Shqipo's Virtual Mumblings

As you might have noticed, I have disappeared this past week. Some people like to use the phrase "missing in action" while it may be the opposite in my case: I was in action! Well, kinda - not that kind of "action."

I had a busy and exhausting week of travel. Last Saturday I had to go to work at 8 AM, then go back home and get my bags, and drive 50 minutes to the airport to catch a direct flight to the City of Angels. Got there almost at 10 PM Pacific time (but 1 AM my time), rented a car and drove for just over an hour to San Bernardino (final destination was Palm Springs). By the time I went to bed was 1 AM Pacific (4 AM my time!).

And, of course, I woke up at 6 AM. Had breakfast and on the road again to Palm Springs. Drove for just over an hour again, some through dry desert valleys, dotted with wind mills. Checked-in at the hotel, admired the beautiful surrounding and couldn't get enough of the sun!

The reason for this trip to Palm Springs was a memorial service for a very dear friend of mine who passed away from Parkinson's desease about a month ago. I will post a separate entry for that.

Memorial service was on Sunday PM. Went quite well.

Monday I wanted to spend as much time as possible taking photos. I had all these plans to go to all these places, had printed out directions, etc. Well... at least I went to one place: Tahquitz Canyon. A self-guided tour is supposed to take about 2 1/2 hours, but it took me longer because I was stopping frequently to take photos. I had a great time hiking. I haven't done that since... 1998, which was the last time I was in PS. And it tired me out. The Canyon brought back memories of some places back home.

And that was the only hike I did in Palm Springs. Drove to Rancho Mirage to look for some other photo ops. Then went to dinner with friends. Took some photos of downtown Palm Springs at night.

My addiction to photography is becomeing exhausting! I got up early the next morning just so I could go somewhere to take pics of the sunrise. Then, on my way back to L.A., I stopped several times on the side of the road to take photos of the San Jacinto mountain range, and the wind mills... until I filled up my 2 GB card. I could've stopped to several other places and take more pics but my plane left at noon so... . Traffic to L.A. wasn't the greatest but I made it on time (took me 3 hours to go to the airport).

Got home Tuesday evening. I barely had time to change clothes. Wed morning I had to be at work at 9 AM. Then come home and grab my bags, drive to the airport again to catch a flight to exciting Milwaukee for a 2-day work meeting. Finally made it back home on Friday evening, exhausted!

Note to American (or others) readers: This post will be in Albanian.

E ndjej te nevojshme te sqaroj qe arsyeja qe te gjitha shkrimet e mia ne kete blog eshte sepse kur e fillova kete blog, nuk para kisha lexues Shqiptare (te pakten qe dija une); vec nje Shqiptar kishte blogun e tij (DigitalObjective) dhe LondonLilly filloi gati ne te njejten kohe. Plus qe shoke te mije Amerikane vijne ca here e lexojne. Fatkeqesisht, s'kam arritur ende t'u mesoj Shqip atyre :)

Keshtu qe mos u merzisni nese shkruaj ne Anglisht, nuk e bej per mendjemadhsi a ku di une, thjesht per arsyet qe permenda me lart.

Labels: shqip

Warning: this post may sound politically incorrect.

I've heard this word (disrespect) before and didn't really think much of it. And yes, I was raised to respect the elderly and women, etc.

But I keep noticing it more often among a certain ethnic group how "disrespect" is about every 6th word they say! For every little thing, they think that everyone is disrespecting them. Why?! If someone starts a normal argument with them, it gets cut off with "don't you disrespect me!" WTF?

A former colleague, despite having a Master's Degree, was very quick to use that phrase as well. He even started a (oral) fight with the Associate Dean simply because he thought "she was disrespecting him." The most interesting phrase I heard from him was "I don't ask anyone to like me, but they have to respect me." OooKkk... . It's a little bit paradoxical to me but oh well, I had no desire whatsoever to ask him.

Another example: a student (same ethnic group) had some issues with one

of his instructors. One day he showed up to class along with his daughter simply to get his homework and I guess the instructor (who is a bit of a loose canon...) said something to him and this student's response "Don't you disrespect me like dat in front of my kid. Fuck you!" Uhm... I guess "disrespect" was much more harmful for the little kid then swearing. Ah... priorities... .

Searching for "disrespect" I stumbled upon this page: http://www.s2smagazine.com/services/Board/archive/index.php?t-29820.html . I find some comments hilarious! e.g.: "I Had Some Neighbors, She Was White, He Was Black. Mixed &(confused) Kids. Well She Thought That I Was Interested In Her Dead Beat Husband (Like I Would Trade Down) And She Came At Me Calling Me Names And What Not. After I Slapped Upside Her Head I Said That SHe Needed To Remember That Her Two Daughter Would Grow Up To Be Black Woman Too. And That If She Was Hating On Me Then She Was Hating On Her Kids. " or: "A Black Man Can't Allow Nobody To Disrespect No One." Grammar, apparently, was not taught at her school...

As someone else I know says jokingly: I loveS it!

Labels: disrespect

I guess this is becoming old news now. I thought about it the moment I heard it on the radio but I just haven't had time to write about it. After a devastating tornado in Enterprise, Alabama which left 9 high school pupils (or students, as some would like to be called), the highest official of this country (name and post withheld for fear of... you know) paid a visit to be with their families and other affected . It's a bit puzzling to me how his visit (or any "high official) would "lift the spirits of many" but that could be the topic of another post.

What really left a mark on my memory was this: "We thank God for the hundreds who lived." Hm... how should I interpret this one? OK, I'll go along with it and thank God for saving the other hundreds who lived. What I don't understand is why did God let those poor 9 souls die? Had they committed the most sins in that little town and they deserved to die? Since God is the one who saved these others, who's responsible for the tornado who killed those 9? Isn't that... God? Or is it another "force of evil" who, apparently, was quicker and got to this little place in Alabama before God did and started killing people.

I love it how politicians and religious leaders spin things around... .

It isn't long ago when, for one night, people screamed on streets of New Orleans "show us your tits!" and threw beads at the ecstatic women who happily (some proudly as well) showed what their mother gave them.

This photo here is not mine; it's taken by bizele, an Albanian girl who lives happily in sunny Florida. According to her, these are drawings made by a choreographer named Trisha Brown. Apparently, she's somewhat famous for her dance style. According to Wikipedia: "Brown has continued to explore the nature of motion and to choreograph dances based on everyday movements. Her style has developed from carefully built-up, repetitive gestures to its current fluid virtuosity." I haven't seen her shows but this sounds like ppl pay good $$ to see people on stage doing stupid repetitive, everyday gestures. Interesting... I could stand on a New Yrk city intersection and see this crap for free!

Anyway. From what I can see from these photos, my 18-months old daughter can draw fairly better than this 70 year old lady. My point, however is somewhere else.

bizele said that this exhibition is part of a whole "show" where people "study" this waste of trees (paper), then watch a performance, and a movie to understand this lady's "creative process."

So here is my biased opinion about art and "creative process" crap: First of all, I'm very much not a foe of modern art (of any kind), as long as I find something there which means something to me or attracts me somehow. Tripping on buckets of paint on a super large canvas means absolutely nothing to me.

By the same token, when I look at something, I do not try to figure out "what did the artist try to say with this." Pasting feces on a canvas will simply tell me what that "artist's" menu was the day before - and I really don't give a crap (pun intended) about that. If a so-called artist decides to create something, and it doesn't "talk" to me, why should I care to figure out what the "artist" was thinking when he/she decided to create that? Hence, I'm not really interested in the creative process, I just want to see a piece of art (and not crap) which means something to me. I'm not interested to see what kind of hallucinating drugs the artist takes to become creative, etc.

So, there you have it. Now you know a little bit more about me.

Some may ask: "so... what's the relation between New Orleans and this lady." I don't really know, I just felt like saying TITS! :)

Labels: artists, stupid art, tits

OK, I think I fixed the RSS feed to my blog, so those who do use it (thanks!), should be able to subscribe now (either RSS or Atom).

If it's not working for you, please let me know.

Entrepreneurship is the one of the pillars of this country - and it's great! Entrepreneurs are born here everyday. They see a "crack" or gap between what people want and what is already offered and they try to fill it. Sounds simple enough. Kinda. One of these cracks is the need that some people have (uhm... including myself?) to drive sports cars. The expensive ones. But there's one tiiiiiny problem: We're the ones who like to drive them but can't afford them.

So, now there's a company which gives ppl the opportunity to own exotic sports cars - part-time. If you have $80,000 for two years to spare, you can drive 2 Ferraris and an Aston Martin. Or, if you want to spend $15,000, you can have access to 10 such exotic cars. The catch: you can only drive them for a total of 30 days a year, no ownership whatsoever. Basically, you're renting a car for $1000/day!

Anyone here has $30K to share with me? :)

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/02/01/8399941/index.htm?postversion=2007030206

Labels: cars