"After spending a few days traveling around Yogyakarta, the main city in the area ravaged by Saturday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake, what's struck me most is how residents have handled this calamity with such grace under pressure.

Despite more than 5,800 deaths and as many as 200,000 left homeless, there is no sense of panic or alarm. That was the case even when we arrived just 36 hours after the devastating quake struck Saturday morning.  All of the people we’ve talked to, while obviously upset and in some cases traumatized by what happened, are calmly going about the task of resuming their lives — salvaging what they can, mourning the dead, tending to the injured and doing what must be done in order to survive." (msnbc)

We are resilient people.

(unless the end of day is today)

What I love about Egypt

• The hospitality
  
• Siwa
• Dahab
• Mint Shisha
• The Nile
• Seafood in Alexandria
• The girls (ha..ha..just kidding; I don't see any)
  

What I like about Egypt

• Koshari
• The Egyptian Jokes
• Horses
• Diving
• The Pharonic Legacies.
• Mt. Sinai (St. Catherine)
• Home Cooked Meal
  

What I don't like about Egypt

• Cairo Fucking Traffic (CFT) and Cairo Pollution (CP)
  
• The state of food in general
• Ubiquitous Lebanese pop stars singing 'song' on TV channels.
• The visible class within the society.
• East Delta buses.
• The stupid and random rules (oh, you are not allowed to get out from the side door)
• Bokra, Inshallah (yeah right)
• The high price for the institution of marriage
  

What I hate about Egypt

• Cook Door.
• There's one stupid movie trailer that has been playing constantly in every single movie I've seen and in the TVs on the buses (I have no idea of  the title).
• The vendors and guides in Pyramids of Giza.
• The traffic jam on top of 6th of October bridge.
  

Bike the Drive.

This is Lake Shore Drive, one main artery of the city. Yesterday they closed it down for 20,000 riders. You can see the glorious greens on either side of the road.  It's the best place to train for a marathon in the Summer.  The tall tower in the horizon is Sears Towers, the second tallest structure in the United States.

This is a funny world. I end today with a couple of thank you for things that I don't know I did.

" The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. But as Time reported in March on the basis of interviews with 28 individuals, including military officials, the families of the victims, human-rights investigators and local doctors, much of that account is dubious. Members of Congress, as well as military sources, have confirmed the critical details of Time's initial report—that after gunning down the five fleeing the taxi, a few members of Kilo Company moved through four homes along nearby streets, killing 19 men, women and children. The Marines contend they took small-arms fire from at least one house, but as Time's story detailed in March, only one of the 19 victims was found with a weapon." (Time)

but as expected, the system works.

"Khaled Raseef, a spokesman for the victims' relatives, says U.S. military investigators visited the alleged massacre sites 15 times and "asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark and took all sorts of measurements. In the end, they brought all the survivors to the homes and did a mock-up of the Marines' movements." As the detectives found contradictions in the Marines' account, "the official story fell apart and people started rolling on each other," says the military source."

"Young man control in your hand
Slam your fist on the table
And make your demand
Take a stand
Fan a fire for the flame of the youth
Got the freedom to choose
You better make the right move"

Matisyahu is da bomb.

"Johannesburg taught me about apartheid, reconciliation, tolerance and Ubuntu, deep lessons for the Colombian context which is my final destination."

Trying to change the world is sexy. Susana is on nomadlife.

I am an idealist by nature and reading people's stories about their struggle to make a difference inspire me. I also believe in the change in the small. We don't need everybody to move around and trying to teach sustainability or work in a not for profit. We need people to be a good father, a good mother, a good manager, worker, neighbours, citizens, mentors. Those little things build societies and civilizations.

World changer ought not to be an exclusive club. Everybody can play. Inclusive. Be generous. Play your part; the part that you define on your own; not assigned to you.

We need  more people to strenghten our fabric of society; the society that cares about the weak and the poor and open up opportunities for the young. We need to build more societies that cares more about morality of the large (poverty, jobs, care, crime, environment, education, peace, human dignity) than the petty morality  of the small (dress code, sexual orientation, religious differences, etc).

Your eyes took me back to my days that are gone
They taught me to regret the past and its wounds.
Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life.
How could they consider that part of my life?

Um Kalsoum is one of the better reason to go through the struggle of learning Arabic.

Indonesia has the most active volcanos more than any other nations on earth. It gives us fertile soils and the risk of earthquakes and volcano eruptions within close vicinities of our cities. Mother nature giveth and taketh. That's how it goes.



but we haven't got any break lately. Tsunami, SARS, one of the most severe bird flu outbreak in the world,  Merapi and this.

The city of Cairo, the view from the Citadel.

We (Ziyad, Mostafa and I) went to the Citadel yesterday morning. We spent five hours under the nasty heat and humidity of Cairo day.



Inside the Ali Masjid (inside the Citadel); everybody is on their socks. This Masjid is 200 year old.



This is yet another Mosque in the citadel. This one was built 100 years after Salahadin built the Citadel so it's around 800 year old. It is no longer used as a praying place. If you take a look at the pillars in the background, they are all 'borrowed' from the ancient ruins of Egypt. You see some Pharonic pillars, some Romans and even some Coptic Christian temples.

The Frenchie next to me is Ziyad.



This pillar is Pharonic and I suspect was taken from the ruins of Aswan and brought into Cairo. The Pharonic pillars are huge compared to the Roman or Greek pillars in this Mosque.

Surrounding the Citadel is Islamic Cairo, a medieval from the medieval period. It's an old, dusty and dirty neighbourhood but busting with life and commercial activities.





Islamic Cairo



These steps lead to the alleys of Islamic Cairo.



Not as good as beer but this is the best drink in Cairo, Sugar Cane juice. The guy would put two sticks of Sugar Canes and feed them to a machine and got a bucket of oh so deliciious sugar cane juice. And it only costs 50 Piestas (around 10 cents).

All photographs courtesy of Mostafa Mourad. There are some more pictures of the Citadel once Ziyad shares me his. My camera is dead. That old sucker is never designed to withstand the assault of  Egyptian fine dusts.

"He decided to buy his wife a new car, not a cheap one either. The one she wanted. Good move. Now she'll have to deal with a new reality, a husband who gives her what she wants. Everyone gets to give up all the old struggles. Will they find new ones? Not this week, probably not next week either. But now it's time for change, a big tree falls, old struggles are over, forever, it's time for dreams to take hold, new ones, creativity, maybe some happiness." (scripting.com)

"That's the best team in baseball, right there," said Oakland left fielder Jay Payton of the White Sox." (MLB)

Top Ten things that I understand about  women.

10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

(kudos to Capn' Doc)

Pretty Good Night definitely made a pretty good day. Yeah baby, I got my mojo back :P

Just like country songs played backward; everything is turning good.

What is the implication of viewing family as a self rule/power unit?

Family is a good thing for society because it provides a delegation mechanism for rule of law and order mechanism. Instead of having to deal with every single human being in its populace, the State just have to deal with issues on the family surface level and let the family mechanism to provide the necessary supervision on its members.

...

(i'll be writing more about this tonight;)

Inchallah we will be in several countries in this map before the next Winter turns to Spring. No rest for the wicked. Scary yet exhilirating.

And they say I'm afraid of commitment :)

If everything goes to plan, SilverKey will be landing in three countries in this map. Our expansion eastward continues. Wish us luck.

"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul"
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them


I made a joke to a girl today that the one receiving a ring from me will rule my world.

It was funny in the beginning, then the idea turned darker in my mind.

...

I'm going to think out loud so you might find this post less coherence that the usual inchorence posts I make.

In LOTR, the ring is a point of obsession, "my precious", because the ring seduces the wearer to the 'dark side'.

What if it is the same case in the real world? You can see plenty of societies where the wedding ring (a.k.a marriage) is the most important, potent and desired symbol to have, our "my precious". What if love and its chemical effect on human mind and body is an opiate designed to trap people into a certain super pattern, a set of rules to behave (such as monogamy; which is not common in animal kingdom),  for a limited amount of time and the ring binds that limited effect into something more long lasting due to the effect of fear of losing "my precious".

The personal battle and pressure for the ring is no less brutal than the one in LOTR. The common theme of love is tragedy. The other aspect of humanity that is also full of tragedy is conquest. Maybe the idea of love itself is basically a conquest, an effort to 'rule somebody's world', to 'own', to 'govern'.

Maybe we are all born rulers and we need to rule at least 'somebody' + more (read Children)

I'm really going all over the place on this piece.

Do we start a family so we can rule over some little people? A family essentially is a dictatorship and it lasts for at least 18 years, which is probably the average rule of any dictators in the world.

Is it possible that we confuse love with the desire to rule? Can it be that love is a facade over to the real reasons of ruling and conquest?

Can it be that being "emotionally unavailable" is the most selfless act one can do because it relinquishes one's the  desire to rule? Is this why celibacy is required in some religion so you can 'serve' instead of 'rule'?

Well I'm going nowhere with this. I hope you have a good chuckle.
 

"nothing is sexier than a sight of a woman reading the Economist" is now updated to "nothing is sexier than a sight of a woman in red dress reading the Economist".

Made my day :)

Yesterday we learn the jumping position, preparing for our new progress to make our horse jump over obstacles. It was hard. You have to pretty much hug the horse with your leg to maintain clearance between your ass and the rocking saddle. The result ? I walked and ran funny yesterday and I suspect today too.

I have found new respect for those who compete in horse racing.

I got a belated birthday gift yesterday. A land turtle. Yay. And I'm naming her Bunny. She's been hopping around my balcony exploring her environment. I love turtles because they are low maintenace. Keep em dry and feed them lettuce, they'll be happy. I was tempted to get  a cat as a pet but the problem is that you can't return a cat. I will be leaving this place and no, you don't just release a cat to the wild. Turtles aren't domesticated and they will survive on the wild or I can always return it to the shop. Bunny will look exactly the same in six month as she looked now.

MI:3 was a good movie, well recommended. More action, less gadgetry.  Btw, do you know that cinemas in Egypt still have intermission? Majority of their customers are smokers so you have to give them a break in the middle of the movie otherwise those smokers will go crazy. The first time I went out of the theater for intermission and I couldn't see anything. The whole hallway were packed by people smoking and the smoke filled out the room. So if you are a non smoker, stay inside during intermission. You will die of suffocation if you go out.

Horse riding today and fishing on the Red Sea tomorrow; and work all night. Not a  bad deal.  There's no Petra this month but I think Tripoli should be a good replacement.

I think today would be my last weekend riding schedule for a while. I need to move on to get my PADI certification so I can explore the ancient underwater  ruins of the Alexandria Lighthouse. Driving a car, riding a motorbike, horse riding, comandeering a small engine ship, run long distance, jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane; scuba dive and pilot certification are pending. This life is turning out to be about learning all modes of human transportation methods :)

I won all five games of pool tonight. As a reward I get to go home to a teddy bear and monkey and a dwindling reserve of alcohol. Yay. Anyway, full day of work for the next two days.

JohnnyD is going to be studying in Prague starting in September. I'll come to visit.

Rocking out with Nile FM. I cannot sleep and ideas in my head are killing me. What can one do in Cairo midnight but blog? I am too lazy to zombie out to get  a dose of Cherry shisha this late.

The healthy dose Vodka and Whisky solved the cold problem and introduced one hell of a fatigue thoughout the day. Now I am simply tired but the sleep just won't come.

I have to get out of this city next week. My commitment to horse riding  comes with a downside of getting stuck to the monotone rhythm of Cairo.

I had  a long conversation with Dad today and he informed me that my kid friend's daughter just entered primary school a short while ago. Holy fuck. It's been that long already. He married his high school sweetheart when he was 23 (and he is two year older than me); we were like brothers in those Hindi movies, grew separated after a long friendship in kiddyhood and live a completely different life. He must have hold Dan 4 black belt in Kempo and can kick my ass in no time.

No holiday dinners, birthday parties, home cooked meals, shared memories, watching your sibling grow up; these are the curses of those who live transient life. But at least Jack never disappoints. Here's a toast to my LD families and friends, people that I care and love yet rarely see. Cheers!

It is funny that I vehemently oppose LDR while my relationships with my Dad, Mom and Sisters are mostly long distance.

My scientific experiment of curing a cold with a healthy dose of Vodka went well until my phone rang just past midnight. It woke me up and now I can't sleep.

Now that the test result has been contaminated, I have to restart the experiment again, this time with whisky.

Ah, things that I do for science.

Ask "How fast are you moving" instead of "Where are you at now?"

Interesting read.

Welcome to Lebanon. Bowman is a lucky bastard.

"
When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights. I had opinions on everything, and I was always right. I loved to argue, and I could become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with me. With my superior qualities so obvious, it was an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So I rarely did. All their resistance to my brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proved was that they possessed an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God had blessed me with, and I felt it was my clear duty to so inform them. It’s a pity that there wasn’t a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium." (McCain)

Rafa is in town for his DHL work. He has moved with his young family from Florida to Brussel last December. Last night he met Nisrin, Superluli and Aatif for the first time.

I met him at IC 2002 and his only memory of me was Digs and I loudly manning the US booth  in the Americas Party; fooling people to do the disgusting Cheese String + Johnny Walker Shot (name ?)

Today was a good day. Warda, the wild and powerful horse that I rode yesterday, was under my control today. We trotted and galloped some more earlier today. We had fun. This makes her the second horse I understand. Yay.

One of these days I would post pictures of the horses.

Now excuse me because I have to attend my bruised body.

Yesterday I switched horses and I was rewarded by the roughest ride I have had so far. My body is broken but I am going to give her a try again today.

Ok J....,

You are young now.

Let me tell you about being older. I have lived in six countries and five continents so I know  a little bit of about the ways of the world.

Being older is nice because you stop caring about what other people think. When I was younger, I was worried about what people, especially girls, think about me and I was restricted to who I could be because I tried to fit to other people vision of me.

Not anymore.

Worrying about the opposite sex is a huge waste of time. Just do what you need to do. Women come and go, but you will have to live for yourself in the end, about your dreams and ambition.  Do not fear about being alone. One day you will find a woman that can appreciate who you really are and you will live in paradise on earth. I had that once and off course I fucked it up because I had to move due in pursuing my dream. It wasn't pretty and I had a tint of regret about it. It was the one that got away. But you moved on, wounded, with more scars but alive.

You will win and lose. It doesn't matter. They are part of the equation. Don't be seduced by your winning and don't despair of your lost. There's always next time. You fucked up and you move on.

If you think you are young and foolish now, don't worry, when you get older, you will still be a fool. We are men and by genetics, we are fools.

Hope is a dangerous thing especially about women because it seduces you and make your life miserable of a mirage. This mirage makes you sad when you lost of something that's never yours in the first place.

You will experience injustice and feel bitter about it for while. You have a day to feel sorry about yourself. Then move on. What you don't carry, do not burden you.

Life is pessimistic in the short run but optmistic on the long run otherwise you will dead by now.

You don't have to carry the burden of the world but do care about it. It is the most selfless thing you can do.

Dance because it will make you happy.

We all suffer in our own personal and private way, so don't be judgemental because our own conscience and guilt punish us enough.

Love is meant to be given away, for free. It's the best free stuff you can get and give.

Love gives you wings and fly you higher. Of course you splat on the ground when you lose your wings. Pick yourself up, dust it off and move on. You are not the only person that got hurt.

Women are not evil. Our attachment and longing for them are.

Don't do LDR (Long Distance Relationship) no matter what unless you have been together for a long time. It's a dead end and in the end, all you get is a lousy t-shirt.

Life is a joke, so laugh a lot. There's nothing else you can do.

You will never regret things that you do. It's those thing that you are afraid to do is the one you regret. I have done that mistakes  and no more.

Once you stop caring about what other people think, you will gain a deep self confidence. You know who you are and what you will become. There's nothing more liberating than living as yourself, outside the tyranny of other people's expectation.


You will start realizing the idea of immortality, that your time in this earth is limited and you need to make the best of it. By yourself if necessary.

Dying is not the worse that can happen to a person, living an empty life is. So give a damn and you will reap the fruit of contentment.

Don't worry if you haven't figure out what's life about. It means you have more opportunities to figure it out. If you don't know what to do, that means have unlimited opportunities to do something new and exciting.

There's no need to try to be different because if you just be yourself, you are unique and that means you are different.

And always take everything with a tub of salt, including this one. You never know where this type of advice come from :)

Another thing about woman, once you found your gold, don't mess with silvers.

I was informed the other day that Serbia has a good flight school. hmm.

Horse riding, PADI certification, AFF skydiving certification, FAA Pilot License..

I should've joined the US Army and get trained for free instead.

Fisking The Islamophobes - A must read.

2002 above USS Interpid, New York City (Nerd with glasses style)


2006 in Siwa (Nerd with hat style)

I walked like a pregnant woman. The pain of riding horses for two days straight hit yesterday in full force.This is why they call it a sport. Ouch.

"Alaa, blogger, co-founder of the egyptian blog aggregator Manalaa and democracy activist, got arrested today during a protest to support the Judiciary's branch fight for independence. He, and about 10 others, were rounded up in the street, beaten up and thrown in a police car. Amongst those who got arrested were at least 3 girls, and the police beat up at least another 2 girls as well. "
(Sandmonkey)

"EVEN by the stupefying standards of Iraq’s unspeakable violence, the murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the country’s top television journalists, was an act of exceptional cruelty." (Timesonline)

Read further only if you can stomach the graphic description of her killing. She was a journalist for Al-Arabiya television.

"The friend, who cannot be identified, knew nothing of her beheading but had been guarding other horrifying details of Bahjat’s ordeal. She had nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left, he said. The drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye. One can only hope that these mutilations were made after her death."

"The armed ghazis (Islamic warriors) raiding from New York to Jakarta, Istanbul, Baghdad, London and Madrid are only the tip of the iceberg, forerunners of a vast and growing population that shares their radical views and ultimate objectives. The formidable strengths of this worldwide fundamentalist movement include:

1) An aggressive program with clear ideological and political goals;
2) immense funding from oil-rich Wahhabi sponsors;
3) the ability to distribute funds in impoverished areas to buy loyalty and power;
4) a claim to and aura of religious authenticity and Arab prestige;
5) an appeal to Islamic identity, pride and history;
6) an ability to blend into the much larger traditionalist masses and blur the distinction between moderate Islam and their brand of religious extremism;
7) full-time commitment by its agents/leadership;
8) networks of Islamic schools that propagate extremism;
9) the absence of organized opposition in the Islamic world;
10) a global network of fundamentalist imams who guide their flocks to extremism;
11) a well-oiled "machine" established to translate, publish and distribute Wahhabi/Salafi propaganda and disseminate its ideology throughout the world;
12) scholarships for locals to study in Saudi Arabia and return with degrees and indoctrination, to serve as future leaders;
13) the ability to cross national and cultural borders in the name of religion;
14) Internet communication; and
15) the reluctance of many national governments to supervise or control this entire process.

We must employ effective strategies to counter each of these fundamentalist strengths. This can be accomplished only by bringing the combined weight of the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, and the non-Muslim world, to bear in a coordinated global campaign whose goal is to resolve the crisis of misunderstanding that threatens to engulf our entire world."

(Abdurrahman Wahid The Wall Street Journal, 30/12/2005)

Abdrurrahman Wahid - 4th President of Indonesia, Indonesia's most influential Islamic Cleric and Former head of NU (the largest Muslim organization in the world - 45 millions strong); read the link, he followed it up with what he thinks can be done to reduce, if not eliminate some of the current global terrorism conflicts we have right now.

He is our Gandhi, except he told dirty jokes ;)

"He told Clinton the following joke: Winston Churchill and Clement Atlee, Britain's Labour Prime Minister after World War II, were walking in a park when Churchill said he needed to relieve himself. Atlee stopped beside him, but Churchill asked him to walk a little way further down the path. "Why?" asked Atlee. "Because any time you see anything big, you want to nationalize it," replied Churchill."

" But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize...Vienna waits for you

Slow down you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight (tonight)
Too bad but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself
That you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong
You know you can't always see when you're right(you're right)"

I received an email with the lyrics of Vienna earlier today.

Yesterday was definitely  a magical day. For the first time I understood a horse. We  galloped around the palace, fast, and she followed my wish after the earlier struggle. Yay.

It's 4.30 am right now and I just returned from the "oriental party" that three American AUC girls threw in downtown. Now that was a good party :) It has the best ratio so far in Cairo.

Now I just have to figure out how to wake up before 10 am today. I had an appointment I cannot miss.

and she's from Argentina and absolutely gorgeous. She's my horse riding instructor.

So Mostafa, suck it up ! :)

Now I can go to Mars.

I'm back tomorrow for Up and Down Trot and Gallop around the palace.

not yet :)

I'm looking forward to learn on how to handle horse properly. Yay.

My 2 month guest is moving out of my place this weekend (hello Frenchie :)

It has been a great experience (especially the midnight guitar sessions) but I'm glad to have the place to my own again. I am a loner by nature (though not a hermit) so I need a space to think  for myself, growing ideas without criticism (this is another potential post topic, on how criticism - constructive or not - can be a poison for starting something new) and just do silly things without anyone watching :P

For the next two weeks, the TV will remain silence again (no, it's not broken). TV has a tendency to get on my nerves nowadays to the chargin of the TV addicts Superluli and Frenchie :)

I will return to waking up at 6 am again so I can go home from the office early.

So the Caravanserai will close for two weeks for renovation and will be ready for short term guests again later this May.

Horse Riding Lesson near Saqqara . 50 LE a lesson and hopefully with a female instructor :)

Ha.ha..and I'm taking 4 other office guys with me.

Paola just got her PADI diving certification. Nice, chica.

au revoir!

dodyg (silverkey) says:
May or June ?
mono - d-phazz says:
june or july
mono - d-phazz says:
may is too early for the girls to get naked
mono - d-phazz says:
august is too hot to make love

Any tips on cheap airfares from Cairo to Instanbul ?

I need suggestions:

I have been to Siwa, Dahab, Alex, Mars Matruah, St. Catherine.

Luxor/Aswan is for September. What's left ?

In Cairo, Old Cairo, Khana Khalilli, Pyramids, .. ?

I would love to go to the airport and get the first ticket to anywhere, except that Indonesian passport sucks :), you can't go anywhere without bowing to the gods of embassies.

I wake up this morning and smell the world burns.

Or take the alternative

Late evening, on the first of May-
The twilit May-the time of love.
Meltingly called the turtledove,
Where rich and sweet pinewoods lay.
Whispered of love the mosses frail,
The flowering tree as sweetly lied,
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the nightingale.