weigth...

So just like everyother person in Saudi I'm starting to get fat, my weight is 77 kgs now. That's about 170 lbs and I used to be around 150 lbs at one point(just a year ago actually). My goal then is to get to 75kgs by the end of the month. Don't get me wrong alot of the gain has been muscle but there is still a fat component that I need to get rid of. Anyways I have decided from now on I will post one picture with all my posts. Something funny, I'm copying the style of one of blogs I frequent. I will post her link soon. Anyways lets see, the weekend was good, I am getting better at swimming and work is going alright. I took Bill, my chinese friend from work, around riyadh over the weekend and he wanted to see the inside of a mosque so that was our last stop before we called it a day. Hopefully next weekend I will get a chance to play basketball, Bill has a ball court in his compound and it has been about a year since I last played. War in Lebanon, America giving Israel precision guided bombs while giving Lebanon humanitarian aid is hypocritcal. Am I the only one who remembers that it is a facr that the American Indians recieved blankets with small pox? The lesson should be plain for everyone to see. anyways I need to start working, its too early in the morning to be ranting on like this.

My car....

I just found out that my car got it's first scratch yesterday :-(
It was all I could think about for about half the day yesterday, then I found out it was my Dad's fault and then suddenly I stopped worrying about the scratch completely. I wonder why that happened? kind of weird anywho. My car is not a virgin, in a matter of speaking, anymore. In a way it is a relief as I can now enjoy driving without worrying about scratching it. I saw Kumar and Harold go to whitecastle, again, yesterday night. I laughed harder than last time I saw it because I can now relate to some of the things these guys go through. Perhaps the most disturbing thing I can relate to is listening to really feminine music in the car with a bunch of guys. Happened in florida, I won't say more. Don't want to embarass anyone.

the new car

So the upside is that it is a very nice car, the downside is that the cd player on it sucks really really bad. It can hold just one cd and it skips everytime the car goes over a small bump.
Have a headache and need to get out of work.

Swimming

I still suck at swimming but I found out that I can stay afloat without too much effort. If I try to get from point A to point B in the swimming pool it's like a mini hurricane just hit. Leave me in the pool long enough and more water will be outside then inside the pool.
So how do you know if you have a decent workout? well your muscles will be slightly sore the next day, and I am happy to report that my muscles are sore today. Its the nice kind of sore, you know they will get bigger tommorow if they are sore today. Don't get me wrong it's not all about size, but size does count.
I get to pick up my new car today, wish me luck and pray that I don't crash it on the way back home. Such nice thoughts, no wonder my world if so bright and cheerful.
Do you know what is the common element with all your problems? You.
Great thought to start the day with. Anyways gotta go pick up the car. I will post pictures of the car soon.

triathlon plans

This past weekend, since I had not recovered from the strained calf muscle completely, I decided the best way to get some excercise was to go swimming. About 3 minutes into the swim I realized my younger brother was about 10 times better at than me. I spent about half an hour swimming and since I suck at it, most of that time was spent catching my breath. I really need to improve my efficiency. My problems are that I don't breath correctly, I don't use my legs enough and I waste too much energy trying to keep my head above the water. So needless to say at the end of each lap I am gasping for breath. I really do want to get better at it since one of my goals in life is to take part in a Triathlon which involves a significant swimming portion. So here is my workout plan for this week.
Saturday - swim 20 minutes & weights (upper body, back & biceps)
Sunday - bike 30 minutes & weights (lower body, quads & thighs)
Monday - run 5 km & weights (upper body, chest and triceps)
Tuesday - rest day.
Wednesday -swim 30 minutes & weights (upper body, shoulders and calves)
Thursday - bike 20 mintues.
Friday - long run 10 km.
I will try to post on how each of these events go. In asian families, as a general rule, being fat is a sign of being healthy. Being thin is seen as a sign of being weak. We had guests come over this weekend and they started the dinner conversation with "wow you have become weak". Now I really wouldn't mind someone saying " you have become thin" but just assuminig I am weak is annoying. I didn't really mind it soo much but they kept going back to the same topic and my dad decided to join them and then it really started getting on my nerves. Then everyone was surprised when after dinner I excused myself and went back to my computer game, world of warcraft. Lovely escape from the real world. Books, computers games, music and the gym. Aslong as I have these I can live in Saudi Arabia.
The business manager came over and took my pencil. He was explaining some new service and borrowed my pencil to draw a diagram. All I could think of during his rant was "He wants my pencil". At the end of it he said "Please let me know what you think by the end of the day". I have absolutley no idea what he wants me to get back to him about and I want my pencil back. I have other pencils but that one was my favorite. I will sneak into his office and get it back. Stay tuned for further developments.

to add to a bad week --- something great

to top of a bad week my parents bought me a car. Well I pay for half of it but it's still very cool. I will soon own my first car. It would be called a Chevy Impala in other parts of the world. Here, in Saudi Arabia, it's called a Chevy Lumina.
I wrote about 3 business proposals this week, I am getting better at it so it will take less time but I have a big one to do next week. They want to see 30 pages for this next one. It's not like I don't want to work but I expect to be told to do it in a proper way. I expect a proper working enviornment. So one of these day's when someone says something in a particularly rude way I'm going to say if you don't like how I did it why don't you do it. 8)

to add to a lousy week

I sprained my left calf and now I have to hobble around. I need to get back into SHAPE !!!!! and I'm stuck at work doing another proposal.. Sometimes it gets a little frustrating. I would love to have had the chance to run that half marathon on staten island I had worked my way upto 12 miles over 8 weeks but now I have to start all over again after this injury and start at 20 minutes on the treadmill. Well even though I will be hobbling on one foot I will still go to the gym today and workout. Upper body ofcourse. I will really be glad when this week is over.

venting

working overtime without having the luxury of over time pay. I have a big flaw, I need to atleast feel like my boss knows more then me otherwise I loose all respect for the work I'm doing. Which seems to be the case right now. Half my implementation plan for a project was crossed out and they expect me to complete it on my own time. I don't think this post can truly capture my frustration or my anger at being forced to work on something boring and mundane.. oh well the sooner I get done the sooner I get out of here.

keeping it short

It's really hard for me to keep my blogs short. I mean once I start writing it's hard to stop. All these wonderfully weird thoughts keep popping in to my head. This will be my attempt to write a short blog.
Yesterday I went to bed right after getting my second world of warcraft charachter upto level 21 and yes, I am a nerd. It was around 12:00 am, got up around 7.30 am and got ready for work. worked till 4.30 pm got back home. went straight to the gym. Spent a good two hours sweating, came back had dinner and got on the computer again. Watched Hood Winked and got to bed.
If I keep this routine up for too long my mind will probably melt...

high school friends & the brown beard

I met up with a couple of high school friends yesterday, had a great time reminiscing about high school, soccer and life in general. The general consensus was that growing older would be alot better if we could all work in the same company where we could slip out of a meeting and go play soccer. My friends seemed to be more interested in why my beard was a dark shade of brown and if I had colored it then anything else I did in the past 6 years since high school. I never have and hopefully never will color the beard. The brown color came about by itself, I never did a thing to it. So I have to admit I look kind of weird . Black hair and brown beard.
Speaking of soccer, the french are in the finals ..... crash and burn fifa, crash and burn.
I fell asleep on the sofa in the womens living room on saturday after work(in my house), I woke up to the sound of my newphew repeating the same word, "Ian" his version of Iron, about 50 times. Why is it that little kids can repeat the same word over and over again without tiring of it ? My newphew calls me Paapi instead of Safi,which is kind of like my nick name at home. The funny thing is that paapi means sinner in Hindi. So my newphew calls me a sinner, I wonder if he knows more then he is letting on.
If there is one thing I hate more then people who smoke it's people who smoke in lavatories. If smokers should be shot on sight people who smoke in lavatories should be sent to a death camp. This death camp would have no cigaretes and therefore I would enjoy watching them suffer without cigarates. The death camp would be a 5 star hotel which had rooms only on the 50th floor and no elevator. The other 49 floors would have large posters of people smoking.
back to work.

4th of july and more random thoughts

So I just bought a new book titled "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Great book so far, even though it is about grammar. Has anyone ever wished they could capture all their thoughts and put them away for review later? I mean wouldn't it be great if we could get a short list of our best thoughts from the day? I think this should be made into an IPRO project at IIT. The IIPRO projects at IIT, my college, were anything but interesting. For one I had to sit in class and come up with a market research for my professors consulting company. Yay ! how exciting,

Ever wonder if there was more to life, I mean you spend most of your childhood years looking forward to being a grown up because it was would be so cool, but now that I'm at 25 I spend time thinking about how cool it was being a kid. The human condition I guess, sad huh. I wonder if I will ever be satisfied with what I have. There is almost always a reason to complain, always a reason to be sad.

On the bright side of things I will be running 7km's today. I finished harry potter and the half blood prince. Here is a spoiler for everyone, Harry is going to die in the next book.

Enough ranting, a friend of mine was watching Monty Python and the holy grail, man I wish I were back in Chicago. Though if I had my friends here I wouldn't really miss Chicago. I have always thought it was the people and not the place. NY was good because I learnt how to be alone without being lonely. As long as I had a good book, good music, choco puffs I was fine with being alone. What do chinese fire crackers, chinese beer and hot dogs have to do with American Independence day? What does the a bunny and colored eggs have to do with easter & cruxifiction? What do WMD's have to do with the invasion of Iraq?

Back to work... I am in the middle of a political battle at work between the marketing manager and assistant general manager, each trying to prove to the general manager that they are more vital to the organization. I don't really know if I care to take sides on this one. I would have preferred a good old fashioned duel between them myself. Take 10 steps turn and fire. Last man standing is more important to the organization because the other is well.. not around to complain anymore.