First Annual.
Tomorrow, or more accurately, tonight is my birthday. I usually let these things pass me by. The last few years have found me on planes or by myself in a strange city or somewhere. This year, my friends in Cairo have quietly insisted on a party, and I am going to indulge them. [...]

that I am turning into my father
Not that it is a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, my dad seems to have this weird set of things that happen to him. For a long time, I admit, I thought that it was because he is just particular or fussy in certain, strange ways. [...]

Itchy and Scratchy
I came down with a rather bad case of poison ivy last week. I was absentmindedly pulling weeds and likely picked it up then since I wasn’t wearing any gloves, which is abnormal.
In any case, I usually don’t have any problem with it. The point of contact is itchy for a few [...]

We ask all the wrong questions
I read these two articles this week:
The Future of Space Games
The Physics of Zero-G Whipped Cream
I realize that when presented in this manner, the two articles seem a little bit more tawdry than they were probably intended.
Or are they?
My question after reading these, and following up with [...]

Donkey, that is
So, this afternoon I actually saw a traffic cop in Mohandessin giving parallel parking direction to a guy driving a cart with two donkeys.
And they were doing it!
He backed them right into the spot, stopped, and then unloaded the cart into a shop. This just goes to show you that you [...]

It still costs the same
I had the best haircut experience of my life today.
See, the air in Cairo is astoundingly dirty. I never feel clean: especially my face. It also doesn’t help that the water is so heavily chlorinated that it bleaches your skin (Eat that “Fair and Lovely“) by stripping off the top [...]

What will come over us next?

I caught this article this week on Reuters. Apparently, it has become a bit of a problem in Jerusalem that while people are there visiting holy sites and relics, something comes over them, causing odd behavior, spontaneous preaching and the perceiving of visions of prophets and messiahs. This phenomenon has [...]

My father and I are always harping on the idea that simplicity and elegance go hand in hand. Every time it talks, it seems, we end up talking about something that doesn’t work because it is poorly designed or engineered. Approximately ten times out of ten, this design flaw can be reduced to an over-complexity [...]

A few weeks ago, I felt terribly ill after a week of working like crazy on various projects and then helping to throw a fundraising party. At the time it felt like my digestion completely shut down. I didn’t want to eat; I woke up in the morning and was sick to my stomach, nauseous: [...]