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August 31, 2006
Not softly said
"Azmina, can I take a photo of you?"
"No... take a picture of my foot."
Posted by quickness at 11:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 30, 2006
Street Carver
Taken two years ago, of course. We all know no one wears Von Dutch anymore.
Posted by quickness at 03:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 29, 2006
Tree Climber (I)
Posted by quickness at 03:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
House DJ
For $10 a pop, he will sell you an excellent crowd-pleasing house mix.
Posted by quickness at 01:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 28, 2006
Fun With Gravel
Posted by quickness at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2006
Quiet Discourse (II)
Today Azmina:
- discovered loose skin on her elbow, and somewhat alarmed by it;
- asked why she didn't have a prominent Adam's apple like her dad;
- ate something healthy disguised as junk food;
- danced to James Brown;
- asked to go to the pharmacy so that she could walk in the rain with her umbrella;
- had her parents read her bedtime stories in the afternoon.
Today Farizah:
- was again first to wake up in the morning;
- sang along to twinkle-twinkle little star;
- danced to Rock Around the Clock;
- tasted carbonated water and tried to get the taste off her tongue with her hands;
- pulled her sister's hair without any feeling of guilt;
- went to get her shoes when she thought we were going out today.
And yeah; they fought and they hugged. They ran, they climbed, they fell, and were tickled silly.
Posted by quickness at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 26, 2006
Jump Rope Visitor
7:57 p.m., 20 August. A rollerblader visits a group of friends jumping rope and manages to impress the crowd with some serious undiscovered skill. Spectators watch on, and many of them join in, until the last invite was called out 30 minutes after sundown.
Posted by quickness at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2006
Seemingly Quiet (It's not)
Posted by quickness at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2006
A peaceful abode
I must be tired. I've been browsing last year's vacation photos. Within a month last year, we managed to visit friends in 4 cities. My shoulders still ache of the load we had to haul for 2 adults and 2 small children going on a 4-week vacation. Fortunately, travelling in Asia, or anywhere else for that matter, was far less stressful than flying through New York. I know... what else can be expected from the only city on Earth that has been on high/orange alert since 2001?
Imagine the fear if the future was read to me 20 years ago:
In 15 years, there will be a major city on earth that would be put on high alert for several years beyond the reach of current crystal ball technology. You will live in that city for more than 5 years. You will raise children in that city. That city will not improve its essential infrastructure despite warnings. If a natural disaster strikes, people will not have a plan to refer to.
And for those planning to visit, this may help. Or not. Well, actually, this could, and it would be a good idea to visit the site.
Here in the States, we were told "freedom" comes with a price: among them, numerous security measures put in place since 2001. Shoes must now be x-rayed. Coats, and belts, and even your unthreatening sandwich. (And pretty much the same thing can be expected before boarding a ferry to visit Lady Liberty on Liberty Island.) I once asked if I would get sick from eating radioactive sandwiches that came out through the x-ray machines. The TSA officer didn't use a single smile muscle.
Passengers are now "randomly" selected for secondary screenings. I've put "randomly" in quotations because I know friends who have been consistently unlucky to be picked out for this second layer of security measures. Last month I was told that the airlines with which I was travelling was considering extracting my luggage - that was, until I finally showed up after being held up by the TSA. My hand-carry's lock had gotten stuck during the "random" secondary screening and they held me until they could open the lock.
I have to admit though, the TSA has improved in their handling of the whole process over the years. Officers now seemed to be better trained at dealing with passengers. And passengers have been sensitised and are more adept at avoiding prolonged screenings.
I do understand that those security measures are necessary for the safety of every regular, law-abiding, peace-loving passenger. But does someone in New York have, or enjoy more freedom than he or she would in any other city (cities in war zones and nascent states excluded of course)? I realise there couldn't be a definitive answer, but many people that I've talked to who have spent significant parts of their lives in other countries have found it hard to say yes.
Anyway... back to the photo. The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque in Brunei is located by the centuries-old water village. Built by the Brunei river and completed in 1958, the mosque exudes tranquility. Immerse yourself deep enough in its surroundings, and you can expect a cool breeze to pay a gentle visit. I was waiting for N and the kids outside the shops when I took this handheld shot. We didn't get to do as much as we wanted during our brief stay, but we managed to enjoy the food and meet up with old friends.
Posted by quickness at 08:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
No Questions
Posted by quickness at 03:34 AM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2006
Bronx Rabbits
Yeah... I think I'm gonna maintain my flickr account.
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August 20, 2006
Butterfly
Congratulations to N's sister, SZ and her husband W for the birth of their daughter.
Posted by quickness at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Banking on and on
The bank that I am with would not allow me to use my current signature for the purpose of signing cheques.
I had no problem with my previous bank but because of obscene charges and for convenience sake, I said goodbye. My current bank, however, insists that I use the signature in my passport – the same signature I used for my earlier passport I used when I was 16. 16 was the age when I left home. It was when my signature looked like a graffiti-tag most of the time, and an untidy turban during other times. It had confused and drew attention from bank officials during my university days and it prompted the change.
It had earlier caused a problem when my bank near my parent’s place refused a withdrawal request because my attempts at recreating the signature wasn’t to their standard. I had offered my identity card, my passport, and my readiness to provide prints of all my 20 digits. They took me to a corner and asked for additional samples for verification, which required 5-10 minutes each time, before they said it wasn’t approved. Finally the manager came and got me to provide samples in her office. Failing to get the desired results, she got a portable black light machine to show me my signature in my little 5-year old bankbook. She asked me to memorize what I saw and replicate it in at least one of the many withdrawal slips they had set aside for my mistakes. Predictably, I failed, again. And again. And she reluctantly held the invisible signature under the black light until I finally succeeded in replicating the perfect confused turban that held me for an hour.
Several years later, I was told to get a new passport, and the officials insisted that I use my problematic signature. And I thought had never had to use it since.
And because this is America – the land to which smart people flock, I thought people can be smart enough to look pass the silliness. But, now I dread that time of the month when I have to sign those cheques. I take out a blank sheet of paper and practice until my failure rate goes down to about 10%.
We’re moving out of the city soon, and I now look forward to closing that bank account.
Posted by quickness at 03:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2006
Weekend spot
Every weekend for the last several weekends we go to more or less the same spot in Central Park. Every weekend they nap in their strollers before reaching the spot. Every weekend Azmina buys a $2 ice cream from the entrance. Every weekend Farizah watches her sister enjoy something which does not interest her. Every weekend they play tag. And every weekend they have their parents inspect twigs and leaves they have collected.
Azmina was around 15 months when she first started to walk on grass. Finding the texture alien to the parquet and the concrete she had been used to, she cried for help when we left her in the middle of a grass patch. We blamed ourselves for not going to the park more often, but our old apartment wasn’t exactly conveniently located near to any grassy fields or parks. We blamed high apartment prices for our small apartment. We blamed our small apartment for Azmina’s inability to crawl and walk at an earlier age. We promised her then that we would move to somewhere near a park or playground.
Posted by quickness at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2006
Addiction
If you're buying a dSLR, wait for a few days when Canon is expected to announce what was rumoured to be no less than a new beginning. I am with Bob Atkins with this one, Canon's main announcement would involve the EOS 1D - something that is way out of my budget, and way out of my current needs. Speaking of those that I could not afford, when is L glass not an L? When it is cased in plastic of course!!
Anyway, even though icecream isn't one of Farizah's favourites, she has an intense affinity to chocolate. Like her sister, she has inherited that gene that would allow an adult to consume a 2.2 lb chocolate bar within half a day. I thought of coating their vegetables with chocolate, but I know they would just lick the coating off before telling us not to waste good chocolate on vegetables.
Posted by quickness at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 12, 2006
FDR River
When I was a student, I knew two persons who rented rooms in the basement. I thought if spirits wandered six feet underground, their rooms would get more unseen traffic than those of their other housemates.
Posted by quickness at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2006
Cooler than hot
but still warm. Hot enough to look cool in wishing others to "stay cool".
Posted by quickness at 08:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 03, 2006
Mini(?) Blackout
It’s not often that one is made to feel like a swamp.
I had made a mental note of trying not to talk about the weather often, anywhere, or by any means. But when I attempted to walk home tonight, and ten seconds into the night, I was reminded that we had a high of 103 Fahrenheit today. 40 Celsius. In the shade. The humidity is high enough to turn every pore of my skin to mini-swamps. Appropriately, Mayor Bloomberg declared a heat emergency a few days ago.
Sporadic thunderstorms that typically (and thankfully) cool our hot summers had again made the news. Reports of people being struck by lightning are also typical: 2 men were struck by lightning a few weeks ago, and more recently a woman golfer was killed by lightning while seeking refuge in a shed.
But because we already know the sorry state of the city’s infrastructure, what’s more worrying to most is the possibility of another blackout. For a large number of Queens residents in July, several hundreds of thousands had gone without electricity. For 8 days. In New York City. The NYT reported a few days ago that 100,000 people were without power, and that was in addition to the estimated "several hundreds of thousands" that were with limited power. So a total of 300,000 people? Or maybe 400,000 affected by the power failure? ConEd, the city's energy supplier, could not provide an exact figure, and it wasn't also in a position to refute the various estimates by different press sources.
The papers were filled with stories of the old and sick who were on respirators, who can't climb stairs, who only had a pack of crackers, and a few packs of yoghurt which would most certainly turn into a health hazard by next sunset.
A friend from Ethiopia said that a blackout of a couple of days was rare in Ethiopia, and an 8-day stretch was simply unheard of. Now tell that to the Ethiopian football team and they might just qualify in the next World Cup together with Ghana and humiliate a certain world power.
We are very lucky not to be affected by the black/brownouts, but we know friends who were. ConEd will only reimburse up to $350 worth of damaged groceries per (residential) customer - if they can prove it with receipts and photos. So lucky are those who hoard their grocery receipts. Now they just have to avoid the electrified metal plates and exploding manholes.
Posted by quickness at 10:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack