Cats, Stairs and Falafel

My two most favorite places in the world (aside from Pittsburgh of course) are Capri, Italy and Cartagena, Colombia. How would I describe Capri? In three words — majestic, peaceful and unique. This is based on a day’s worth of memories from 22 years ago, but I still think it’s accurate. How would I describe Cartagena? Beautiful, magical and energetic. I have already waxed poetic on Cartagena before. These are the two places I want to see again.

Now, I assume you already knew where this was going. How would I describe Haifa? Please see the title 🙂 Not exactly an endearing and eye-catching way to advertise your city on Trip Advisor. I had this image of beauty of Haifa before coming here, which was accurate to an extent, but definitely skewed by only being around the Baha’i sites, which are amazingly well-kept. They really are like a paradise.

But when you leave the bubble and travel around the city and do your daily routine things, you recognize some patterns and come to some conclusions about the place. For one, there are cats everywhere. And I mean, honestly, everywhere. You can’t go more than a block without coming across at least one cat, with plenty more hidden nearby. They are harmless, but you definitely notice them.

They sit on top of cars. They are often under cars. I wouldn’t be surprised if I see a cat one day break into a car and just drive off. Someone recently mentioned to me that they were introduced to the city to take care of a rodent problem, which I guess makes some sense. I don’t know if it’s true, but it obviously wasn’t well-thought out beforehand. Do Israelis watch The Simpsons? There is a way to fix the problem.

And I have never seen so many stairways ever in one city before. I remember coming across all kinds of rickety, seemingly out-of-place stairs in Colombia, but they don’t even compare with Haifa. You have stairs that go up so high you can’t even see over the top to know how far they go. You have weird dual stairs — two sets of stairs right next to each other, I still haven’t figured that one out. You have stairs with famous Israeli philosophers painted on them. It really boggles the mind.

I really love finding a new stair path and following it to see where it goes. That’s always exciting, especially when I’m going for a run, since I like to explore. Sometimes they lead into an apartment complex or a dead-end, but usually they lead to a cross street that I recognize. I love doing my stair workout now, I did one tonight. It was relatively quick (45 minutes) and intense — it had me breathing hard by the end, which was great.

And the last one — this blog’s namesake, falafel. The one thing I remembered most from my first visit to Israel in 1999. It’s a staple food / snack and is all over the place. I’d say it’s the equivalent of a hot dog in the U.S. — simple, cheap, yummy and plentiful. You’re never more than a block or so from a fresh falafel sandwich and it will normally run you about 15 NIS (~$4.25 USD). That being said, I haven’t had falafel in months. I decided to stop eating them, since they’re deep-fried and not too healthy. I stick to my hummus, which is the same thing but in a different form.

So there you have it. My initial lasting memory of Haifa, based on a 9-day visit, was paradise and falafel. My current memory is now cats, stairs and falafel. Interesting how falafel made the list both times. The views in the city are beautiful too, especially with the Mediterranean Sea.

Chum

My basic understanding of the word chum is that it’s something like a scrap that you toss to a bigger fish. Like something useless or that has little value that you don’t care about, like an old leftover fish head. What good is it? Not much. Can you use it for anything? Not really. Is it of any real value? Not particularly.

The Steelers are 9-0. They haven’t lost a game all season and are 3-0 in their division, the AFC North. Oh I love our division. We have the Bengals AND the Browns — two of the consistently worst teams in the NFL over I’d say the past at least 20 years. We play these two teams four times a year, so that’s a guaranteed 3 wins, usually 4. Every time we play them, it feels like an automatic win to me. This is my definition of chum.

The Bengals are usually chum. And the Browns, oh I feel bad for Browns fans. Since 2000, the Steelers record vs. the Browns is 35-6-1. That comes out to a Browns win once every 3.5 years on average, and that includes two matchups per year! They are unquestionably the Steeler’s chum. Now when the Browns do actually pull off a win, it’s often times a spectacle (see the Helmet Bash from last year). It’s always entertaining one way or another.

It sounds counterintuitive, but I hope the Steelers lose a game or two. I wouldn’t even mind if we threw the Bengals or Browns a bone. Or even the Ravens. A loss in general would relieve the pressure of being undefeated. And a loss to the Ravens would give us some motivation and an edge come playoff time, if we were to meet.

I made marinated chicken for the first time tonight. It turned out great! It was my first time cooking with soy sauce and rice vinegar — I actually ended up buying them this time 🙂 Easy to make and easy to cook — no fuss, just the way I like it. I have another bag of chicken in marinade in the freezer now, so I can defrost it when I want. I like cooking.

I’m starting to write a very light report framework against an Oracle database. It’s very confusing and I’m not finding it enjoyable. You have functions, stored procedures, packages, types, table types, weird PL/SQL syntax, obscure error messages. I don’t like it at all. I miss Teradata. I miss Postgres even more. But either way, it’s good to get this experience, so now I can say I have used Oracle too.

I think another part of it is I’m older and I don’t feel like I’m as much of an information sponge as I used to be. I loved reading manuals and learning new stuff but I feel that has slowly started to wane. I’m not sure if it has to do with the work environment I’m in right now and the work I’ve been doing or not, but I think it’s a combination of that and just getting older. Oh well.

I went for another run on my famous steps where I last encountered the not-so-stealthy Farting Man. I amaze myself. I keep improving my time going up these stairs. At first, I thought 2:00 was a good time. Then last week I did one climb in 1:30. And tonight I did one in 1:25! I wonder if I can do one in 1:00. I think I can, I just slowly have to build up to it. It’s nice having goals to work towards, that’s what makes running and exercise a challenge and at least a little more interesting.

Speaking of running, I have zero motivation to go for long runs these days. That marathon I signed up for last year really did force me to get out and push. This time around, I don’t really care anymore. I don’t feel the drive and those long runs really take up the whole day. I don’t think I’ve gone for more than a 1.5 hour run in the last couple months. That’s OK, I can build that up too, slowly.

I am wrapping up this video for the 10-year anniversary of my grandma’s death. It’s been a lot of fun compiling the videos and pictures of family members and organizing them. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about Adobe Premiere and Photoshop, and am now very comfortable using them. I’ve only scratched the surface, but now I understand a lot more.

I’m also wrapping up the Programa de Incentivos for 2020. It was a mixed bag this year. Participation was down, possibly due to Coronavirus, possibly other factors. But we pulled it off and we delivered academic prizes, which I’m very proud of. The teachers really liked those. I also listened to the suggestions from the teachers last year and I think that made a big difference this time around. I can tell that they were appreciative of some of the changes.

Another cool thing is we had more native speaker interactions! I had two other judges help me out with grading the projects this year. And I also had videocalls with several of the classes, which was great. I guess that’s one good thing that came out of the pandemic. I am now writing the end-of-year report and will take a short siesta before I start planning for 2021. This stuff never ends!

I have to make a few changes to the web app, so I’ll need to refamiliarize myself with the code. This is a good thing. I’ve learned that nothing motivates me more than having the pressure to get something done that I know will benefit me and others. This will get me back up to speed with real programming (i.e. Python and Postgres) too, which is a plus. I’ll probably start looking for a job around January, so this should get me back into programmer mode again, just in time.

The stock market is chugging along and will breech 30,000 soon. I’m glad I bought that PAGP stock even with the minor timing snafu. I think most of the stocks I have are the “set it and forget it” variety. Fine with me. As long as they go up in the long-run and generate dividend income, I’m happy. I will leave the dividend gains as cash and let them build up so I have some cash to jump in again during any dips. I am now fully vested in the stock market! I never would have imagined this a few years ago, but gradually you become comfortable with new things.

Applying old lessons…sort of

So, Biden has now officially won. Yay. I think everyone in the U.S. has had a dramatic reaction, one way or another. For me, it was just a sense of relief, kind of like you’re running a long race and you finally get to the finish line and realize it’s over and you can just exhale and go, pheww. That’s more or less how it felt. I don’t care one way or another for Biden, but just seeing this picture — a genuinely happy guy and his wife, bringing back some dignity to the office and our country hopefully. It does make me happy.

“We just did”- nice zing Biden! And look at that, he puts his wife first. Beautiful. Pheww.

Now, the remaining days until the crazy guy actually leaves or gets kicked out of the White House will be, I think, like nothing we’ve ever seen before. I’m talking pardons, executive orders, even more bombastic talk, delusional rants, tantrums, everything. That’s what we’ve come to expect at this point, right? Trump lives off of controversy and just wants attention. But what if it’s not? Maybe once he realizes the game is up, he’ll just slink over and head out. Who knows.

Anyways, I always keep tabs on articles on Yahoo Finance and I saw this one that was talking about good buys in the energy sector, like oil and gas companies. I don’t know anything about these, so I started gobbling up all the articles, one after another, and eventually I realized, man there’s a good opportunity here. Some of these stocks have great dividend history, are dirt cheap right now, and have good historical values (meaning they will go back up after time).

I whittled down my list to a few options and eventually settled on PAGP (Plains GP Holdings) and PSX (Phillips 66). Never heard of them? Right, me neither. But they were listed in this article titled These High-Yielding Oil Stocks Think They’re Ridiculously Cheap. What caught my eye? You guessed it — cheap! I love cheap. And high-yielding as well. This has been my strategy du jour (mmm…that sounds good, I’ll have that): buy stocks that have been going down and are cheap, have good value history and have good dividends. Of course I have other patterns I look for, but these are the big ones.

I didn’t know anything about either of these stocks, but they fit the bill. So, I put in my order with Fidelity and set it and forgot it. This morning, though, I checked my orders and realized I had put them in wrong!! I almost panicked, but then remembered I’m 7 hours ahead of New York, so I had time. I fixed my order and then figured let’s see how the Dow Futures are doing.

And then my mind exploded. It was up 1500+ points, like 6%! Oh no…I checked PAGP and it was up 5% and PSX was up 8%! Normally that would be great, but I hadn’t bought the darn things yet!! So it felt like they were actually down 5% and 8% to me, since my purchasing power was going down. As soon as the opening bell rang, I kept refreshing and refreshing my Orders page to make sure my order went through and to see what price I got.

At close on Friday, PAGP was $6.70 / share. Fidelity put in my order 4 minutes after the bell on Monday at $7.40 / share. A premium of almost 11%. PSX has gone up even more, about 15% around the same time. Thankfully I had switched my order in time and only bought PAGP.

What the heck is PAGP? Something to do with gas lines. My new best friend.

You don’t know how mad I was!! Just on a whim, I had decided to research the stocks on Friday night after reading that Yahoo article and out of pure luck I had my choices ready. I could just as easily have read the article the night before and put in my order then and I would have avoided this “loss”.

It feels like a loss, even though it really isn’t. Shortly after I went out for a run to flush out as much of this negative energy as I could and it helped as always. I also reflected on what happened four years ago when Trump won and the stock market also shot up. I was ticked back then as well and just said I’m going to wait it out until the market goes back down. But it never did. It just kept going up and up. I waited a couple years before I gave up and just bought back in. So I figure this time it’s going to be more of the same. Just jump in regardless, don’t wait.

My strategy for now is to hold on to these suckers as long as I can. Assuming they retain their dividends, that will give me a good buffer against any catastrophes (i.e. company goes under). And if all goes well, I get the dividends AND the stocks go up in value. It’s a win win. I’m always optimistic and positive with these types of things. For some reason, the risk doesn’t bother me too much. I am annoyed, though, at my Teradata stock. It needs some spark to bring it back to life. I still have a bunch of it and I’m waiting to sell as soon as it gets to a respectable price. No dividends and low value right now! No bueno.

The bottom line is that greed again is rearing its head. I instantly felt I lost 10% of my investment already today, even though as we speak, PAGP is at $7.70 / share. So it’s already gone up 4% from the “inflated” price I bought it at. That makes me feel slightly better. Now…as for those other sneaky stocks I’ve had my eyes on since the March dip: CCL (up 44%) and RCL (up 35%). They’re just pure bananas. There’s no predicting or timing involved with these crazy guys, so I’ve given up on them. That also makes me feel slightly better about my choice.

I know I won’t be giving this a second thought in a few months, and I’m pretty confident I’ll be happy with my choice long-term, even though it still stings a little bit right now. Greed can be good and bad — it compels you to take action, but it can also kick you in the butt if you’re not careful.

Not bad!

The Universal Language

English? Most important language, maybe, but universal? No. Chinese? Nah. Spanish? Hey! Nope. Esperanto? Huh? Get outta here. The universal language is…farts. Now hear me out 🙂

What other language or sound or noise is understandable, relatable, enjoyable (ok, that one could be debated) by everyone across the world? I guess it’s more skewed towards men, but still you know what I mean. If you are among strangers and someone sheepishly lets one out, everyone smiles. If you are in a foreign land and you cut one, everyone around you understands you and knows what just happened.

A few fun anecdotes come to mind to help illustrate my point:

1. I was playing basketball one day and it was just a regular game. All of a sudden, someone made a cut and poot! Out came an unexpected noise and he just fell over in place cracking up. He was dribbling the ball, no less, and as soon as the deed was done, it was all over. He was incapacitated from laughter for a good minute and everyone else also got a chuckle.
   
   
2. Dumb and Dumber was my favorite movie as a kid — and sadly still remains my favorite movie as an adult. Anyways, one of my favorite scenes was the X-Lax scene where Harry’s on the toilet. I’m sure this scene figured into my decision to buy a CD called Pull My Finger when I was about 16. Ninety nine tracks of nothing but farts. I got my brother to pay for half of it too!
   
   
3. Farsi (Persian) is such a sophisticated language that it distinguishes between different types of farts. This makes for some fun sentences with rich meaning. For example, a loud and harmless (i.e. not stinky) fart is called a “gooz”. This also seems to be a common nickname among siblings, I have learned — none of mine, of course. The more potent and lethal variety of fart — i.e. silent but deadly — is called a “chos”. This is the one you want to stay away from. One interesting example is the Farsi word for popcorn — “chos-e-fil” — or an elephant’s stinky fart. I told you the language was colorful.

“I don’t always fart, but when I do…man, does it stink!”

4. Now this one is what brought up the whole subject in the first place. I went for a run last night on this new route where I go up and down a set of stairs — 325 steps each way. Anyways, I pass this guy on my way down and I don’t give him a second thought. In a few short moments, I will have learned that he also did not give me a second thought.

I make it down to the bottom of the stairs, turn around and start heading back up. I see the same guy a little further up the stairs. As I get closer to him, he just stops in his tracks and, facing away from me, lets out a good-sized fart. A few things of note: 1) He had his headphones on, so maybe he was oblivious to his surroundings, 2) he probably thought, ok the coast is clear. That runner already passed me and there’s no one in front of me…let it rip!, and 3) maybe he just didn’t care who was around!

I passed him about a second after he blessed the atmosphere with his contribution. I turned around and gave him a smile and instinctively said “Boker tov!”, which means “good morning” even though it was 6pm and dark already. This just added to the hilarity of the situation on both sides. The guy farts, realizes someone is right next to him when he does so, and that crazy person (me) then smiles at him and says “Good morning!” even though it’s night. The thought of this bizarre interaction carried me up the rest of the stairs with a goofy smile on my face.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Nothing really, other than the fact that everyone understands and appreciates a fart. Even if you don’t like it or think it’s gross , you still appreciate it. It can lighten the mood (hello “gooz”!) or exacerbate a situation (I’m talking to you “chos”). It’s powerful, and everyone can speak that same language, regardless of where they’re from.

And Just Like That

Winter is officially here. Or as much winter as we’re going to get. It was pouring on and off all day today. I was lucky to hit a patch of clear weather during my lunch time stroll to pick up my food, but otherwise it’s been pretty wet. And it’s relatively cold too — it was maybe high 60s when I went outside. I was still in my regular ensemble of t-shirt, shorts and sandals.

I woke up at 4am this morning (9pm EST) and immediately turned on the election coverage. I finally settled on CBS, not sure why but they seemed good to me. Biden already had a sizeable lead, nice! Oh, but you can never count out The Donald. Who knows what tricks he has up his sleeve. Well, actually, we’ve seen them all already.

Anyways, I kept tabs on the results all day and sure enough, Trump was making his charge and recovering ground. Slowly, he climbed back up to within 10-15 electoral college votes of Biden, while other networks showed him ahead. Oh man.

And then I started doing the math. Shoot, Biden needs to win Wisconsin and Michigan to have a chance since all the other useful states (i.e. those with a good amount of votes) look like goners, except for maybe North Carolina. When I saw that Trump had a good lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, that’s when the thought crept through my mind, “This guy’s going to win it again.” I felt a little disappointed, and can now somewhat understand the utter dismay that more passionate political supporters feel when their candidate loses.

But then a funny thing happened. This guy goes up and gives a press conference saying how he feels like he’s won already and they should stop counting votes. I shrugged it off as the usual buffoonery, but then one of the pundits said something very interesting that stuck in my mind. He said something along the lines of, “Trump wouldn’t be sowing these seeds of doubt if he felt like he was going to clearly win”. In other words, this wave of braggadocio could be perceived as a desperate move. The move of someone who wasn’t confident he would win.

And then, I thought, man Biden seems to be very quiet and is just letting the whole process play out. I haven’t heard much from him. This is real interesting. If there was only a way to flip Michigan and Wisconsin. What the heck is in Wisconsin anyways besides cheese curds? Anyways, I digress.

I checked back a few hours ago, and got the surprise of the century. Biden was catching up, slowly and surely, in Michigan AND Wisconsin — two states that I was sure Trump would get. And now, lo and behold, Biden has overtaken Trump in those two states. Way to go Sleepy Joe! We need a nickname for Trump. He should come up with a good one and give it to himself.

Now if Biden wins, which is a distinct possibility, it is more a vote against Trump than one for Biden. I don’t see him going a second term. He’d be 86 years old by the end of it!! Unfathomable. Then again, Reagan was 69 when he got elected and he lasted two terms. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Anyways, it’s going to be close. I have a feeling Biden will pull it out. Trump will then make a stink and eventually concede or lose in the courts, and then continue the rest of his days blabbing about a rigged election or whatever other excuses he wants to tote around. If Trump somehow does pull it off, meh. Something will definitely happen during the next four years and his presidency will definitely end with a bang. You can’t say it hasn’t been interesting or entertaining, though.

Time to sleep. Let’s see if there is anymore clarity on this when I wake up.

Foul Mood

I had to take a shower yesterday at 7am. I had to dress up in “nice” clothes. I had to rush to eat some food. I had to sit around and wait for a bus. I had to sit in traffic and then walk to the office. I had to move my desk because someone else had switched their desk and was now sitting too close to me for the Coronavirus distancing restrictions. I had to call our Helpdesk to replace my monitors because when you unplug them, for some reason they become disabled and won’t power on.

I had to see people in the office that I was beyond happy not to have to see and interact with in person for the last 8 months. I had to sit at my desk and do work that I didn’t care about (vs. sitting at home and doing work I didn’t care about). I had to eat whatever food was brought to me during lunch (vegetarian instead of the meat I requested).

I had to sit through meetings that I had absolutely no interest in. I had to wait around until after working hours to meet with someone to discuss something that did not need to be discussed. I had to walk to the bus stop, catch a bus, walk back home. I had to. I had to. I had to do many things I didn’t want to do yesterday. I know these are all first-world problems and my attitude could use an adjustment, but regardless I was in just a foul mood from the get-go and it persisted the entire day. It was not enjoyable. Just too many things I didn’t want to do all happening one after another.

It was our first official day back in the office as a team in eight months. I think it’ll only be a couple days a week, at this point. I told myself to just get through it, and it would be better the next time. But it reinforced to me that I’m definitely ready to head back home now. About five months left, just got to get through it.

The good news is the Steelers (6-0) were playing the Ravens (5-1)! The game started at 8pm my time (1pm EST) and I was excited to watch. I wasn’t sure who’d win, since the Ravens have a good team now. It’s weird, I used to absolutely hate the Ravens, when they had guys like Suggs and Ray Lewis — loud-mouths. But after watching the game, I noticed that that feeling had largely subsided. I enjoyed the competition and could enjoy the game without getting too worked up. I also had a small “bet” with my cousin and her family (they live near Baltimore) which made it a little more fun. Time to pay up!

Regardless, I was still nervous at times, but we pulled it out 28-24. It was a great game, lots of back and forth. I love Big Ben, I’m going to miss him when he’s gone. The Steelers seem to keep putting good teams together and have good players even when the old ones become divas and split (i.e. LeVeon Bell & Antonio Brown). I felt their culture starting to sour a couple years ago, but it seems to have stabilized. Maybe it was a result of getting rid of a few bad apples.

Is there not a more beautiful sight?