They grow so quick...

I just recieved an email from an old friend (Afshin). When he was on his way to Canada, he asked me to take his last class's exam: He taught some software engineering materials in Jahad Daneshgahi university. When we got back home, Jasmine asked :" Did you take the exam from uncle's "babies"? We had reffered to the students as "Afshin's kids"...

The DaVinci Code

I started reading it and already liked it.

Let's see if I have any other excuse not to work out...

We got our GAZELLE mini trainer yesterday and I installed it while watching Jay Leno's show. The nice thing was that it was fairly quick and straight forward. The bad thing was that at each step, it reminded you something that had to be taken care of in previous step! So I ended up redoing a lot of steps! Also, as I was trying to keep it quiet as everyone else was asleep, I scratched both by thumbs.

State of Fear

I finished reading Michael Crichton's latest novel "State of Fear" last night. It was one of his best ones, at least for me. I do enjoy breath-taking speed-pace stories but also like to learn at the same time. I guess the trend of book market is toward such novels. Like Dan Brown books which I haven't tackled yet but Mrs. Wife says they are "my type". Well, I should admit my next book is "The DaVinci Code". Anyways, about State of Fear, the nice thing is that it mixes scientific facts and figures inside the passage. So you get a lot of information while reading the book. I understand that some parts may get boring if only you look for is excitement and that's why Crichton gets a lot of negative feedbacks in Amazon.com book reviews. Personally I found the information interesting and well-to-know and followed the details with same enthusiasm.

The "theory" of global warming has its own set of in-favors and opposes. All the writer suggests is that some of the aspects of climate system are so complex that can’t be studied with available technology and science. He emphasizes that fact that we need to take care of the environment but the fear injected to some facts and figures has unnecessarily or unscientifically given the public wrong ideas.

Also, the book reminded me one important fact: Public is affected easily by the media. So no matter what everyone believes, there might be some deeper reason with a complete twist in meaning hidden in it.

Have you ever seen somebody blushing or shaking because in a meeting you have done better than them? It feels good. Somehow satanic , but good.

Same cloths or just similar ones?

Someone around here has been wearing the same clothing for the last 40 days. Same pair of trousers and same blouse. Isn't it weird for a lady? ( She does NOT smell though)

In many occasions, it's hard to express yourself. One of the opportunities I recently have is the one-hour free time in subway. I'm using it to study or listening to audio books. The book I finished listening today, is the abridged version of "House of Bush , House of Saud" written by Craig Unger. It makes me wonder: if only part of the evidence he's provided is true, then we live in a world led by people blinded by thirst of power. It's not a fairy tale any more. It's really heart-breaking.

Also, at the same time, I wonder when a system is huge, how it gets impossible to realize a simple fact, or to answer to a simple question, be sure enough to say Yes or No. That's because if it were like that, then many of the famous people mentioned in the book would have ended up somewhere else.

I wonder why someone might produce chemical weapons or even worse how can it be used or how people close their eyes even on confrontation with indisputable facts.

I also wonder whether it can be clear some day that a historical event happened exactly why or how so that we can actually learn from it.

There is just so much we don't know and may never know...

Sun, at last

After about 3 days of snow, sun scattered its yellowish veil on us. There are cons and prons on reappearance of sun in Toronto. When it's sunny, it usually gets really cold. Today is -20 with wind chill or as Rose puts it "sa..de" ( where she actually means "sarde" = it's cold).

Years ago I translated a book called "Teach Yourself Network Troubleshooting in 24 hours". It was full of guidelines in finding problems in complicated systems like networks but you can use information and methods in there in nearly every system. I used those methods today again to track a timeout problem in a database. It felt so good. I hope those who read the book ( Specially the translation ) have enjoyed it as much and used its suggestions in difficult situations.

This summer, We don't have to wast even one hour of good weather. Out, out and out. I'm writing about it so that others can kick me out indicating this.

Snow, Snow, Snow

And some more Snow...

Snowy or Sunny

Sometimes, Things aren't just right. This evening, I took the car to a gas station, an Esso near our home. They've recently installed TV sets on each pump, so while you're putting gas into the car, you can watch TV. They give different types of information, like traffic , weather, etc. The weather forecast was interesting. It's been snowing since yesterday, throughout the night and all today. The forecast however, was showing sunny at the moment and sunny tomorrow!

Global Flyer...

... is the name of the airplane doing this flight. The pilot is an American millionaire called Steven Foest who has some other records in aviation including a trip around the world in a balloon.

A new challenge for mankind

The first over-ocean flight was marked just mid last century. Today, tens of such journey is done on a daily basis.Now someone is trying to fly around the world in a specially designed plane. I'm sure within a few years, this will open up a new area for direct non-stop flights around the world. Maybe in a decade this script will be laughed at.

Hi

Rose welcomes strangers in street by shouting "Hi" to them! They usually give ME strange look because they don't expect that "hi" come from Rose. Fortunately, most of the times when people get nearer, she repeats and cheers up people by her beautiful smile. But sometimes she is distracted to somewhere else when people get nearer and they stare at me trying to recognize me or understand why I shouted hi from far!