Adventures of Mr.Behi

When a Geek Plans a Trip

Mr. Geek is planning a trip overseas. Look what he has done and see how geek you are compared to him. Parts of his planning work is considered to many people so regular like booking the car or hotel online but check the rest:

Mr.Geek and his wife are planning a 10 day trip overseas so Mr. Geek has been on his laptop for a long time booking stuff. But before anything, he has made a mindmap of the trip. He talked to his boss who went to the same place and created a word document with his advise in the map.

He searched tons of websites and browsed GoogleEarth for hours to locate the hotels to ensure they were cheap enough, had good reviews, close to metro stations, etc. He found the routes from city to city and dinning places in between and calculated how long it would take considering the time for pictures and threshold for flat tires and loosing way (and the possible increase in the rotation speed of the Earth:) He made himself sweat with his laptop on his laps searching for a program on the internet to transform google map routes into the GPX files so that his GPS receiver could read them. He also searched for walking tour podcasts for the places to go and have compiled already a couple of books in PDF about things to do and where to go.

All the links, bookmarks, booking conformations, maps etc are linked to the mindmap according to the time table. One of his desired hotels that was located just by the metro station was fully booked so he had to book another one, he now knows that from the hotel he booked, there will be 706 meters to walk to the metro station and now he needs to get the information if the city of destination is safe for walking when they get back to the hotel at night from the metro station. And can a geek forget computer shopping? Nooo so he has the location of the Mac store (the one and only in the country) to go to before coming back.

All this to ensure that the trip itself could be spent just for seeing things not to do last minute planing and I bet something will remain to the last minute...The question is: Why am I writing this 00:45 in the morning. I just need to finish my apple juice and head for the bedroom. Mrs.Behi is here singning with a YouTube video she has just found after watching the movie and another weekend finishes this way...

The world is talking. Are you listening?

Link: Global Voices Online has been on my bookmark toolbar since it started. It is by far, one of the most awesome websites for getting first hand information from blogs all around the world. The credit for sure goes to the dedicated translators and blog diggers in local communities who contribute to this project. I hope more and more people get to read the GV at least as much as they browse regular news website. The GV has also a translated version in Persian but I do not see many readers among the Persian blogging community talking about it. Maybe because it is fairly new. Honestly, Iranian blogging community is into Iranian matters way too much. They should really listen up to other societies. This is a page to open, a breakfast for world citizens :) let's listen or at least pretend to listen is better to remain deaf.

Me, My Car and Tripoli

I need to drive around ten minutes to get to work every morning. This is very close compared to the 30-40 minutes that it took me in Tehran and that was with no traffic around 6:30 a.m. I drive a company car that is equipped with a device they call VDO (I have not thought what it stands for). So basically the way it works is that they give you this blue stick that looks like a fat flash memory and it has your ID as a driver and the car does not start without verifying it. The device records every move, acceleration rate, deaccelaretion rate, speed, duration in max speed, number of hard breaks, etc. By the end of each month, everyone records the data from the system and the safety department prints the record of everyone on public board. Some people appear in yellow and red zone and fall under closer supervision. Oh, before even getting the blue key, you need to sit for a driving test that assesses if you are in compliant with extra cautious driving policies. I like the extra rules very much in driving at least. This VDO has made me to cap my speed to 80 Km/h and to be honest, you have to cap it to this in Tripoli or you are asking for trouble...fastening seat belt is our condition of employment in the company and they say people can get fired not wearing it and they look very serious. It is a good habit to have.

I am a Tehran driver and learned driving in a city that without a doubt should be named as one of the most difficult places to drive but Tripoli amazes me with the way people drive as if the intention is hitting and fact that cars do not hit each other is the accident. Some strange things I have seen in traffic here:

- You are in a crossroad that is bigger than a square with only two traffic lights and they are placed well before the junction itself so if you stop before the pedestrian passage way, you do not see the light behind you and have to rely on the beeping on the cars behind you who actually see the light.

- You see a red traffic light in the middle of a highway and it is red but there is no other road crossing the highway and you suddenly realize that the old U-turn is closed but the light is still working.

- You see extra-huge 8-cylinder 4WD Chevrolet who occupies the whole lane of a narrow street and its ultra bright white florescent headlights make you blind for 10 minutes in traffic!

- You are in a cross road and no one will ever let you pass unless you get to the point that no one could ever pass unless you pass...then they let you pass.

- You are driving nicely and you see that 300m ahead of you, cars are behind the red light...then someone reaches you from behind, attaches himself to your car and flashes like 50 times continuously as if there is a life and death situation...you give him way and he ends up behind the red light just beside you seconds later!

- You are stuck in a traffic jam in a two lane street and finally reach the bottle-neck and what is the bottle-neck? a guy who is sitting in his car calmly made a double parking chatting with his friend who is riding a motor bike and together they clogged 3/4 of the road!

- You see a police officer in a junction and there is a traffic light there too! The officer does exactly what the light says. No less no more and when cars pass the yellow or red light, he just watches...and even stops the cars in green side to let the law-breaking driver to pass.

That is why Mrs.Behi says "be careful when driving" every day when I say goodbye to her..normally we drive around Tripoli getting caught in these funny driving situations...and the CD in our car stereo says: Don't worry...be happy...   

Cooling off in a humid Thursday Night

One week passed without me posting here. Life was normal with couple of interesting things at work. This week I met two new companies, one from Russia and one from Taiwan. Interesting people and promising opportunities (if they really meant what they told me). The Russian company was funny, I stepped into their reception area once and discovered one of the guards laying on the coach watching TV. It was the only company that I had  to use one of the audience as an interpreter for the other during my presentation :) and the only one that smoking was not banned inside the building!

Now I am done with yet another week. My boss will be on vacation for the next two weeks and his new boss has not yet arrived in Tripoli so basically I am on my own. I am so excited about September when Mrs.Behi and I will travel to Europe. We have done some perfect planning and I have already booked a couple of Hotels and the car. Still need to do some more planning.

Tripoli is as nice as it has been. Nights are very live as it is summer and normally not hot at all so you can easily walk and eat outside. Fasting month of Ramadan will be in September this year and I heard that Tripoli will completely hibernate after mid-day and will stay awake after sunset till morning itself.

The Lost Innocence

They call them rapists, murderers, drug dealers...call them whatever...what is happening in Iran? In a matter of few weeks, I heard a lot of news and saw many photos and videos about public executions in various parts of the country. No comments about things they did and whether these fellows deserved to be executed or not. Some people say execution is not fair at all, some say the opposite...and Iranian justice system says eye for the eye...let's say we agree to this point but why killing someone in front of others? why?

Public execution is the most bitter thing that can happen in a society and sadly, I saw a little kid in one of the pictures in the scene of an execution. What is the price of her innocence? it is indeed easy to destroy things but no one will leave the scene of the execution thinking about things he/she learned for life...they may cut a bad tree in hope of a better plant to rise from the same land but by poisoning the soil, only death grows...:(