Archive for the ‘rambles’ Category

Queue the violin


12 Jan

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I recently decided to drop my capstone class. It was a tough decision, propelled by the thought of being left out of my group and left to fend for myself. Call it a classic case of paranoia or preemptive thinking, unfortunately, I’m not the same way and if a group member was away like I was, I wouldn’t leave them high and dry.

Though, I’ve painfully learned over and over again that compassion does not fare well in the cut throat world of real life…

Time for the fun world of back story.

In November I was required to go to an orientation that would explain my capstone in great detail. What is this capstone you speak of… The capstone I speak of is basically the culmination of all my classes. It takes all the theoretical knowledge we have acquired in our time in the MBA program and has us apply it in a real life application.

So three weeks prior to the semester starting, I’m sitting in a room with 9 other people going over the requirements of this class and how it is different from any other class we’ve ever had. Having done my undergraduate degree at DeVry University, I was somewhat familiar with the capstone concept. Keller decided to take that and throw it out the window. Which, for a graduate school, should be expected.

The rough basics of what our capstone would entail was; we would start a company. The school would cover most of the legal expenses involved with this. I thought this was a fantastic idea. Then we were told since this is only an 8 week class, we would have to do work prior to class starting.

This is where I felt things were going to head downhill… I expressed to my group that I would be traveling for two of those weeks, and while I would be international, I’d still have email and even Skype.

While I was in the US, things went well, we emailed, I sent in two mediocre idea’s. The truth of the matter being, I didn’t want to try and cram out a good business plan and ground work for my business idea’s in a matter of a few weeks. So I figured I’d rather help someone else with their business and in the end, earn some capital by having theirs succeed…

As soon as I left for India all communication stopped. At first I didnt think of anything, but after a few days a dead line was missed, I felt it was time to talk to everybody, I shot out an email to one of my group mates, but never heard anything back. The thought that I had been ditched slowly crept into my head, but as it was my brothers wedding, the honest truth was, no fucks were given.

My goal was to be the most helpful brother possible and to have as much fun with family as possible. I’d like to think I succeeded.

When Arwa and I came back from India, I went through my spam folder in hopes that some how all the emails were spammed and I could explain to everybody what happened… It was not the case unfortunately. The following day we left for St. Maartin with the intent of moving her into her new place. This task was no little under taking, but we accomplished like seasoned movers.

I then decided to email my academic adviser and drop the capstone class. As much as I was looking forward to little sleep and the development of ulcers helping someone else bring a business up and running, I just didnt see it happening this block. So I dropped the class…

Now the question begs, what to do with this time?

I fully intend on teaching myself a language. It’s a matter of deciding, do I go with perl or php? Do I move to a windows platform and write windows code? Do I do some iOS coding? WHAT DO I DO???? and it is this ADD stricken situation that has left me completely perplexed…

Eventually I’ll blog about India…

Fire burning…


01 Nov

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Years ago, when I was but a wee bit of the man I am now, I was more socially inclined and apt to spend time on my phone talking to friends. On one particular night, while spending time on the phone with someone I was not that interested in talking to, I bore witness to something that to this day doesn’t quite haunt me, but will stay with me for the rest of my life.

While attempting to get off the phone I look over to where my friend Pat lived, and in the parking lot I see a car, but this car was different from other cars. This car was on fire! It was so much so on fire that it was burning the tree next to it. Yet it was courteous enough to not set fire to the car next to it.

That’s a level of politeness you rarely see these days.

I scream into the phone that there is a car on fire and that it’s my civic duty to call the cops and atleast pee on it or something… So, while i fumble with my zipper, Im frantically dialing 9-1-1. Oddly enough the call connected prior to my fly dropping.

What I was going to do with my zipper down over 150 feet away from the fire I’m still not sure… In retrospect I’m wincing thinking about attempting this.

At this point I have the emergency operator on the phone and she’s trying to get my attention as I watch this car drip fire. DRIP FIRE!!! WTF???? IT. WAS. DRIPPING. FIRE!!!!! Wrap your head around that for a minute. It was fire, dripping. HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL.

Back to this woman is trying to regain my attention, eventually I realize there is a woman other than my mother yelling at me on the phone, saying “State your emergency please” and I respond with “THEREISACARONFIRE” and I am greeted with “excuse me”.

I decide unless I calmly explain this, nothing is going to come of it, I take a deep breath, smell the acrid smell of plastic and metal burning along with wood… At this point I’m starting to wonder why nobody else has noticed this. Homes have windows, windows have nosy people poking their heads out when I walk around on my phone. Here we have a car, this car is on fire, the tree next to this car is on fire. Yet not a single soul is doing a damned thing about it…

Then it clicked, this is gang related. Then I start gibbering again. I keep trying to describe this car on fire… unfortunately, “It’s a car, on fire, you cant miss it” doesnt seem to cut it… I eventually get her the address and location of the car and as Im trying to give her a description as in make and model, I hear a boom. This causes me to nearly shit myself. I yell into the phone, “I’m getting shot at… SOMEONE IS SHOOTING AT ME”.

I start crouching in the middle of the street, running in some hybrid hunch, shuffle, waddle towards the car when, BOOOM, this time I hit the ground. I start yelling into the phone, “Did you hear that one? That’s the second shot… Where are the cops”. The poor woman, she must have been dying in hysterics, because it wasnt until the third explosion that she was able to explain to me that the heat was causing the tires to expand until they exploded…

I stand up and begin to dust myself off just as the cops show up and take my statement… I never did find out how or why that car got set on fire, and the tree, other than some fire damage was fine and is probably still there to this day.

 

Mule’s in the restroom


26 Jul

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Don’t get me wrong. Mule’s are probably half my favorite animal, since they are half Donkey half Horse, I just dont get why people have to act like jack asses…

For starters, there is an obvious code of ethics when it comes to men’s restrooms. As such, if there are 5 urinals, I would appreciate the every other one concept.

For example, if I chose urinal 1, that means you have the opportunity to choose 3 or 5, and so forth. If you are the kind of person who chooses urinal 2 or 4, then you are a jerk. You have effectively taken a 3 person pissing unit and turned it into a 2 person shit show. UNACCEPTABLE.

What is also unacceptable, standing next to me when I am attempting to relieve my bladder. There are potentially 3 other urinals to choose from. I say three because if I’m at 1 then you can use 3 through 5 as you wish… Actually, no, not as you wish, because some of you are really twisted individuals and I just dont want to deal with that nonsense.

When using the stall, DO NOT PEE ALL OVER THE PLACE. I fail to understand how you at this point in your life still can not aim with a something you’ve had all your fricken life. At this point in you’re life you are either an intern or higher; so that puts you at the youngest, 17 years of age. Unless you are a child genius and working where I work for some odd reason, then I just feel bad for you… You can piss wherever you want to, as long as it’s not on me.

On a side note, As a general rule and a life lesson, 99% of the time it’s probably ill advised to attempt to pee on a person.

Also, I’ll exclude children from this mess since parents do sometimes bring their kids to work…

It’s not fucking snow, nobody can tell that you tried to write your name on the tiles or walls or what ever the fuck it is you think you are allowed to pee on. All we can tell is when you step out of that stall and look to see a person waiting and give that oh shit face, we know we’re in for an irritating time.

I assure you, one day, if you pee on the seat and I catch you, I will wipe it up with your face. Pray you have a beard otherwise it will be a long and arduous process…

As for you shit talkers, I mean literally, you people who have to talk on the phone while taking a crap. SERIOUSLY? write a fucking text, or play a game on your phone like the rest of humanity does! I have enough issues using a public restroom without hearing about you’re weekend plans. I especially love when you are on a conference call. I do my best to flush as many times as possible for no other reason than to cause you embarrassment.

What train of thought possessed you to think you could get away with joining a call WHILE IN THE EFFING BATHROOM? And then on top of that, you’re not even going to put your mic on mute because you’re going to talk? The acoustics aren’t even that great…

bed times are for sissys


03 Jun

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Sometimes it’s the lack of sleep that really drives us to write. I did doze off for a little bit, but I quickly rose from that slumber… I’m not writing out of an obligation, but I am writing out of a sense of need. Yet I have nothing to express, perhaps just my presence is all I wish to subject…

The life of Sohail seems to consist of work and school with the odd assortment of social activities. If I have the time and energy tomorrow or Sunday I will take the time to actually update with what’s going on.

Just know this. Soon, very very soon, the semester is over and I will be having fun… FUN FUN FUN!

With the wife! Perhaps now I can sleep.