Adventures of Mr.Behi

The Door of the Sky

It was the day before yesterday and I was home before the sunset in a windy, semi-cloudy day presenting a very interesting kind of sunset. I could not help taking a picture. It was like a door all over the horizon, closing the light coming from the outside. See the picture in my Libya Photo album (here is the link)

We are now packing for our trip to Europe...finally happening...everything is set to enjoy the time. I will have another photo album for this trip and should make sure that things don't get delayed in the blog...Mrs.Behi also thinks it is great...she writes here

The Last Frame

I was downloading the final pictures that I took from Iran before travelling to Tripoli and this one above reminded me how I will miss the beauty and elegance of Alborz mountains. The scene is from one of the various roads that connect Tehran to north of Iran. The lonely but ever green tree that we met several times in this route....in winter it stands out as the only non-white object within an entire ice-covered plain. I am sure when we leave Tripoli to our next assignment, I will also start to miss the view of the mediterranean sea and Tripoli port where you see a new ship several times in a week.

The Royal Reception

North of Tehran is filled with diplomatic buildings and embassies for the foreign missions to inhale the best fresh air you can get in the city and exhale whatever mission they have! I have been having a series of very amusing experiences with the Royal Norwegian embassy in the past four weeks and I like to record and remember.

It was around second half of December last year that I received an invitation from my colleagues in Norway to join a week long gathering in Oslo in late January. Very excited indeed, I went to the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tehran to deliver my application. The visa section was a very small room with a guard who also dispensed visa forms, an electric radiator, two doors and set of plastic chairs. Walls filled with visa information as usual, one very interestingly saying: “The embassy apologizes for the smoked bulletproof glasses that are installed for security reasons”, I said to myself: wow, how considerate!

My interview was short, I gave my invitation letter, paid the money, got the receipt and the stamp on the passport. The only cool point about that was that I saw a coffee mug beside the visa girl and could read “smoking is my choice so f*** off!” oh boy! How considerate!

My due date for traveling was approaching and I was under extreme anxiety for the visa to arrive. I called the embassy so many times with no good answer. The visa finally arrived three days after my original due date! The embassy told me that no one looked at my application for days because all the Norwegians were away for their holidays. Thank god Scandinavians are famous for being punctual! I missed a life time opportunity with this.

Anyway, I decided to go and get a cancellation on my application so that the seal on my passport would not look like a rejected case. Went to the embassy early in the freezing morning today, lined up in the queue and ended up in one of the rooms.

The Iranian lady on the other side was extremely harsh (I was blessed the mug lady was not there), and made me believe that I should have not at all applied knowing that the holidays were coming! I could truly imagine the Vicking horns on her head and an axe in her hands and then became really thankful for the smoky bulletproof glasses! Finally I could get another seal on my passport saying: “canceled with no prejudice” oh…yeah…

For me, the moral of my story from the Royal Norwegian embassy is that being royal is not just about having a separate spoon for each meal you have on your royal table.

Mrs.Behi is so glad to be here!

Hi, this is Mrs.Behi who is talking... in fact writing to you. This is the first time that I've decided to come here not as a permanent reader but as an occasional writer who knows Mr.Behi not just from his words but from HER heart and wants to share this lovely, warm area with him. I thought being in a real life with Mr.Behi has had a wonderful feeling for me so it's so possible to feel the same while I'm breathing here in his space :-). I’m going to do his job from my point of view every now and then.

Well let's give you some perspective about myself. Mrs.Behi is a regular Iranian woman who wants to know what exactly she's doing in this world, however she first needs to know herself and her true desires and feelings. she's trying so hard or maybe she thinks she's trying to figure these things out.

I will come back soon ;-).

Cool day out...

Summer for Tehran residents is a perfect chance to go to higher hills of east and west of Alborz mountains. The route to these areas will eventually take many to the ever green northern region (south of Caspian sea). The hills of Alborz are so refreshing and pure...streams and springs and great gardens and green hills stretching from east to west.
All you want to do is to escape from the heat and spend some quality time in a nice garden, walk into cool streams, pick fruit and get some heavy lunch. Watermelon is one of the key parts after you get up form the afternoon nap. This one above we had left for a couple of hours down into a cool water well and if was cool and fresh when we attacked.

The Size Of Our World

Look at this: The Size Of Our World. My definition for beyond changed a lot after seeing this.

Imagine me like this!

Mr.Behi woke up 6:00 a.m in the morning today, had a quick glass of milk as breakfast, dressed up, got into the car, drove up to work, sat by his desk, started the computer and began finalising his report and it took him 4 hours till the time he went to take a coffee (on the famous mug, up left corner of this page) and then he decided to rub his eyes a little bit and that was the time he realised one of the left glass is already fallen away somewhere.

How can I be so in my inside world that much? Now I have to clean the right one so much so that other people can not tell the difference. I got to wear this and the right one is better than nothing. How come I did not realise? Does hat mean my left eye actually is not looking? oops...

Nuclear energy and second marriage

I read a nice joke in this Persian blog that was so cool but before telling that, I should give a little background. In Islam, men are allowed to have more than one wife which is a pre-historic action and was blindly frozen till today. Although it is still in practise in some places, generally in Iranian society it is very prohibited and negative to have more than one simultaneous marriages. In brief, that is so old-fashioned and ugly but in old-fashioned fundamentalism, it is man's right to do that but if he does not make his first wife aware and does that without her permission, she then can take him to court!

These days, nuclear energy is called upon in Iran as our non-questionable right and that joke tried to connect the similarity of having a secrete second marriage and a secrete nuclear program in a funny way:

He says: "It is said that for the following reasons, nuclear energy is like a second marriage:

1- Both are our absolute rights
2-Both will be needed in a few years time
3-Both have to be secretly followed
4-In both cases, you are not doing any wrong [by law] but you will be taken to court/Security Council :-)

Map your mind

It has been a while since I have placed this nice book about mind mapping "on my desk column" down the left. Mind mapping is talking about writing down information and let's say organise them in a way that brain categorises them. I have started doing this kind of stuff for my personal brainstorming and business planning and man that is fantastic. Now, a great tool that I have found, made life much more enjoyable to map. This tool is fantastic and now, I have started to map everything in my life and you always see when you put everything you know, interpretation starts to emerge.

Good Progress :-)

Guess what! I was selected as the employee of the year and the company gave me this! such an adorable piece of technology.