal-sounding 'plea for normalcy’ excuse for; Mojo’s preferences and saviour-complex justifications. Read on:
The Surah contains further references to the wives of the the Profit, in connection with which it may be mentioned that from the age of 25 till the age of 50 he had only one wife, Khadijah, fifteen years his senior, (emph. on the oedipal, mine) to whom he was devotedly attached and whose memory he cherished till his dying day. With the exception of Ayeshah,… …whom he married at her father’s request when she was still a child (emph. On the diddler, mine), all his later marriages were with widows whose state was pitiable (emphasis on the saviour complex, mine) for one reason or another. (P. 301)Having admitted most of the following himself, & along with many unmentioned but easily, if need suddenly were to arise, referenced, Muslim followers and scholars of many a nation, having agreed on ALL of the following at some point ernother, perhaps a depiction of him as an illiterate, epileptic, schizophrenic dictator (of words, people, of words, here), dictating his epileptic, schizophrenic dreams of Quoranic revelation to an haphazard assemblage of opportunist scribes, would have appeared and disappeared as fast as the fleeting moment of levity that one experiences when reading one’s daily Dilbert or Garfield or BC. And yet again, we turn to: “The Meaning of the Glorious Koran” for support:
The words which came to him when in a state of trance are held sacred by the Muslims and are never confounded with those which he uttered when no physical change was apparent in him (emphasis mine, on the fits of an epileptic nature). The former are the Sacred Book; the latter, the Hadith or Sunnah of the profit (ed. Evidence of two vastly different personalities of the Profit revealed in the comparision of his Sacred book with “the latter”). And because the angel on Mt. Hira bade him “Read!”—insisted on his “Reading” though he was illiterate—the sacred book is known as Al-Qur’an, “The Reading”, the reading of a man who knew not how to read (illiteracy freely admitted by Mojo’s own followers).
Assuming no knowledge of reading, then, within the realm of the definition of literacy, there exist a pretty huge sliver of possibility that he had no knowledge of writing either. It was said here that Mohammed was illiterate – that means he had no knowledge of letters. It means someone else wrote the Quoran for him. So he had scribes then, most probably. Having scribes means the possibility of an introduction of error in transcription. In fact, these Scribes could have written anything they bloody well wanted to, Mojo would not have known, either way – he was illiterate.
How can I say that? I am a scribe by trade and predilection, my dear reader. I know the twists and turns taken by and of and through and under and over things - dictated, then and when transcribed.
In any event, you may wonder what the hell all these recent blogs, or perhaps ANY of these blogs at all have to do with the “unfetteredness” of, or more brazenly so; the "unfettering of" UAE. Well, I too, as author - scribe, wonder daily at the same thing. Perhaps it’s a difference in price per word, only. Their relevance, though, we might bend and twist and turn iron logic a few degrees our way to say, is justified merely because I am here, as temporary resident, and it is from this place that I, a scribe, by trade and predilection, feel compelled to yell these things across my keyboard, and thus convert them into a big digital furuncle.
My very own creation. One humungous, festering in contradiction, virtual butt-boil. Simultaneously fascinating and sickening to look at, an imperialistic, hodgepodge of ego-sroking, "religion of the masses" kind of feruncle. Borne of letters though, eh, not illiteracy.
POP! EW! The ripe feruncle just burst, you see, and Mojo’s 'religion of the masses' robustness oozes on down the leg itself stands on, unfortunately, in the presses’ puss-letting that inevitably follows.
Feeling the itch thereof, we want to scratch that feruncle. We want to poke that feruncle. We want to squeeze that feruncle. Part of us even wants to (come on, face it, adventurer, reader-mine) to…. OK, here it is, to just stick one finger right in the middle of that press-puss flowing down, to wipe it around, disturb it's flow. Watch we then, detached from the finger’s stirring act, & distanced from it too, by shoulder, by upper, and forearm, all. After disturbing the puss, in lewd fascination, we leer in, twisted, and stenchedly close, we want to see just where the disturbed puss-flow will twist to next before it needs to be all wiped away and cleaned.
Following that, getting sick of the whole infected spectacle, we begin to eagerly anticipate the influx of willing, very effective, antiseptics to begin their cleansing - their un-festering reversal as it were, preventing the post-puss-let feruncle, otherwise left un-wiped-un-cleansed; from going viciously gangrenous on our collective focuss, the universal left arse cheek of the "religion of the masses". We too. We know where in this world we are right now....
Byro
January 21, 2006
Un-coordinator
Fat ugly slob-cum-well-dressed, xtreeme braggart claims are outspoken, but yet unrealized.
For where, it seems, pudgy fingers fore-telling clumsiness begin, bossy, SUB-continent, uncertificated, blue-collar rhetoric, spelled:
T-E-C-H-N-I-C-A-L
I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-C-E
finally, after all the pseudo-intellectual, undergraduate-poseur filth that flows from the source, ends. It is silenced by the truth of a laughably purple-faced clockwise wrench twist meant to crack the NORMAL RH-threaded B-nut, if you can even imagine it; silenced by the thunderous yet thankfully not disastrous effect of an experimentally dislodged safety pin. And the subcontinent's fatted-up royal son's very degreededness is lifted up for public perusal on an overloaded, pedestal with its left hand in the air, but standing on one foot, t'other hand grasping at the Ayurvedic ankle region of a right-upturned Ayurvedic region of the foot - a fine balance, indeed.
Yet hark! We approach now, unapproachables, and wander, tentatively, through the undiscovered, touching this and that, but what, really, daintily, shyly, braving our way finally into the realm of the, as yet untouched, where machines, systems, sub-systems, assemblies, and sub-assemblies actually do exist Dorothy. Here, we encounter inevitably those that simply KNOW more technical things than we, having not lied their way in, and are 300 million times less bloody arrogant than we and less good at one thing only - constant boss-arse caressing.
There is a prison in Arkansasas in which inmates are stripped of their privilege of privacy. The warden's men see all, unskewed and unfiltered information about the daily lives and habits is given them through glass walled cells. When the inmates take a shit, the warden's men see. When the inmates take a piss the warden's men see. When the inmates sleep and when they wake the warden's men see. When the inmates eat soap and feighn stomach trouble for a free trip to the infirmary, the warden's men see. The inmates can't get away with a lie. The truth of their very being is revealed through transparent plexi.
Oh, would that tiny cameras be installed in the 30-something orfices miscelaneous, in every potentially crooked nook and cranny to catch the lying, fat, sub-continent, slob/cowboy in his lie, to catch the worker/royalty-cum-manager-cum-coordinator-cum-man-about-the-campus in his man-fridaying. "the ONE" for him and "the HIM" for ONE, as it were. The sub-contitnent cowboy, in the midst of his own, as it were. The sub-contitnent cowboy in the realm of the as yet untouched. Would that the tiny cameras be installed to capture the numerous moments of incompetence forever, the shirkers in their shirk o' work, to catch the nose picker in his pick; the arse-scratcher in his scratch. Etc.
Would that all the tiny mics shoved strategically into fabrics of orfice curtains and blinds miscelaneous, under desks and unswept for, pick up all any latent cowardice-speak. Things too terrifying to speak out to the face of subject someone, for fear of instant ass-kickerage reprisal and the possible instant deaths of junior politicians. Transparancy we seek. Transparency we get. Transparancy. There's a certain powerfully focussing and calming effect in knowing what is the exact content, context and reaction to the content of the hilariously ridicoulous yet damaging fib the other guy just told to the boss about ya, just to make his boots look more shiny, isn't it.
What's that you say? They've been already installed, my friend and you de only suckah that don't realize the extent of the 7.1 Dolby surround, home theater effect, prying eye and ear combo that already exists? Pass it off, toss it off to paranoia, to fancy dreams of a momentous longing for a different sort o' madness, less predatory, any sort thereof, actually, would do, in a pinch.
And yet, mic or no, tiny cam or no, Fat Albert's fattiness speaks for itself. And Fat Albert's pudgy sub-contient poseur-clumsiness & subsequent incompetent fingering, touching of things yet untouched, that is, actual technical things, speaks/reveals volumes of the sort of thick, subcontinent broodingly-hungering-for-post-colonial-legitimacy, fog, that this fatty-man operates within. A very pushy, up-the-bosses arse, sub-continent cowbody, that's what, brinking everybody with his overbearing manageer-play, as we might be tempted to describe his dyed-in-the-wool sub-continent, wolfish-yet-sheepish-yet-ferret(ish) methods if we didn't know better how to fetter the typecast.
And on and on it goes. Where it stops, it blows up in your face so just don't let it stop. OK?
Happy happy joy joy
And BY SO THIS, "Rhohintin" Maniac LIVES ON, in this particular not so veiled sentiment.
For where, it seems, pudgy fingers fore-telling clumsiness begin, bossy, SUB-continent, uncertificated, blue-collar rhetoric, spelled:
T-E-C-H-N-I-C-A-L
I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-C-E
finally, after all the pseudo-intellectual, undergraduate-poseur filth that flows from the source, ends. It is silenced by the truth of a laughably purple-faced clockwise wrench twist meant to crack the NORMAL RH-threaded B-nut, if you can even imagine it; silenced by the thunderous yet thankfully not disastrous effect of an experimentally dislodged safety pin. And the subcontinent's fatted-up royal son's very degreededness is lifted up for public perusal on an overloaded, pedestal with its left hand in the air, but standing on one foot, t'other hand grasping at the Ayurvedic ankle region of a right-upturned Ayurvedic region of the foot - a fine balance, indeed.
Yet hark! We approach now, unapproachables, and wander, tentatively, through the undiscovered, touching this and that, but what, really, daintily, shyly, braving our way finally into the realm of the, as yet untouched, where machines, systems, sub-systems, assemblies, and sub-assemblies actually do exist Dorothy. Here, we encounter inevitably those that simply KNOW more technical things than we, having not lied their way in, and are 300 million times less bloody arrogant than we and less good at one thing only - constant boss-arse caressing.
There is a prison in Arkansasas in which inmates are stripped of their privilege of privacy. The warden's men see all, unskewed and unfiltered information about the daily lives and habits is given them through glass walled cells. When the inmates take a shit, the warden's men see. When the inmates take a piss the warden's men see. When the inmates sleep and when they wake the warden's men see. When the inmates eat soap and feighn stomach trouble for a free trip to the infirmary, the warden's men see. The inmates can't get away with a lie. The truth of their very being is revealed through transparent plexi.
Oh, would that tiny cameras be installed in the 30-something orfices miscelaneous, in every potentially crooked nook and cranny to catch the lying, fat, sub-continent, slob/cowboy in his lie, to catch the worker/royalty-cum-manager-cum-coordinator-cum-man-about-the-campus in his man-fridaying. "the ONE" for him and "the HIM" for ONE, as it were. The sub-contitnent cowboy, in the midst of his own, as it were. The sub-contitnent cowboy in the realm of the as yet untouched. Would that the tiny cameras be installed to capture the numerous moments of incompetence forever, the shirkers in their shirk o' work, to catch the nose picker in his pick; the arse-scratcher in his scratch. Etc.
Would that all the tiny mics shoved strategically into fabrics of orfice curtains and blinds miscelaneous, under desks and unswept for, pick up all any latent cowardice-speak. Things too terrifying to speak out to the face of subject someone, for fear of instant ass-kickerage reprisal and the possible instant deaths of junior politicians. Transparancy we seek. Transparency we get. Transparancy. There's a certain powerfully focussing and calming effect in knowing what is the exact content, context and reaction to the content of the hilariously ridicoulous yet damaging fib the other guy just told to the boss about ya, just to make his boots look more shiny, isn't it.
What's that you say? They've been already installed, my friend and you de only suckah that don't realize the extent of the 7.1 Dolby surround, home theater effect, prying eye and ear combo that already exists? Pass it off, toss it off to paranoia, to fancy dreams of a momentous longing for a different sort o' madness, less predatory, any sort thereof, actually, would do, in a pinch.
And yet, mic or no, tiny cam or no, Fat Albert's fattiness speaks for itself. And Fat Albert's pudgy sub-contient poseur-clumsiness & subsequent incompetent fingering, touching of things yet untouched, that is, actual technical things, speaks/reveals volumes of the sort of thick, subcontinent broodingly-hungering-for-post-colonial-legitimacy, fog, that this fatty-man operates within. A very pushy, up-the-bosses arse, sub-continent cowbody, that's what, brinking everybody with his overbearing manageer-play, as we might be tempted to describe his dyed-in-the-wool sub-continent, wolfish-yet-sheepish-yet-ferret(ish) methods if we didn't know better how to fetter the typecast.
And on and on it goes. Where it stops, it blows up in your face so just don't let it stop. OK?
Happy happy joy joy
And BY SO THIS, "Rhohintin" Maniac LIVES ON, in this particular not so veiled sentiment.
January 18, 2006
T'er Ba Qui
Recently I sampled a new cigar in stock at the local smoker centre outlet - a Don Thomas Cetros.
I feel the Don Thomas Cetros is an overall excellent value for the smoke. The one I bought was longer than a robusto size, like a corona size, but a bit longer (not up to speed on all the different size-groupings yet). I was asked to give some feedback on this cigar by an extremely polite Philipino attendant who, when he spoke, belied a solid, bachelors-level University education, if not more than. He is very knowledgeable about his product and has a very keen sense of customer service. He said the Cetros wasn't moving well and wanted customer feed back on the Cetros to consider how to market it differntly in UAE. So I agreed and what follows is pretty much a word for word of what I wrote for the smoker's centre on the cetros.
I took the Don Thomas Cetros with me to work to smoke there – I’ve recently taken up residence in the desiganated smoking office, which is well and good because I now I have time during the day, while I carry out my desk duties, to try out a lot of new brands of cigars in a relatively consistant environment. I used a round hole cutter to cut the end of the Don Thomas Cetros. The cap did not tear or crack and I was able to make a cleancut, consistantly round hole. The cigar was evenly packed and had a medium to light brown wrapper. The wrapper was not completely dry but also not quite as moist nor having the peculiar to cigar-wrapper feeling of oily smoothness as the Quorum Robustos from Nicaragua that I smoke regularly and I’ve taken a great deal of liking to lately, given their great, rich flavour with medium mild taste for a very nice price – 6dhs. Of the quorum good things have already been well written:
So now you see that I have set my standard against which the Cetros was to be compared, as the fine budget cigar hailing from Nicaragua. The Cetros took about 40 minutes to smoke. When I smoke at work, I tend to take a draw approximately every 30 seconds up to every 2 minutes. The Cetros stayed alight with no problem between draws, smoldered evenly, and its ash tapped off in uniform cylindrical chunks, leaving a flat circular glow on the end of the cigar, “just like any good cigar should” I could say. The room odour during my smoking of the Don Thomas Cetros was commented on by my colleagues as “…far better…” than the odour filling the room when I smoke one of my “fill-in” Villigar Extras, for example. I must add though that they also commented on the room odour left by the Quorum Robustos as: “…leaving a really nice scent”.
The acidity of the Don Thomas Cetros as the burn approched the drawing end was not as noticeable to me as in other cigars, such as, an uncharacteristically-tightly-packed Luis Martinez Londsdale, and a similarly, uncharacteristically, tightly packed Quorum Corona. They were very acidic even in the first few difficult draws. I have since then figured out a way to make a tightly packed cigar much more palatable. An easily fabricated special “cigar saver” tool – a strait piece of coat-hangar-sized wire, sharpened to penetrate and make a hole through the middle of the length of the cigar does the job well.
I don’t like to waste any cigars by having to throw them away just because the draw is too difficult. Lucky for me, the special tool allows me to enjoy to the fullest even poorly chosen, too-tightly packed cigars, now. The appropriately sized hole effectively counter acts the acidity effect and all but eliminates the difficulty of drawing heavily on a tightly packed cigar.Though it may not be the recommended, ideal way to smoke a cigar, I ridgedly refuse to do any less than get the full value of the cigar. Another probably less than ideal, non-recommended thing I tend to do, also to get the full value of the cigar, is to remove the label and proceed to smoke right down to an approximate 1.5 cm length, regardless of the the initial length, diameter, brand name, flavour, or richness of the particular cigar.
I did not have to use the special hole making tool on the Cetros. It was evenly packed. The flavour was walnutty, with fresh undertones of the way that my grandfather’s favorite cologne smelled. Don’t ask me the name of it, I don't recall. Suffice to say, the Cetros waft triggered a memory of a balanced, anticipatory, full-of-life til passing on, renaisance-like creativive masculinity.
The Cetros was of medium mildness and medium richness. I would describ it as a characteristically stout, reliable, everyday, sort of cigar that you can easily bring to work and smoke without cigarette smokers in the same room complaining. Out of the office, let the Davidoffs, the Cohibas, or even one of the very underrated and well-priced Quorum Robustos, waiting patiently, at 70 to 75% humidity, in the glass-topped humidor you were oogling the week before Christmas (nice present from the family), be reserved for cool, UAE winter evenings of 21 deg. C, accompanied by any of the quality, aged, sipping-type beverages that are available, at our fingertips (after a short drive to the neighboring emirate). I will conclude by saying that there is room in MY glass-topped Christmas present humidor for more than a few Don Thomas Cetros and of course any other new brands of well valued cigars as well, as they continue to find there way here.
Byromaniac,
fequenter of Smokers’Centre outlets in Dubai
I feel the Don Thomas Cetros is an overall excellent value for the smoke. The one I bought was longer than a robusto size, like a corona size, but a bit longer (not up to speed on all the different size-groupings yet). I was asked to give some feedback on this cigar by an extremely polite Philipino attendant who, when he spoke, belied a solid, bachelors-level University education, if not more than. He is very knowledgeable about his product and has a very keen sense of customer service. He said the Cetros wasn't moving well and wanted customer feed back on the Cetros to consider how to market it differntly in UAE. So I agreed and what follows is pretty much a word for word of what I wrote for the smoker's centre on the cetros.
I took the Don Thomas Cetros with me to work to smoke there – I’ve recently taken up residence in the desiganated smoking office, which is well and good because I now I have time during the day, while I carry out my desk duties, to try out a lot of new brands of cigars in a relatively consistant environment. I used a round hole cutter to cut the end of the Don Thomas Cetros. The cap did not tear or crack and I was able to make a cleancut, consistantly round hole. The cigar was evenly packed and had a medium to light brown wrapper. The wrapper was not completely dry but also not quite as moist nor having the peculiar to cigar-wrapper feeling of oily smoothness as the Quorum Robustos from Nicaragua that I smoke regularly and I’ve taken a great deal of liking to lately, given their great, rich flavour with medium mild taste for a very nice price – 6dhs. Of the quorum good things have already been well written:
The new Quorum goes where others have tried and failed. Quorum is that rare bird – a full size, fine smoking cigar in that very inexpensive. Even though it’s definitely a budget cigar, Quorum certainly doesn’t smoke like one. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it would sell for a great deal more. But “Great Deal” is the operant term when it comes to Quorum. Here you get a smooth and flavorful smoke in a medium strength cigar. The Nicaraguan fillers and binders signal dependable quality all the way, and the Ecuador-Sumatra wrapper even adds a hint of exotic elegance to Quorum. (Mr. Bill's Pipe and Tabaco Company, Las Vegas, Nevada)
So now you see that I have set my standard against which the Cetros was to be compared, as the fine budget cigar hailing from Nicaragua. The Cetros took about 40 minutes to smoke. When I smoke at work, I tend to take a draw approximately every 30 seconds up to every 2 minutes. The Cetros stayed alight with no problem between draws, smoldered evenly, and its ash tapped off in uniform cylindrical chunks, leaving a flat circular glow on the end of the cigar, “just like any good cigar should” I could say. The room odour during my smoking of the Don Thomas Cetros was commented on by my colleagues as “…far better…” than the odour filling the room when I smoke one of my “fill-in” Villigar Extras, for example. I must add though that they also commented on the room odour left by the Quorum Robustos as: “…leaving a really nice scent”.
The acidity of the Don Thomas Cetros as the burn approched the drawing end was not as noticeable to me as in other cigars, such as, an uncharacteristically-tightly-packed Luis Martinez Londsdale, and a similarly, uncharacteristically, tightly packed Quorum Corona. They were very acidic even in the first few difficult draws. I have since then figured out a way to make a tightly packed cigar much more palatable. An easily fabricated special “cigar saver” tool – a strait piece of coat-hangar-sized wire, sharpened to penetrate and make a hole through the middle of the length of the cigar does the job well.
I don’t like to waste any cigars by having to throw them away just because the draw is too difficult. Lucky for me, the special tool allows me to enjoy to the fullest even poorly chosen, too-tightly packed cigars, now. The appropriately sized hole effectively counter acts the acidity effect and all but eliminates the difficulty of drawing heavily on a tightly packed cigar.Though it may not be the recommended, ideal way to smoke a cigar, I ridgedly refuse to do any less than get the full value of the cigar. Another probably less than ideal, non-recommended thing I tend to do, also to get the full value of the cigar, is to remove the label and proceed to smoke right down to an approximate 1.5 cm length, regardless of the the initial length, diameter, brand name, flavour, or richness of the particular cigar.
I did not have to use the special hole making tool on the Cetros. It was evenly packed. The flavour was walnutty, with fresh undertones of the way that my grandfather’s favorite cologne smelled. Don’t ask me the name of it, I don't recall. Suffice to say, the Cetros waft triggered a memory of a balanced, anticipatory, full-of-life til passing on, renaisance-like creativive masculinity.
The Cetros was of medium mildness and medium richness. I would describ it as a characteristically stout, reliable, everyday, sort of cigar that you can easily bring to work and smoke without cigarette smokers in the same room complaining. Out of the office, let the Davidoffs, the Cohibas, or even one of the very underrated and well-priced Quorum Robustos, waiting patiently, at 70 to 75% humidity, in the glass-topped humidor you were oogling the week before Christmas (nice present from the family), be reserved for cool, UAE winter evenings of 21 deg. C, accompanied by any of the quality, aged, sipping-type beverages that are available, at our fingertips (after a short drive to the neighboring emirate). I will conclude by saying that there is room in MY glass-topped Christmas present humidor for more than a few Don Thomas Cetros and of course any other new brands of well valued cigars as well, as they continue to find there way here.
Byromaniac,
fequenter of Smokers’Centre outlets in Dubai
December 18, 2005
the ONE
Here's an interesting take on the nature of things and human interaction in the world as we "know it"
Sohan Banwar, Dalitstan Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2 (Oct. 1999).
Oh really? Hmmm....
Osama, Mulla Omar, etc. and the roving band that is al Quaida really screwed all of these peace-loving, conflict-resolving, non-hate spreading guys like Sohan Banwar, over then, didn't they. Just when the world was supposed to be seeing the Hindus as fanatics too. Tut tut, guys.
On the other hand:
Oh really? Hmmm....
The Brahmins will never stop at anything to establish world dominance. All Islamic nations must take heed of the Brahmin-Hindu menace that so vociferously threatens them. Israel indeed poses a lesser threat; it is Hindu India which, with its much greater resources and larger population, poses the gravest danger to Islam. Hindutva poses a grave danger to the West; India has now joined the tentative anti-Western axis composed of Russia, China and India. The West should also heed these warnings of a `White House Collapse', these brazen statements by the fanatic Hindus show that the main enemy of the West after Mother Russia is Hindu India. Worse still, both these rogue states have joined together to combat `Western Imperialism'. While tax dollars from Western countries do not fund Russian nationalism, they unfortunately do fund Hindu nationalism in India. By doing so, the West is merely feeding its enemy.
Sohan Banwar, Dalitstan Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2 (Oct. 1999).
Oh really? Hmmm....
Osama, Mulla Omar, etc. and the roving band that is al Quaida really screwed all of these peace-loving, conflict-resolving, non-hate spreading guys like Sohan Banwar, over then, didn't they. Just when the world was supposed to be seeing the Hindus as fanatics too. Tut tut, guys.
On the other hand:
"Krishna told Arjuna, "What sort of weakness and foolishness has overtaken you? How such cowardice and unmanliness has come over you? Come on, see where your duty lies, be ready to fight.
Krishna said, "I am the soul of all the beings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end. I am Vishnu among the adityas, the Sun among the lights. I am the Moon among the stars, I am the Sama among the Vedas, I am Mind among the senses and Intelligence among the living beings. I am Shankara among the Rudras. I am Meru among the mountains. I am Aum among the words, I am Vajra among the weapons, among those who count, I am Time, I am the Death all devouring. I am the origin of the things yet to be, the Seed of all living beings. I pervade the universe.
Krishna granted divine vision to Arjuna and showed him his universal form. Like the lights of thousands of Sun.The splendour of the mighty one was witnessed by Arjuna. He saw the entire universe in the ONE.
Arjuna became awestruck, with folded hand and faltering voice he prayed the lord, "O, Infinite Lord of the lords, Abode of the universe, The Imperishable, the first among the gods, the Primal being, the Supreme being, I prostrate before you. In my infinite foolishness and ignorance I called you as, ‘Krishna’ and ‘friend’. Overlook my faults as a father does to his childrens, please assume your former form, I am unable to bear this form of yours."
The lord abandoned his Vishvaroopa and became Krishna again and said to Arjuna:"Surrender all duties and come to me alone for shelter. Have no grief. I will release you from all sins. I have declared to you the most secret wisdom. Consider it and then act, as you will."
Arjuna said: My lord, my delusion is gone. I am not in doubt anymore. I shall act and fight as per your command.
Arjuna took up his Ghandiva with a happy smile. The lord took his reins to the chariot and moved towards the chariot of Bhishma. The war has begun.
Oh really? Hmmm....
