Adventures of Mr.Behi

The Italians I Know...Part One: The Philosopher

It was September 2007 and with Mrs.Behi we were in our nine-day drive through Italy. A few days remaining to finish, we had already been to Milan, Sirmione, Verona, Venice, Florence and Pizza. That nice September afternoon, after hovering around some beautiful hill towns in Tuscany we headed towards Rome, the final destination of the trip. I was driving this little hatchback Ford that seemed a bit odd in character since a week earlier when we got it from Milan airport but yet moved us around nicely along. We were heading to Rome to give it back to the rental company the next day. The hills in Tuscany absorbed us so nicely with their spiraling narrow roads and medieval castles and farms and vineyards stretching all across the land and I guess I might have taken it too hard to the little car and it started gasping when we reached Volterra, high on top of a steep hill.
As we descended from Volterra and headed south, I realized that the oil alarm was blinking, not a sharp intentional blink that looked programmed but like a half burned lamp struggling to show some light but you couldn't tell if it was really on. We were on the belt road of Siena where I pulled over in a gas station and checked the oil. We had enough!
In a phone booth:
Me: Hi sir, I rented this car from you there and then and I am here now (on a Sunday) and the oil lamp is blinking
The car rental guy: Oh, yes sir I see that you are going to return the car tomorrow in Rome
Me: Yes!
The guy: So I say you carry on, you know this might be an electric malfunction of the lamp! It happened before!
Me: You sure?
The guy: Yeah all Right! enjoy your trip...

And we did...It was almost sunset and we moved away from Siena heading to Rome. Then after 10 Kms and luckily with with us on the slow lane of the highway close to a parking corner, the engine stopped and didn't breath again. We were living in Libya back then and my cell phone was not working in Europe. There we were, helpless!

With the blinking flashes and the red triangle installed plus me gesticulating by the road wearing the yellow night jacket, I could see many cars slowing down but speeding up again. A young guy stopped and I asked him to call the rental agent. He could not speak English that well but promised to do something in the next gas station. No sign afterward. We waited for another half hour and Mrs.Behi was already starting to convince herself that she would spend the night in the car! Many passed us with rush to catch their dinner plans...

The first Italian that we know was also going to dinner. He was driving a car as small as ours and swiftly pulled over and stopped when met him and his friend. They were heading to have Pizza in a nearby town. There in the chill of the night and under a remarkably beautiful night sky full of stars, we met Michele, a professor at university of Siena who was and I guess still is teaching philosophy and medieval art. We were so happy and thankful that they stopped yet he was negatively surprised that we waited as long as we did and no one stopped. "Don't mention it, I was also helped before similarly", he replied.
He was so kind to call the rental company to explain the situation and followed up to coordinate the towing car to drag us back to Siena. While waiting, we got to talking and realized that the city that we were about to miss and had no plan to visit, was a real attraction for itself and it would be a pity not to see it. Siena became the unplanned destination and a positive side of the car breakdown.
Michele was a special person. Expert in medieval art and philosophy, I felt that he had a corner of comfort for himself departed from the noise of modern days.

We followed the towing car riding with Michele and left him and his friend in Siena to give them a chance to have dinner while their original plan had already ruined. All that with a promise of having them for lunch in Siena the day after.

It was all but regretful. Siena had a wonderful atmosphere. We met Michele again after getting a new car from the rental company and toured the town with him. He showed us his book on the shelf of a bookshop. He was a critique of Kant philosophy and the book was about that, in Italian.
The best part of the tour was lunch. He suggested that we eat in a restaurant in Siena run by a family for generations. It was a very humble place below one of the arches in a corner where you wouldn't see it unless you knew it was there. It was named "Grattacielo", Skyscraper in Italian. The place was a very small but I bet the taste of the food could indeed rival many rotating restaurants. Tuscan home made food was one of the best we had in the trip and we owe this to Michele and his favorite skyscraper.

We left Siena all refreshed and very happy by the experince. Our trip to Italy was a well planned one yet the deviation from the plan was the part that is greatly remembered. Thanks Michele :)

New Year

It is officially the new Persian year now. I have taken today off and with Mrs.Behi we are celebrating together.  The year we passed, was a remarkable year for us! full of adventures! We got to see many different places, met lots of new people and enjoyed it. Had a new phase in our lives settling in a new country and we made through it well. It was a great year at work too.

The year ahead will also be very unexpected. Some new plans in the list...Some of those can completely revolve our lives and our place in the world... many new adventures for sure. Hope to look back next year this time and say...it was a wonderful year...the first year of the forth decade of my life :) Happy new year.

Cleaning Friday

The last weekend before Iranian new year and we are trying to put ourselves in new year atmosphere. Election is on inside Iran and I am sure I could see people shopping and I could go out and buy stuff for our "haft-seen" collection if I was there (look at the one we had once in our apartment in Tehran). Outside where we are in a place where there is no significant number of Iranians, instead of getting a ready to use green plate, we had to grow the seeds ourselves. After trying a couple of different types of seeds in the market, Mrs.Behi has been so passionately watching and caring for the seeds to grow and there are some signs of growth (see her wishing for the best). Read more about Iranian new year

One of the most important customs is the cleanup that we Iranians do every year before the new year arrives. Many in Iran are probably finished doing that or are doing this now. Likewise, the Islamic system of Iran has apparently done some significant cleanup in the list of parliamentary candidates and like all previous elections, many were disqualified. This is not something new in the system so I shall stop talking loud about the limitations and lack of freedom in Iran. Like all previous rounds of elections, this one is far from perfect and for sure there is no chance is given to people to elect someone against the system. Yet, at least there is an election and because parliament seats are dedicated to states and counties, down to districts and small cities, there is a chance of having at least a bunch who are critiques of current government slogans especially some who can question the government in what it claims in reaching for people in remote areas and its populist propaganda. There is little choice here and people shall choose between a complete pro-ahmadinejad parliament and a little less complete pro-ahmadinejad parliament with a reformist fraction. In the last presidential election many did not vote for reformists and pragmatists with the argument that  "Anyway! there are all the same and with the leader on top, it will not make any difference"...I had a lard time convincing those people that leaving the field will just make it easier for the opponent to score...and they did...

New year is here and there will be many days of holidays...people will be busy with their new year affairs and the hard-line party has already done a good cleanup to make the next parliament suited to its purpose. That is supposed to be the house of the people...they might have cleaned it up with an odorous sweep but shall we let them to re-decorate it as well with the owners of the house watching them stand still? Physics tell us that with doing nothing, no mechanical work will be done...and to be honest, at least there are elections...do we like it better to be like a sheikhdom or kingdom as some countries around us?
I shall get back to cleaning...   

Time and Deadline

I have collected the entire set of this podcast (The Manager Tools) finally after listening to their new episodes here and there but now I bought this FM transmitter for the ipod and can listen to things in the car so decided I would rather start listening to the whole collection. Not that I am a manager and I am not even close and I honestly don't want to be any close but this show is a good one no matter what your position is...(BTW, the ipod transmitter, it is fun but damn it all this mobile phone noise you get as you drive! they should put an ipod stand in the cars from now on, right?)

Distracted...the very first show of the series is recorded back in 2006 and is about time management. It has this exercise to help you find your priorities and fill your calendar with them before it gets filled with rubbish. Truth be told, it happens very often.  Starting the exercise, I became a little more cautious or lets say aware of the passage of time during working hours...normally I get to work and after finishing the morning e-mail part and a couple of phone discussions, boom it is 1100 hours.

By the book, one should do things by schedule to prevent staying up all night to finish a presentation or working late for a report or working from home in the weekend. Maybe many other people are like that but I get absolutely and fabulously efficient just before the deadlines. I stay amazed how fast I get things done just before they are due or when they are a little over due. The next day when I am a little relaxed I just freeze finding out which next task is the best to start and that will be the last relax day at work again before another storm kicks in. I keep telling myself that this is all right...boss is happy metrics are up (they were in 2007. so far the first two months of this year were kind of barren).
Compared to many others, I might say I am damn organized (I never say that to people..this post is just my mirror talk :) Let me tell you: digital calendar and task list from outlook always up to date with deadlines sync with my on-line calendar and PDA for other people to know where and when I would be available. Excel sheets and mindmaps of tasks and priorities...Just a little more focus would do...

Something funny to confess: Since high school I have been known as the guy with the big bag..this continued in my university times and in all through career years. I could not just pass two hours in the library reading only two text books and call it the day...and now, the 4 Kg laptop and accessories+ papers and books as usual and you see me jumping from one to another at work. People see me in the lift and say: Hey are you traveling today? or, oh straight from the airport! where have you been? :)

Finishing the 30th....

I have something else to celebrate valentines day for and that is my birthday. I finished my 30th year  this year with a little birthday surprise from Mrs.Behi. I could not believe that she had all those planned since our time in Barcelona in January. As usual, a beautiful setup of candles, card with nice words and the birthday gift. What surprised me most was the home-made cake in front of me, knowing that it was indeed the first time she tried making one. Our little celebration continued with both of us bursting into laughter when she started telling me the story of the cake :) Read her story here.

We had already bought our new means of fun the day before. Two new bicycles! It was almost sunset when we left our place for a relaxing ride along Tripoli port, a place that is yet to be discovered although we drive by it every day. Wide and nicely paved, it is a perfect place for jugging, running and biking or even for a relaxing walk, resting on numerous benches here and there. Valentines day, calm of the sea, nice breeze and the chill of late evening invited many Libyan couples to the safe haven of the port side. Hiding behind the bridge, swirling around street lamps or just face to face with hand crawling in the back on the benches, boys and girls were celebrating the romantic night as we passed them cycling and we all had a smile on our faces.

Smiling

I hope like me, you have found or will find someone in your life to discover it with. Some one so close that you forget the time prior than the moment you first met. Someone with the same vision in life as yours and a way of picturing it that is out of your reach. Someone with whom you remember the places you have been when you play the music you heard there...especially if you are like me who does not have this ability. Someone with whom you revisit the past, watch the present and grow old in future. I hope like me, you have someone like Mrs.Behi. she is just about to enter a new decade of her life and while the only thing I can think of is where we will be by the dawn of the next decade for me, I am joyfully being touched by what Mrs.Behi imaged in her birthday. Happy birthday love...

First week of 2008

In Tehran, it has been a nice snow I look at the pictures on the internet and miss it. Here we are, year 2008, already one week passed and I was busy making business plans and forceasts at work -still am- but something down here is telling me that this year will be a year of swift changes for me (tell me which one of the recent years was not). Anyway, our little family has also started 2008 with resolutions and setting objectives and stuff. In the past week, I listened again to Steve Jobs commencement address to Stanford and even shared it to people in my office. I can listen to him over and over and it always feel like the first time. I think this was the greatest set of lessons I received in the year 2007. I was surprised because from almost 40 people that I sent the link to, only one actually replied and said "wow, great listen", two others saw me in the corridor saying hey Behi thanks for the file...cool.

Started 2008 with a new gadget, the 16GB ipod Touch which is just an adorable, slim pack of cool features. Also upgraded the Mac OS of my laptop to Leopard...the coolest ever operating system I would say.

Anyway, I have already started initiating some leads for a change in life..if the leads go somewhere then we will go with it...if not, I will be generating leads for my current company all year long here.

We are already thinking of some traveling. A business trip is coming up (still visa pending) and also a course may come up (boss permission pending). Have a happy 2008.

Adventures of Mr.Behi; 3 Years on

End of November always brings the sweet memory of that day back in 2004 when this blog was born. I had no idea that the name Adventures of Mr.Behi would so truly come true with the diversity of experiences I had, places I visited and people I met. So many friends I made through the blog who shared the passion and still do. I remember when I was actually three years old myself, my parents through a big party with a big "B" shape cake. I wish I could have a party of all my blog friends and readers and invite all of you. Or perhaps this post is the party...imagine the 30 years birthday of this blog...I hope you would still be a visitor because I am sure I will still be blogging :) clumsy and infrequent sometimes, lazy and out of date this blog becomes once in a while but it always comes back :)

Look at the archive sometimes...here

off track

My memoirs of Italy is still to be re-written and posted and I am just being lazy about them. You ask me any time in my life and I have a list of all the good things I have to do and a bigger list of things that I have half-done. Since my high school times, I have always been known as the guy with the heavy bag...still I am and the reason is that I carry so many books around and lately, so many computer gadgets! I get board of things I do very quickly.Back in our college library, I needed study material for four different topics to make a day. It is also very hard for me to concentrate in what I am doing without flying to future in a couple of instances! What is this rushing to get to future? I heard this saying "Life is what goes on when we are busy making better plans". It is funny, I had a friend in Iran who used to claim that his plans were only 3-months into the future as he believed that in Iran, nothing beyond that time limit was predictable!!

It is 1:30 in the morning, I am using my personal Apple and my heavy Dell M90 laptop is calculating a big chain of processes that I am preparing to show my clients tomorrow. I am just waiting for this to finish to call it a day. On my ears, I have a Violin concert from Mozart and before I was listening to an audio book about myths of the Mediterranean region and before that, another audiobook about the second world war and before than was watching the Lord of the Rings for like the hundredth time! (I realized I am obsessed with this story after buying the extended DVDs and the extended soundtrack CDs and the book) :) In a few hours, another working week begins, I have plans for it but see what happens in life!

Europe or Africa?

After some days of rest -I had a bad fever last week- and a good weekend -visited Tripoli old town, will post the pictures soon- I started a fresh working week, loaded myself with lots of work and will spend the rest of the days carrying them.

My segment manager, our beloved Brazilian has received a raise and will be managing the whole company business in Angola starting from August.  He will be replaced by a charming Italian who I met a few times before and business will continue...it is interesting because "Angola" happened to be somewhere in the career of many people I know: One of my colleagues in Iran spend a year or so in there after he was moved from Iran to Pakistan by the company and he is in the UK, my previous manager used to work in Angola and had so many adventures in there and couple of other people also....I know that is a tough place to work..I heard that you have to be careful of your health and security and things are kind of expensive in there. For my Brazilian fellow and his family, the good point is that in Angola people speak Portuguese so no  more language problem....The funny thing is that he is a real metropolitan guy as he says, he likes modern cities and settled conditions and we were all thinking that he will end up in Europe somewhere after Libya....you never know.