a political perspective

as easy categorising people as it may seem, it is not an easy job. but it is easy to have a number of categories based on let say political views and say some people belong to this and that, then say there people who belong to neither. probably a very safe approach, or not.
anyways, the reason for nonsense above is my encounters with different opinions in the wake of recent unrest in Egypt and Tunisia and the rest of the Arab World. i wondered how to categorise people from a political perspective and i came to the conclusion that the following categories exist:
1- the first category are those who don't really give a rat ass about whatever happens around them - they are the people who always somehow bully others no matter if they are pro or against a political system. in their view others are wasting their time.
2- those who believe in theory of conspiracy - they are the ones who believe there is a wicked hand behind whatever happens in world. for instance, west needs new dictators in power in middle east.
3- agnostics - they believe whatever happens is for worse and there's no hope for future. so if someone asks, whether the wave of protests started in  middle east would hit Iran or not? they would answer, it has hit Iran 30 years ago!
4- optimists who try to be realistic - they believe there are always hope but realistically there's no time for it. i may fit in here. they try not to predict and we always say, i don't know we have to wait and see. a "But" may come after that!
5- overly optimists - they think they can change the world. i can most of the time fit in here. they are defiant and never accept the status quo. they say: let's hope the wave of change comes to Iran!
6- they are the ones who does not belong to any of above!

thinking about the above, if i am not 4 or 5, i would definitely want to fit in number 2, but be of the ones who actually decide about what happens and where it happens!

i can't understand, what makes a man hates another man
help me understand...

what a society!!!

عجب جماعتی! حتی نمیشه با دل راحت از کسی عذر خواهی کرد. حتما پشت سرش کلی داستان از اینکه چه جوری ادم با بغض و اشک تو چشم عذر خواه یمیکنه از یه جا میزنه بیرون!!!! :س

hard times

when times are hard and you are feeling down and depressed. feeling like life constantly fucks you up, take a deep breath, chill out and enjoy the orgasm!

a personal taste

i be more impressed by the way they undress rather than the way they dress!

سه تا درخت بید که دو تاس بید بید و یه تاس بید نبید. او که بید نبید وسط او دو تا که بید بید بید!‍‍‍‍٬

rescue of Chilean Miners

the rescue mission of Chilean miners, which is currently underway and now 6th miner had reached the surface is a show case of human spirit, toughness, the will to live and resolve at its best and ultimate.
it's surely one of the most emotional days we will experience in long time for a better cause. but a tragedy in essence.
it would be an anxious time until the 33rd miner and the rescue crew comes out. having spend a lot of time in construction sites, offshore platforms and mines, i know how little it takes for a mission to fail. i can only hope that the rescue team keep their head down and feet on the ground, continue the fantastic work they have been doing so far. otherwise, it would be twice as tragic. i can only hope for the best and a perfect mission accomplishment.

things to take away from this ordeal for me:
1- a great friend said on twitter: "if this does not give you a will t live, i'm afraid nothing will" and it is simply true. i cannot imagine spending 5 minutes under my bed, let alone weeks and weeks 700 meters under ground, in peril. "whether i will live to see another sun light?" would have been the question i would have asked myself.
2- when there's will there's a way... it has always been. maybe we should look at this and ask ourselves, do we have the will to live enough to make a change? to make the big bad wolf go?
3- it's a sad story in the mean time to see that a group of less fortunate men (and women in other instances; kids) have to work their ass off, put their lives on the line so that some one cashes in. it's painful!

all in all, i am over the moon to see them coming out. a happy day in deed.

a personal feeling

i find that irrelevance of a smart comment passed on a subject hurts more than grievance of a witless but relevant comment on the same subject. it just eliminates the joy of the conversation. 

30 years

30 years since the first bullet had been shot, had passed. 8 years of a tough life-style. a tough life, which i oddly managed to enjoy a lot of it as a kid.
so many moments in times when we flee to the suburbs with 7 other families to my grand dads mansion. where we were more than 30 people in a 1 bedroom two story getaway and all those mornings that i had to go back to Tehran for school's fucking summer programms! the moments that i used to run to the roof to watch find the trails of missiles pouring on our head. or that early morning when a missile hit just 500 meters away from my bedroom and then i had to sit physics exam! or the red alert siren and the constant fear of a bomb hitting our home living within. from all that two very special but not necessarily pleasant had been etched in my mind.
one was the day during the time Scud missiles were flying all around. i was atop Shemshak peak on a gorgeous sunny day of skiing. i saw 7 Scud missiles flying over Tehran seconds before they released the warhead. i was left in a moment of negative and evil fascination, yet huge despair. i wondered if my home had been hit, yet instinctively i knew we weren't!
the other one is the footage of chemical attack by Iraqis on Fav Island, Halabche and Shalamche. it was their land and at that time we were the occupiers. they were the hunters turned prey. it still is not within the realm of my understanding that how and why someone can do that? the question why war has not been solved for me, yet!

Albert Einstein once wrote:
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

and Ernest Hemingway wrote:
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

vision

vision is probably the most essential element to progress. the foundation of any future developments. an effort without a vision is like building without foundation.
i just had a conversation with a colleague over ski and snowboard. i just happen to school him about history of snowboarding, how it started and the pioneers like Jake Burton, Tom Sims, Dimitrije Milovich and Mike Olsen dared to explore the unknown grounds, then how later Shawn Farmer and Nick Pereta developed the skills until now that already legends like Terje Haakonsen and Travis Rice are pushing the limits further.
i have been skiing for 28 years now and i have never been encouraged to snowboard. never even tempted, in fact i kind of don't like snowboarders for their generally reckless and irresponsible attitude. specially their "i'm too cool to wait in line" attitude, while queuing up for lift.
just like any other thing tough, a good snowboarder is always admirable while riding.
not to get distracted from the topic, after seeing the movie First Descent, which is about history of snowboarding and a first descent in Alaska's very own Chugach mountain range, i could only have admiration for those people i named above. what they had was a dream, which turned into an ambition and a vision. later they just made it happen. as simple as that. all they were was bunch of surfer dudes or skateboarders who wanted to experience the same feeling on the snow and they just did it. it was genuine and pure effort.
what made them a success story was that they never mixed a vision with an illusion. it's so important not to be deluded. not to mix a vision with an illusion.
a great lesson learned for me and although i might curse life from time to time, i feel lucky to be born at a time to have known such people, i am sure if i were few years older or younger i wouldn't have the same feeling and understanding about it.

wise man said

a wise man once said:"Don't ask God to make your life easier, ask him to make you a stronger person!"
well if i were to ask from someone called god, i would have only asked him to give a fuck about what he had created!

خوبیش اینه که ما هر هفته از سالمون یه اسمی داره. ولی نمیدونستم که هفتهء جهانی مساجد هم داریم!!!! که البته مهم هستش چون کلی از مردم دنیا که وقت نمیکردن به حرفهای رییس جمهور ما گوش بدن این فرصت پیدا کردن و الان میدونن که ایشون برای اداره دنیا برنامه دارن. یکی از همین مردم که ازجزیره باکره انگلیسی* میاد گفت: خدا عمرت بده جوون. از نگرانی درمون اوردی

*British Virgin Island!

our fathers backward attitude

years ago, when i still was a student, i used to teach. we had a family friend, a wealthy guy, price of whose wealth was people's blood. they had four daughters and a son, back then 3 or 4, probably 15 years younger than the youngest of the girls. the son was pretty annoying but the girls were quite cool. 

i used to teach the youngest. help her on chemistry, mathematics, etc. she was quite a cool chick. yet all the girls, although quite fun, were stuck in a male dominant conservative backward family set up. they were afraid of their father and literary do whatever he would have ordered them to do.

so one they i found out Neda, the youngest, is getting married and it was after the time that the youngest after Neda ran away with her best girl-friend saying they were in love. nothing wrong with that, for me of course. the family though, were devastated! so Neda getting married was a blessing for them. 

i found her on Facebook the other day. she's divorced. it's ok to be divorced, my sister is a divorcée.

whether she's happier or not is not the case, let's hope she is.

what it got me to think about was that what would it take for our fathers/families to wake up. for them not to lead their daughters, the ones that they have to love and protect into a hole called arranged marriage. a nose dive into misery. what it takes for them to realise that arranged marriages are not working. when they sent an 18 year old girl to the home of someone that they hardly know, it would most likely harm the girl. my father learned that lesson the hard way. so hard that i suffered as well. not all fathers in our society are like this but we have to admit that we are living in a patriarch society, where if male scholars (again not all of them but considerable number of them) could, they would have classified females in the same category as devil who should serve males as sex slaves and ensure men are fed, produce children and preferably sons. 

the fact is that she lost few good years of her life. the time that she could enjoy the most and now that she is divorced, the same mentality forces her to be a bit more careful in the way she lives because of what people might say. as result of this mentality,  divorcées are generally whores! well fuck whatever people might say. fuck the people. just wake up and let your daughters live their fucking life!!!

leading by example

leading by example, an essence of modern Project Management and Leaderships. when we read about PM and Leadership, it is often suggested that a good manager who leads will have to lead by example. meaning, stick to what you say. show you believe in them and that they actually count. 

i was reviewing the events in my career in during past four years and i remember my Project Technical Manager. we often talked about his narcissistic attitudes. he kept on talking about his experiences and how good he was blah blah blah. it was pretty dull. suddenly today it struck me that maybe he was trying to do the "Leading by Example"!

too often we will see that in our career whether it is our PM or we and a Project Manager that instead of leading by Example, we talk about the examples ignoring the fact that we gotta walk the talk.

now i have a reason to understand his narcissistic attitude!

rebuilding despair

the more i think about it , the more i get scared. what? the time and effort that it takes to rebuild this country. this land that despite my desires to go away and not to look back, just drew me back here. the attraction of this environment, the city set up, the heritage, it all are so strong in me that i could never convince myself to migrate from Iran. i went away and worked for few years. in Dubai, Spain and Libya, but when it comes down for me to decide between Iran and living outside, i chose Iran. one of the reasons was the hope that it will change for better. well, it has changed but for worse, at least for now. and we are yet to see if it will take a twist for better in future and how soon a future?

the desire in me to live in Iran and be Iranian was sop strong in me that i was totally caught by surprise. i never knew i would have that much love for this country.

rebuilding, is what i constantly think about. the task that seems a mission impossible in most of the days. where do we start? people need to change their attitude. attitude is what i believe we mostly misunderstand as culture.

mostly the incumbent government and for a large part of it (not larger tan the incumbent) previous governments are responsible for where we are today. insisting on commitment of the officials and decision makers rather than their knowledge and competencies, their skills; had led to massive and expanded fraud. it's just (to a large extent) hopeless. 

yet, we have no option but be patient and strong with one thing in mind. to redeem our country and make it from the scratch. total overhaul of the country in every level, education, Oil & Gas and other industries, police and security forces (i still have hard time figuring out how can a police live on his wages), government, parliament. we need to establish democracy and transparency. we need to get rid of false beliefs and fictions. 

long way we have in front of us. so many tears are to be shed. that would be the expense, the cost we have to pay for the moment of peace and pride.

on death & legends

Chuck Palahniuk once said: 

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.

friends & acquaintances

too often one forgot the difference between a friend and an acquaintance and too often i get tangled in between to figure out whom i do call a friend and whom i don't? too often the ones that i spend time with them the most, doesn't deserve to be counted as friend!

how unhealthy! but can i really get rid of the acquaintances? well not really, since there are too few of friends around. some of them are thousands of miles away. some are near but for some reasons, it's not happening that we meet up. 

i guess it's a given that most of the times, there are some impurities. 

a friend to me is that no matter what, she or he would not be upset with me. stands by me all the time in good or bad. which makes me wonder, have i been a friend to my friends?

free agents saga...

finally speculations over NBA's free agent market is over and it's been quite a surprise. Miami Heat landed James & Bosh and kept Wade in a race that once more, Pat Riley proved he's a master Tactician, whether he is on the bench or managing the office. Heat the least talked about team during the LBJ campaign, had him as probably the one before last addition to the line up. Derek Fisher is also in talks to make Heat a Super-Power! 

it's obvious that Riley wants to put together another show time team reviving memories of Magic, Scott, Abdul-Jabbar, Worthy, Cooper, AC Green, etc.

and boy he knows how to do it. Bosh was said to follow the money, but after negotiations with Riley, Bosh agreed to a pay cut so Heat can have enough space in salary cap to land LBJ and probably another star. Derek Fisher is the point that Heat would like to have. but who knows if Nash will end up in south beach or not???

i'm a Raptors fan. but for championship, Dallas and Miami had always been my teams. Probably Toronto doesn't have the proper weather to attract big stars. but i like the way they build their teams from younger talents. Amir Johnson, VC, Villanueva, Bosh and few more.

so Heat is now a contender and finally i can say that most probably Lakers won't be champions again! 

but in all that something was very striking. the way that whole LBJ campaign went. waiting for the last minute to announce his decision in a dedicated TV show! i believe it was most unprofessional and unsportsmanlike. i believe Amare Stoudamire, Carlos Boozer, Bosh are just as big (maybe not economically just as big but from a Basketball point of view, they are just as important to a team as LBJ is) all did their thing without a fuss. there are lot of reasons to that of course, though none relevant to the game but all to business. i wonder how expensive were the Ads slots on the networks... 

what was worse than this for me was the comments of Cleveland GM after announcement by LBJ that he's leaving for Miami! he said that James gave up on Cavs on the Game 2 of second round of  play-off! if this is true, then what's the ruckus? 

it's disappointing to see these kind of rhetorics in the sports that i and few special ones around me truly love, the ones that i shared the best moments of my life with them in basketball courts. 

just as sports competitiveness is important, i believe there should be certain degree to how far a showbiz it should be. i believe what James did was out of line and the response by Cavs and Cleveland was far worse.

i sometimes think that adoosh, fass, jafa, karan mak, Babak T and i deserve more to fill those seats than the ones already filling them.

dysfunctional corporate systems.

today was the 10th year anniversary of a colleague working for my company. a huge and very well know one. a company that some will dream of working for. multi-international, good projects, sophisticated processes, anything that a good company have to offer and also so many flaws. 

something that amazed me from the day one was the HR dysfunctionalities (if such word exists). the fact that it's so not-fit-for-purpose that they have no means of recognizing friends and foes. something that i have first hand experience with. 

first HR people (not all of them but quite a lot of them) were from Ice-age. due to their back ground. mainly former admins who had been promoted to managerial positions without proper education, especially lack of resource management and change management skills. i believe change management is within HR essence. there's a flow of human Resource coming in & out of every organisation with a pace specifically defined by the size and nature of the business of each company. so change management first should be realised and understood by HR people. it seems not only at the company that i work for, but also in other companies it is an unattended or rather ignored competency. it somehow reflects the short comings of system developers who had actually ignored it. 

HR system flaws here are so that those who have bad intentions can bullshit their way up where people who have great enthusiasm for working in this company (or other bigger companies). last week i saw a colleague, a bright young talent, leaving the company. someone who could probably work for another 30 years in tis company, someone so proud of working in tis organisation that had chosen a user name with name of the company included in it. it got me to think how easy he'd been letting go? and then today we celebrated the 10th year anniversary of a man, a senior manager, who hardly cares about what's going to happen! 

it just is disappointing. very disappointing. and a colleague friend once put it very well that "it needs a decade for HR Managers and People to evolve. We need to see the incumbents leave the organisations and be replaced with younger people and fresh ideas to have current issues tackled."

a matter of principle

i have some 1800 people on my friends list on face book. some of which i don't know at all, some i know a bit, some i know very well (or at least i thought i'd known until this morning) and a very few are my best friends. 

it's not a that surprising anymore to find out new things about people that i think i know very well. however, the extent of discovery could be quite shocking!

i just found out a boy i used to know since we were kids (so i thought, i'd known him well) and is a supporter of German football team (so far all ok). the thing that stroke me and then i realised how wrong i am about the guy was that he had posted a German flag with a NAZI emblem stamped on it!!! i mean for fucks sake, it's 21st century. how stupid and short sighted one must be to still believe and support Nazis???? 

the good thing is that there's no more of that man in my life in any way...