Quote

1000 Hands Dance. Danza de las mil manos


Danza del Buda de las mil manos, ejecutada por jvenes chinas sordomudas.
Bailan leyendo los signos que les indica dos profesores de cada lado del escenario.

Mom cooking in my kitchen is surely a sign that i'm starting to grow roots in Seattle.  Tonight's meal is nothing short of a kings feast and consists of a 5 courses starting with mixed greens and homemade dressing with chicken and lentil soup followed by cooled shrimp on a bed of lettuce marinated in a sharp and spicy homemade dressing . Tonight the main course was seared Halibut in a light Saffron baste with sauteed mushrooms and assparagus. 

mmmmmmm.  follow this with a traditional persian desert (noon nokhodchee or something yummy) and a warm relaxing cup of tea.  good god, i'm spoiled. Tonight I feast and diet forevermore.

 A

The great thing about winter in Los Angeles, is that it's not much different then summer in Los Angeles.  Long sun-drenched afternoons make way for breezy, termperate evenings.  Everything is still here.  Unlike the fickle northwest, with it's neverending drizzle like a chinese water torture, LA is consistently dry and languid.

I spend lazy afternoons in local shopping districts, third street promenade, the grove sans jacket.  All of them packed with holdiday shoppers:  catch a movie, get a cocktail with a friend at the Abby, walk my dog along the cliffs of Santa Monica Park watching the sun dissapear behind the blue horizon.  In the evenings, the Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip is a favorite, what with it's aquariaum-like display complete with  a live girl in a bikini talking on a cell phone.  soooooooo L.A. 

Nearly two decades after my first dog and pet ran away never to be seen again I have decided to put the trauma behind me and venture into dog ownership again.

It wasn't long ago that i looked with contempt and disdain at those poor, lonely saps that trapes around town with a canine companian in tow.  I oft chuckled at the poodle toting patrons of local dog parks.  Never the less, I have joined the ranks if for the moment. 

My liitle chi was purchased for $400 and the  quarter of a tank of gas it took to get to the parking lot at Everett town center.  The sellers were a curious mother-daughter pair, sharing a cigarette by their car/kennel in the mall parking lot.  My flea, the 10th of 9 bitty things scattered in the passenger and back seats, emerged shiverring and dazed.  The vehicle in question was a veritable chihuahua-black-market-on-wheels and though i question the wisdom of purchasing a lifelong pet from such a questionable source it wasn't long before my little charmer had me handing over a wad of cash to two strangers in a mall parking lot. Could this be any more conspicuous?

To my surprise, what I've ended up with is a  well-behaved healthy puppy, loyal to a tee and already- it's been only a few days -  he's taken to shadowing me about the house: Napping when i nap, getting up when i get up, running when I run, eating when I eat and so on.  What do i call him?  Do I keep the name he was bequeathed with?  or might "shadow" be a more appropriate moniker? 

Today is his first day alone in the apartment, and Asta is helping me cope with the guilt.

More photos to come.

Did i mention that the Seattle Central Library is my new favorite place on the planet?  Okay, so how hot is it?  Pretty damn hot:  So hot, even the homeless people playing chess are sexy. 

Free Wifi, Books as far as the eye can see, and killer views of the future in architecture.  brilliant and a great way to spend a sunday afternoon!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/library/

one of my favorite things to do in a new city is to just get lost and let serendipity lead me to the next important find.  this is easy to do in seattle, since all the one-way streets and numbered avenues have my sense of direction all f*ed up anyway.

this weekend on one of these urban escapades I found myself passing downtown to the west, I crossed some bridge and yet another unidentified body of water and found myself among a treasure trove or relic trains.  this locomotive cemetary at the edge of town was like a gold mine of aged textures, dripping stencil fonts in the form of a visual diary written in cross-county graffiti and atrophied signage.

the trains seemed unused, at least recently and showed no signs of possibly coming to life and crushing me in a fiery rage,  so i meandered along the tracks, even climbing up the sides of the trains on little latters and using every opportunity to collect some good old fashioned reference footage.

i imagine these once active machines once promised young stow-aways escape from rural towns.  the signatures of its phantom riders mingled with rust and weather, leaving an eerie and echoing mark, laid to rest here, after years of passing noisilly through towns whose names nobody knows: now, a designers paradise.

Amir (425) 703-3065
                                                      

It's saturday morning, 1984.  I'm done watching new episodes of "He-Man (and the Masters of the Universe)" and "The Smurfs."  I've got my uber-radical sweat suit on and am ready to saunter over to the local arcade for a good game of ms. pacman.  my brother is a senior at Beverly Hills High School.  He is  taking an ameteur photography class. We use this unique opportunity to surprise my sister out of slumber. the rest is history.

Okay, so my dad thought it was real cool that he could write in his native language, farsie, on my tablet PC but then wanted me to make his computer (a decade old PC)  write in farsie too.  I'm like, dad - the computer isn't writing in farsie;  you are!

try explaining that.

see the pictures.  cool stuff!

A

Three cheers for Brittnie, for organizing a great morale event for the crew here.  Though I had never played nor heard of "whirlyball" i had a great time kicking my peers a**es.  something about that yellowing seventies graphic design, too slow bumper cars, and really, really fattening cusinine - made it all worth the drive out to edmonds. Thanks Brit!

Enjoy the pictures.

A trip down to LA reminds me that the "axis of evil" is quite a festive bunch.  especially when it comes to the celebration of the persian new year - nou rouz. 

In fact, a drive down Westwood Blvd where there are practically no signs in english anymore, you'll see why they sometimes call the city of Angles, "Tehrangeles". 

"Nou Rouz literally means the 'New Day' and is celebrated on the vernal equinox in spring. It is the rejuvenation of nature, the beginning of a new life and most appropriate time in nature to start a New Year. It is believed to date back to the time when Shah Jamshid celebrated the first spring, after the ice age."

"Nou Rouz as a festival is symbolically celebrated by arranging seven items on a green tablecloth. In Yazd and Kerman, where the Zarathushties were concentrated in Iran, upto the 1940’s they laid seven trays, in which they put various items that were available to the family. Most of them stood either as a sign of thanks giving for its abundance in the past year or for a wish for its abundance in future."

For more info about Norouz, follow the link below.

http://www.ahura.homestead.com/files/IranZaminTwo/Haft_Seen3.htm

On March 9th, I went to a "Rock" show with Marty at the fabulous and historic Green Room Near the Pike Market.  We had a lovely dinner of buffalo wings, mini-hamburgers, and well that was it.  Marty even peeled the delicious fried crust off his chicken. 

He's on a diet, so we both drank water and made merry about the state of technology over dinner and a lovely show.  Modest Mouse was quite good live.  Besides the fact that being around so many tiny little baby brats made me feel old, it was really quite fun. 

Gonna wash that grey right out of my hair. Remember that commercial, young ones? 

Don't forget to check out the photos!

Maman is still in town, and as much as i feared her visit would wear me down and render me helpless and childlike it seems things are going quite well. in fact, i look forward to her homemade meals and extravagant breakfast feasts.  she even guilted me into bringing some snacks for the troops in the form of meat and potato cutlets, pita bread and yogurt.  Marty, Jonathan and Ann finished off the remaining bits. Thanks guys!

This weekend i used her visit as an opportunity to do all the seattle touristy things i wouldn't be caught dead doing by myself.  We went an an argosi harbor tour, promenaded the Snoquanamie Falls Park, meandered through the Pike Market, drove down to The Locks, and came by Microsoft for an extended campus tour.  She was very impressed with Mr. Gates little diggs.  she promised to come back for a summer picnic.    

All that's left to do is the space needle. pictures to come.

My mom flew into Seattle last night.  What's the first thing she wanted to see in her son's exciting new city of residence? The supermarket, of course.  The feast begins.  Wish me luck.

SO one of the best parts about working at MSN is the great team i'm on and the people that i work with.  i included some of their pics in my space this week.  included in these are some photos of the campus and the inside of my nifty office.  i don't have time to title them or put them in any logical order but the pics include tammy, melora,asta,marty and ethan including scenic views of the campus.  enjoy!

One of the benefits of living in the burbs and in Washington is cheap housing and great amenities.  In New York City, where I last lived,  I once called a coffin on the basement floor home.  For $1200 a month, I woke to pitch-black at noon, picked silver-fish from my futon, and relied on a bathroom fan for ventilation.

This former life seems light-years away, though it was only three months ago! My fancy new Bellevue diggs, have changed all that.  For the price of a night out in New York, I've got all the amenities a man could want:  Gym, dish-washer, laundry, and a subway sandwhich in my lobby.  who could ask for anything more?  It's a bachelor's paradise + I have a veiw!

Check it out.

No. It's not just a children's book with a movie version starring Robin Williams. It's my secret weapon to becoming a full-fledged business diva. -Ever since i was a wee lad, i had aspirations of being a corporate star, traveling the globe on "important business" and traversing the corporate ladder with the grace of a gazelle.

But every star needs a mentor, someone to guide the genius to perfection! For me, that person is Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh. I First met her when she was a blossoming business godess at Harvard, and since then have relied on her for wisdom on everything from how to prioritize projects to the tenets of creative diplomacy.

thanks jumana!

everyone is sick now and not just me.  melora went home sick and so did tammy. where is my team?

it's after midnight? what am i doing at work?  hmmm. these are surely symptoms of a newbie with no life.  at least i found a permanent place of residence.  as of this weekend, i will reside in...yawn....glamorous bellevue.  Manhattan it aint, but we have nordstroms dammit and a Red Robin too!

Bellevue aint no Seattle aint no Manhattan, but the commute scared me off.  Capitol Hill and Queen Anne will still be there when my 6 mos lease is up.  And if i'm not in coma from suburban overload, i'll simply move.

At least this way i will be in the middle geographically.  close enough to work, and closer to weekend debauchery in the city.  it's all about these grey areas folks.

A

its almost a new year.  sorry i haven't written in a while. a bout of flu and chronic headaches have plagued my last few weeks. my resolution for the coming year is to have better posture at my computer so as not to become the hunchback of redmond, before i hit my mid...well...twenties.  no more smoking either, i guess.

Nobody's at the office today.  it's kind of peaceful actually. i had a refreshing promenade around the little zen garden outside building A (until allergic sneezing fits forced me indoors) and now i'm working blissfully, enveloped in a headphone induced trance to the tunes of Air and Interpol.  Thank you, Claritin.