Patrick's Talk about Me and Egypt

Tagged Again

In continue for the tagging waves which are happening now, I got tagged again by Myra, let's start :D


SECTION 1 - Last 1s?
1. last beverage? Oroe Shake
2. last phone call? Hany
3. last instant message? Someone I don't know
4. last cd played? Savatage Transiberian Orchestra
5. last time you cried? Last Year
6. last text message? What's the difference between this and point 3??

Section 2 - 6 Have You Evers:
1. dated someone twice? Nope
2. been cheated on? Nope
3. kissed someone & regretted it? Nope
4. lost someone special? Nope
5. been depressed? Yes
6. been drunk and threw up? Nope

Section 3 - List 3 Favourite Colors

1. Black
2. Red
3. Blue

Section 4 - This month have you
1. Made a new friend? Nope
2. Fallen out of love? Nope
3. Laughed until you cried? Yes
4. Met someone who changed your life? Nope
5. Found out who your true friends were? Done before
6. Is there something you want to tell someone? Nope
7. Would you kiss anyone on your top friends? Nope
8. How many people on your top friends do you know in real life? How could I've a top friend which I don't know in real life?!!
9. How many kids do you want to have? one or two
10. Do you have any pets? Yes
11. Do you wanna change your name? Nope
12. What did you do for your last birthday? Went Out with Friends
13. What time did you wake up today? 11:30 am
14.What were you doing at midnight last night? Watching a movie
15. Name something you CANNOT wait for? Building my own empire :P
16. Last time you saw your father? More than 4 months ago
17. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life? I need to be more patient
18.What are you listening to right now? Nothing
19. Have you ever talked to Tom? as in Tom & Jerry? Nope
21. Have you ever talked about someone behind their back? Yes
22.What’s the last piece of clothing you borrowed from anyone? Nothing
23. Who’s getting on your nerves right now? No one
24. Most visited webpage? Don't know
25. Coke or Pepsi? Oreo Shake
26. Have you kissed or been kissed by anyone in the past week? Nope
27. Mac or PC? PC, Mac is not good for everyone because it doesn't support everyone (i.e. corporate user as it's missing very important protocols)

Tagged: 5 things you don't know about me!

So I've been tagged by Hany to write this post, I don't think there's much to be written, but let's give it a try.

1. I am so moody, I don't ever like doing the same thing twice, and my dream is not to repeat any day in my life again.
2. I love being crazy, yeah it's real, to do whatever you want in any time without giving a damn to anyone.
3. I am very eastern although it looks like I am not at all.
4. I believe in Aliens :D
5. There are more than 5 things to know about.
6. I am very nervous, although many people think I am calm and many people didn't see me when I am really angry, but here is your advice, when I become really angry just run like hell, because at that time if you even break my leg I won't give a damn and I'll keep fighting you until you die or I die or someone kills us both!
7. When I was a kid I burnt a small paper, then when I found it blowing too much fire for me to handle, I threw it in a container filled with papers and magazines, and when I found it burning as hell and fire started to spread into other stuff like bed and carpet, I closed the room and went outside to watch TV as if it's not me who did anything!
8. When I was a kid I almost killed another kid (refer back to point number 6), he was making fun of me so I took a very huge rock and hit him on his head, he lost his conscious instantly and I left him bleeding in the middle of the street at 11:00 pm and ran home to my bed.
9. When I was a kid I almost got killed when I fall from the ground floor into the -1 floor over a marble stair and I broke my skull from my left ear to the right one (I almost got my brain out).
10. Since I was a kid (and until now) I like breaking things apart and building them again, building stuff from nothing, try to invent something new, and things like that.
11. I write stories and poetry
12. I love kids like hell, and for some reason they get used to me very fast too!
13. I love dealing with smart people so much.
14. I love candies so much too, and can't stop eating chocolates.
15. And I am not as Hany, I don't dream to have a convertible car, I just dream of having my own F-16, I love flying soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much.
16. One day I attended an online lecture in math, I came in the middle of the lecture, so there was a white board out there filled with many theories and stuff, I got bored so fast, so I start drawing into the white board and removing stuff without noticing that the chatting window was like hell as everyone out there was saying: "What's the hell is happening? Who’s that crazy ass hole?" as I just wasted the whole lecture!
17. I am very very very very ambitious and I’ve plans for my life like for the next 20 years, and if I am to get married, she must be very ambitious too.
18. That's enough for today, let's continue later!
    

No Title ;)

If you interested, click over read full post :)

Hello guys, this time I'll write a completely new post for me, I saw this post in Ramy's blog and I liked the idea, so I'll do the same, but instead of these science fiction points, my points will be some how more realistic :P
mmm, or it may not, let's read to see :D (They are arranged in importance):

1. To be religious and with great morals.
2. Very Smart.
3. Ambitious.
4. Cute and pretty.
5. Live in this world with the real meaning of this (which means I don't wanna someone who don't know who's Ayman Nour or stuff like that, I mean to know what's going on around the world), which simply means I don't wanna an Isolated person!!
6. Funny.
7. Any career I don't care.
8. Romantic.
9. Love adventure so much (not static person or lazy person).
10. Optimistic.
11. Of course I don't wanna someone who will talk with me everyday about Open Source software and that MS is evil and stuff like that ;)

That's it, for points from 1-5, I can't marry someone who's missing any of them, point 6, is so important (at least someone who's not hating herself and the whole world and making me feel like being married to Lord of War or something like that), points from 7-10 are some how important, which means if they exist, it'll be so good, but if not, it won't affect the whole process so much.

And point 11 will be so cool if exist, because if not, it'll create a lot of problem as you may imagine ;)

So now what's your opinion, Am I realistic or looking for over-perfect one :D?

My Leader Type!!

What Famous Leader Are You?

Ma3ateh Organization Ltd!

Hii all,

Today I was thinking about making any weird stuff, and I got this idea :D :

http://ma3ateh.blogspot.com/

USA & Cars

Hello again, and back to normal blogging :)

Today I'll talk about some sort of weird issue (yes it's weird :D ), about getting a car in USA :)

But before talking about this, I need to share a very great situation happened to me this week.

Usually before I came here, I was thinking about Americans and American politics as two separate issues which are not related to each others by any mean, in other words, what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, is not related to Americans them-selves.

I was not able to prove whether this is true or false until I came here, every time I meet an American and he/she knew that Iam from Egypt, he/she asks me about my opinion in US, and before I say a single word, the sentence I usually hear is:
"USA is great, every thing is good except politics"
Yes, believe it or not, I heard this many many times from American, so what about the story I was gonna tell you about?!

It's simple, 2 days ago I was in my way to see a car in MS Campus in Issaquah/Sammamish, and as usual, when I open the msn maps to request the map, I typed the address with Redmond instead of Sammamish, and as you could expect, the address I went to (which was actually nothing more than mountains which tell me that it's impossible to find MS here).

So I waited there for a while trying to figure out what's happening, until I met two Americans, a man and his wife, they have taken the map and spent about 5 min with me trying to figure out where I need to go, and then they reminded me with the Redmond issue and that I wrote Redmond instead of Sammamish, so I thanked them and open my GPS to search for the new address (no this is not the story yet), and again, I typed it with NE instead of SE so I went to the wrong side of the city to find my self in a farm and found a man who was fixing something, and here you're the dialog:

Me: Hii, Iam just lost, is Microsoft Campus near from here?
The address with me is saying that it's supposed to be here.

Him: If Microsoft is really here, I was gonna be so rich and was not gonna fix these stuff any more :D, what's the address you're looking for?

Me: it's ...... Sammamish.

Him: Yes, that's it, but as I remember there's no Microsoft here, may they gonna buy this land and make a branch here, but as far as I know for now, no MS here.

Then another man and woman appear, then:

Second Man: So you're looking for Microsoft, do you have the exact address?!

Me: That's it, it's the one I told you about it before.

Second Man: No, this is not the address, this is just the street name.

Woman: Look, better thing is to call the man you're going to again, look call him now and ask him about the address.

Then they let me called him and I said the address for them and they typed it.

Second Man: OK, 1 min, Iam gonna see this address on map quest and print the map for you.

Then I went and parked my car in their farm, and the woman came to talk with me a while and she brought a paper and pen and draw the map for me and discussed every single detail with me about the directions until the other man prints the map for me.

So this is the story, imagine how much help have I taken?!
Imagine to be working in your farm which is really too far away from the main street, Ohh, I forget to tell you, I entered with my car in a private road which is about 1 mile long until I reached their home, so their home is really far away from the traffic, so imagine you're working in your home which is far away from traffic and suddenly found someone with his car in your farm, then you left your work and brought nearly most of your family members to help him, and the best thing in this, that you know nothing about him, because I may be a gang, I may kill them or make any thing bad to them, but really they remind me with the amount of help you could get in the same situation in any Egyptian Village, they were really great and so helpful.

Now to the main subject, the cars, Ohhh, the post is too long, so let's keep it to the next post ;)
To Be Continued.....

A Story by Khalil Gubran

I was strolling in the gardens of an insane asylum when I met a young man who was reading a philosophy book. His behavior and his evident good health made him stand out from the other inmates. I sat down beside him and asked:
"What are you doing here?"

He looked at me surprised. But seeing that I was not one of the doctors, he replied:
"It's very simple. My father, a brilliant lawyer, wanted me to be like him. My uncle who owns a large emporium, hoped I would follow his example. My mother wanted me to be the image of her beloved father. My sister always set her husband before me as an example of the successful man. My brother tried to train me to be a fine athlete like himself.
And the same thing happened at school, with the piano teacher and the English teacher - they were all convinced and determined that they were the best example to follow. None of them looked at me as one should look at a man, but as if they were looking in a mirror.
So I decided to enter this Asylum. At least here I can be myself"

In The Perception Of The Poor...

Hello Everyone...
This series of posts will be a bit different, I don't know if any of you will be interested to read it but I am mainly writing it for the sake of "saving" it for a future use.
I've been collecting some short-stories for children that have some kind of a moral to learn from them...And since we have to put bases for concepts like: love, happiness, trust, honesty..etc from a child's early stage (I believe until he/she reaches the age of 6), the narration of such stories can help raise smart children in the future...So, the first story will be: "In the perception of the poor"...

One day a father and his rich family took his young son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip, the father asked his son: "How was the trip?"
"Very good, Dad" his son said.
"Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked.
"Yeah!" said the son.
"And what did you learn?" The father asked.
The son answered: "I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches the front yard, they have a whole horizon"
When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless!
His son added: "Thanks dad for showing me how poor we are!"

Isn't it true that it all depends on the way you look at things? If you have love, friends, family, health, good humor and a positive attitude towards life, you've got everything!

You can buy any of those things. You can have all the material possessions you can imagine, provisions for the future..etc but if you are poor of spirit...You have nothing!

As Opposed To Microsoft!!

Hello Everyone...
As opposed to Meshref's post of his great experience in Microsoft, I thought I might
share with you my summer-internship experience in "Promoters" which I think it also
has something to do with the fact that Microsoft is great (if you know what I mean :))



Last year, the university offered limited summer-internship offers for students in some companies. And since the offers were limited, the university itself had to do an interview for interested students to pick and choose who fits best (apparently, they didn't think of who fits "where" as well)...

Anyways, I got accepted and the university sent me as well as 2 of my collegues to "Promoters"...I didn't know anything about the company at first but I knew I had to sit for another interview conducted by the company itself...so, I searched a lot on the internet to find out about the company, its site and all.

I got to know from their site that Promoters is supposedly one of the top marketing firms in Egypt whose deals with big companies and institutions in Egypt like: AUC, Timberland, Adidas, Bahgat Group, Orascom, IBM, Henkel, Pepsi, McDonald's, C&Co., The Island (Sharm El Sheikh) and more...

I got excited at first and I thought it's an excellent company and all...So, I went for an interview, the interviewer was very friendly and nice and as soon as she finished her questions and I finished mine, she asked me to come the following monday at 9 a.m...

So I was there 8:50 a.m (I always like to be there 10 mins early in case of anything), I stayed at the reception till it was 9:15 and then I told the receptionist that I am supposed to meet Ms.Dina (my interviewer and supervisor) at 9, where is she?...she told me that she hasn't come yet!
I thought she might have issues so I waited a little longer...a lot longer...until it was 10:30 and I rose off to leave when I saw Ms.Dina comming.
She was like: "Where are you going?"...I said "I am here from 8:50 and you did not show up so I thought you are not comming!!!"...She said no and she asked me to have a seat until she comes back to me...

She went there for like 45 minutes...I thought she might be taking a shower or something..she seemed to stay quite long!!!
Anyways...after all this time, she came back with the biggest smile on her face to tell me: "I'm sorry, we can not begin today...unfortunately, we do not have rooms or computers for you to work on!" (like they discovered that today!!..what a surprise!)
So I said ok, so I guess I'll leave...she said I'm sorry and I will contact you as soon as we fix this...maybe within one or two weeks...I said ok, no problem and I left...

As soon as I got back home, I found my cell phone ringing...I picked up...
It was Promoters' receptionist..she was phoning to tell me to come the next day for they have came up with a solution...So, I said well...okay!

I went the next day where I met a couple of my university collegues...again at 9 and she showed up at 10...anyways...the good solution they actually came up with was that they let us sit in their meeting room having a HUUUGE stack of airplanes' magazines, pens and papers and making tables of contacts of airline companies, airplanes' manufacturers, airplane accessories' manufacturers, and engines' manufacturers..etc for we were supposed to be working on a great project named "AVEX 2006"..the 2nd International Airshow in Egypt held in Sharm (supposedly running now)...it's a very important event supervised by governmental institutions and all...So we were doing excel sheets of potential exhibitors in this event "manually"...when we asked for computers to enter the data right into an excel sheet instead of this mess...she said "You are going to enter it later in an excel sheet"...
So I asked "Why not from the beginning?"...
Her answer was the following: "Because when office boys find printed papers on desks or in shelves, they usually throw it...but they never throw hand-written stuff"
I was like WOW...that's the dumbest answer I could ever expect!!! (Like they can't tell their office boys "please don't throw stuff WHATEVER it is :s)

Anyways..it was my first day...I didn't want to be complaining too much about stuff..so I just did the work I'm asked for.

They usually let us leave late and take work with us at home...it was sooo tiring and not at ally benefitial (atleast, that's how I saw it...I didn't find any experience with doing excel sheets of contacts!)...

After a week from work, they discovered that they haven't done an orientation for us!!
So they called in Amr (a project manager)...and apparently, everyone there is a project manager since they don't have a hierarchy..they work as a "team" (hehe)...whatever..
First, let me give you brief information about Amr...he's the model guy who walks in at 12 p.m checking on everyone in the company, where they've spent their night the other day...or what parties did any of them go to and what are their plans for tonight..as a start for the day!
Then, he goes to check on the girls...he sells watches and stuff...so he "promotes" those watches to his female collegues and ofcourse since Amr is the handsome guy of promoters, a girl working in promoters had to change a watch everyday!!!

So, he began introducing us to promoters, the floors they have...which floor is which branch of promoters..like there is promo-sport which is concerned with the promotion of sports-related stuff and there is promo-sign who builds and makes stuff...and he gave me this example "If Amr Diab wants to make a concert in Marina, he contacts promo-sign to tell us the lighting he wants..the stage..everything and we do it...if he wants a girl to come to his hotel room everyday and put chocolate on the bed..we must provide that"
I thought "What's your job again?!!!!"
He told us that we're not going to be working in the "entertainment" stuff...but we're more of the governmental-concerned stuff...so I was a bit relieved.

All through the month I stayed there, we've experienced a lot of "inefficiency" problems...like no one to supervise us most of the time, no available laptops or computers to work on so mostly, we had to wait for one or two of the employees to finish their msn chatting time and let us work on their computer for sometime...
we were working in the 10th floor with no air-conditions because it was down for the entire month of June!!
For the last week, we got really fed-up...so me and my collegues asked Ms.Dina if we can actually do any other task...she then told us..we must complete this first or we can work in parallel with something else which is the "Pricing Strategy" they should use.

I was like okay, we were taught that in the previous marketing course...the 4 Ps and all...this can be interesting...actually the so-called "pricing strategy" was doing another excel-sheets of prices of challets, show-space..etc. NOTHING was new!
We were doing all the dirty work that apparently none of the employees wanted to do because it was very much time-consuming and unbelievably boring!

And while we were doing all this...Amr and the gang were doing nothing but ordering food 24/7, chatting on the msn, NEVER being on their desks, checking magazines and commenting on different Ads...I remember Amr once giving an excellent marketing analysis of an Ad...he looked unhappy and he said "La..el bent dih regleeha msh 7elwa"....NOW, THAT'S MARKETING!

This was one hell of a place for real...I wish for a better chance at a much more "respectable" company this summer inshaa Allah
(P.S: This was an unpaid internship...yalla 3shan tekmal :))
So an advice for anyone who was interested in this company in particular, you may want to reconsider your decision :D...especially for a summer-internship offer!

SIFE

Hello Everyone...
I came back from college today, somehow taking a break because it's a thursday and I was already not willing to attend Mohammed Mouneer's and Nancy Agram's concert in the university..hehe...so I was spending sometime reading my mails and all.
I checked my uni mail and I found a mail titled "SIFE"...I didn't know what actually this was so I thought I might take a look.
A poster in the mail was posted and a link to SIFE's website, so i opened the link..that's where I knew about it a little...

SIFE is the "Students In Free Enterprises"...It's a US headquartered non-for-profit organization whose aim is to improve the quality of life and standards of living of people through teaching the principles of free market economics and entrepreneurship (that's what the site says)
Well I thought like how?!!

I read more, it's actually an organization whose members are from businesses and universities who do proposals for projects and actually "do" the project in a later phase to help achieve the aim of SIFE mentioned earlier.
Students work in teams to do such projects and implement them; they gain leadership, communication and presentation skills through-out this activity.

I got interested in the idea...but i couldn't register with them online so I got the contact information of their office in Egypt and I phoned them. A guy answered me and gave me Mrs.Fatma's (the head of the SIFE team in Egypt) cell phone number (What an invasion of privacy..that's what I thought!) but anyways, I thought well...I'll call her anyways!

I called her, introduced myself and told her that I am an interested student in the activities of SIFE and I would like to join...she was very welcoming and very friendly, she even talked to me as if i was her own daughter. She gave me a clearer idea of the projects they do and whom I should contact in my university.
She told me that the AUC group was the team winning the competition they did last year for the "best project"...they did a project for poor women making mushrooms and selling them, also another project for high-school students to teach them how to make a CV, behave in an interview and also taught them some communication skills..that was in around 12 schools in Egypt...
Mrs.Fatma was very happy that I was that enthusiastic and she asked me to begin right away with my mates in college...so I'll be thinking inshaa Allah of better projects and pray for us to win this year :)

I think stuff like that might make Egypt a better place, with better educated citizens, with better systems...with the helping and sharing..we can be more united, we can actually get out of the bottle's neck (as most people say)!

Here's SIFE's site in case you want to know more about it:
http://www.sife.org

If you're interested in SIFE, please join...you will hopefully make a difference :)

New Member :)

Hello all,


In the whole previous period it was me alone posting tons of posts about everything, now it's the time to see someone else posting in my blog :)

Here you're my new partner, her name is Nouran, she's almost 20 years and she's studying Management in GUC.

Although I didn't know Nouran for a long time (since we knew each others few days ago), but she's one of the most respectable persons I've ever met, and to be honest, nearly the only "sane" girl I've ever met (I knew that girls gonna kill me now :P ).

Any way, everybody, hot welcome to my new partner here, and hope to see more posts from her soon :)

Welcome Nouran to my world :)

New Member in Meshref's Blog

Hello Everyone...
This is Nouran, Mohamed's friend...I am just new here so I don't know what to write or say but I promised Mohamed that I would write something..so here it goes...
Although I haven't personally met Mohamed but from our chat I've sensed he's a really good person with a good heart and quite good manners...i really see in him something special and i believe he's going to be something great in the near future inshaa Allah :)
Despite him loving life in the US, the guy is alright..lol...
No seriously, he's a real gentleman..God bless :)

Nouran

The Journey to USA (Part 4)

Hii again,

Long time, right ;)?

Any way before I continue, here you're some news:

I created my technical blog on msdn blogs at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mmeshref

Also you could access the both blogs after that through:

http://www.mmeshref.com


Now let's continue :)

Last time I stopped in Friday, so next day we went to pick up my rental car, and as expected, we lost because Iam not good at reading US maps, so instead of going for 5-6 miles only to my car pick-up location, we went for about 14-18 miles to found ourselves in Seattle :D!!!!

Any way, we enjoyed the day there, and visited a lot of places and played in the Game World, here you're the photos:

http://www.mmeshref.com/album/USA%20Relocation/index3.html

Now, it's the time to return back, but there's a problem, we don't know the way back home, also the way to pick up the car, so what's the solution?!

The simple solution is to get a GPS, so we went to radioshak, and I got a very nice GPS which is colored and has a speaker system which will guide you through voice in addition to normal maps on the screen to any place you want to go, also it contains tons of places in which Iam using now every day to go to any place, as example if I want to go to a cinema, I open Cinemas sub-directory and told him to find the nearest one to my current location, and then choose the type of route whether shortest time or to avoid high ways (good in rush hours) or 2 other options, then route, also if I miss any route, it'll re-route the path to a new route depending on my current location, so it's dynamic routing instead of static one, also all these combined with that its screen is touch screen, so I could use both the buttons or touch the screen whatever is easier for me.

Here you're my GPS:
http://www.magellangps.com/en/products/product.asp?PRODID=1038

Really it's cool, up till now I don't even know how to return home, I just open the GPS in any place Iam currently in, and open favorites and click home->route->shortest time.
Then back home, isn't it really cool ;)?

So we used it and went to pick up the car, and then went back home.

In the evening Mostafa was going to meet a guy also I went to meet some people I knew here at MS, so when we came back he told me that he has met with Chris and Mohamed Helal, so in the next day we went with them to a kind of restaurant and also Khaled Aggad and Mostafa El Ehmali were there.

Next day it was our NEO, and this is the next and last episode in this series, so, just wait for it ;)

Stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

The Journey to USA (Part 3)

Hii Guys,

I know that this post has taken much time more than the previous two, that's because as you know that yesterday and the day before were the weekend days here, and so I went with friends to some really weird places (which if found sometime and intension I'll post about them).

Also, there is something which is really amazing, it was snowing last Thursday, I wasn't having the camera at that time, and when I arrived home I have just taken one photo in the dark for the snow when it was in its way to vanish:

Now back to the old topic, let's resume what we've cut in the last part :), last time we stopped at the moment we put our feet outside Sea-Toc International Airport.

After we've picked the car, we went to the key pick-up location which we were having the map for it, for those whom don't know the meaning of key pick-up location, it's simply a door with numerical keypad in which we've a secret number to use on this keypad to open the door and pick up our key and apartment information, here you're a picture for how it's looking like:

After we've picked up our keys, we found that our apartment location is exactly beside the key pick-up location, here you're some photos for the apartment:

My Room (a little blurry)

Mostafa's Room

Washing machine and dryer room

Dinning room

Kitchen

Another photo for the kitchen


One more photo for the kitchen :D


The TV and DVD Player


Living Room front image

Living room rear image

Our apartment door is the one under the stairs, its front window
(actually my room window), is the one in the far bottom left side


Another view for out living location from outside.

View for our living location (note, between the trees in the far viewing distance, is located our working place which is building 35, so as you see, we can just walk for less than half a mile to reach our offices :) )

After that we discovered that we're really hungry, so we went to search for some food, and we lost until we found chilis so we entered and eat and then went back home to get some sleep to be ready to make any thing new in the next day which was Saturday :)

That day was really amazing because a lot of things have happened in that day in which were really fun :), but why to jump into any details about them?!

Just wait for the next post to know more about them, so...

Stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

The Journey to USA (Part 2)

Hii Guys,


Here you're the part 2 from the journey, where I've stopped last time?!

Yes, on the very weird thing that has happened, you know what is it?

Simply when the pilot has left the gate, we have moving with the aircraft for about 8-10 min on the ground until we get to the run way which was really sooooooo far from the location we were.

So we stopped and wait for the taxi, and we waited and waited and I noticed that many aircrafts are coming and leaving and we still remaining in our place!!

Till the pilot announce that the aircraft is facing some technical problems and we need to head back to the gates location to fix it!!!

Then ok, we went back and waited for about one hour, and then he said that they haven't made any success till now and they will try for another 30 min and if they succeed, then we'll continue, otherwise we'll be routed to another aircraft!!


We waited for the additional 30 min, then he announce that the problem is in its way to be solved, and we waited for another 20-30 min and then he announce that it's fixed and they are gonna re-fuel again because we wasted a lot of fuel, funny huh :D?

Any way, we left and we have most of our flight over dead regions, really no way that any creature could be living on these locations, here you're some samples:

This picture was over Island where it seems to be dead as you see.

Also this one was over Island too.

This one was over rocky mountains.

Rocky Mountains too.

We continue flying for more than 10 continues hours until we reached Washington state (for non-US aware, there're two Washingtons in the United States, one is Washington DC which is the US Capital and it's located in the east, and the other is Washington only which is located on the Northwest and this is the one Iam referring to).

WA from air was really cool, I saw MS campus from there but I haven't got the chance to take a photo for it, but any way, here you're some photos for Seattle (WA Capital) from the air:

Ok, that's enough for today :)

Next time I'll be talking about our first impression about US and our first steps in US :)

Stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

The Journey to USA (Part 1)

Hii Guys,


As I promised you before that I’ll post my journey details on episodes, so here you’re the first episode written from inside my office in building 35 in Microsoft Redmond HQ.


Let’s start from the moment I left my house and jumped into the car heading to the airport.


We arrived to the airport at nearly 12:00 AM, March 03, 2006.

I’ll skip the moment of saying goodbye to my family members because those moments were the hardest moments in the whole story.

Any way, after that I headed with Mostafa to the airport to wait for KLM flight which is supposed to leave at 2:50 AM.


Then we’ve waited will 2:40 AM, and then we went to the gate, and as usual, in Egypt airport, the flight which was supposed to leave on 2:50 AM, left on about 3:30 AM.

Any way, we’ve taken off, and the flight was good, and the best service I’ve found on both KLM and Northwest Airlines, is the Games & Video on Demand system, in which you could choose to watch from tons of movies and TV series which are all new, and the movies were sometimes on the cinema on the last season (some of them were still in Egypt’s Cinemas till that time), also you could play games, send SMS, watch news, and many other services, here you’re a photo on how the system was looking like (Click to enlarge):








After that, we landed into Amsterdam International Airport, with a temperature of Zero (it was the first time for me to see the sky snowing), and then we stayed in Amsterdam Airport for about 5 hours, and here you’re some photos for Amsterdam’s Airport:

Mostafa in the Airport.

It's me this time :)

Some Cool cars we've found in the Airport:

Our Northwest Airlines Aircraft which was going to take us to US.

Any way, after the 5 hours period, we went to the gates again (by the way I forgot to tell you that Amsterdam Airport is really hugeeeeeeeee, it contains about 60 different gates or more), and then we got our normal interrogation about our visit to US, why and to whom, etc.

Then headed directly to our aircraft where something very weird has happened, you wanna know what is it?!

Wait for the next episode ;)

Stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

Live From Redmond (Part 1)

Hii Guys,


Today it's the first time for me to post any thing in this blog from a place which is outside Egypt (except for Amsterdam's comment).

Any way soon (as soon I buy a new laptop and get some time), I'll post every thing, but for now, I'll leave you for some pictures until the moment I write the next post and comment on every sinlge one:

http://programmingplanet.net/album/USA%20Relocation/index.html

C U soon :)

Final Count Down, Day Zero

Hii Guys,

Again this is my final post before posting from another Country :D

Any way I did many things in the previous days, and I'll just mention them here as points and may discuss them later when I get some time:

1. Change money from the Bank.
2. Buy a lot of things (many of them are really weird!).
3. Meeting a lot of people and making a lot of family visits.
4. I don't remember what else.

The most thing which is really amazing, is the way we'll pick up the keys for our house when we arrive to US.

But this is another story, I'll post it as soon as I arrive and have internet access with tons of picutres.

Stay tight ;)

On the way to Redmond 1

Hello all,

Starting from now and until I find my-self out there in Redmond, I'll write a new post every couple of days to discuss what I've done during this period before traveling, now let's start with the first one.

So, from where I'd start?!

Let's start from the last time's end, in my previous post regarding this issue; I stopped on the embassy interview.

After that with 3 days, I received my passport with the visa stamped in it, so during this period I called the shipping company to ship my goods and stuff, they took my passport to make some arrangements with it in the Airport (I don't know really what are these arrangements), and returned it back to me and I told them that I'll call them again as soon as I decide to ship my stuff.

Then I send to my candidate move specialist to reserve me my seat, she sent me a word document containing a lot of questions about my preferred seat position, my preferred food on the plan, my preferred place to leave my temporary car for me, if I prefer to have a hotel room during the period between my arrival and going to my housing, my preferred housing and how many rooms I want, etc.

I sent her the document with all these questions answered and asked her to reserve the next seat with me to my friend Mostafa who's traveling with me and who's working with me in the same team, and also asked her to make the travel date and time any where beyond March 02, 10:00 PM GMT because I've a special event which I need to attend.

Then I got an email from her telling me that she has reserved the seats and this is the confirmation email and I'll receive the tickets by DHL service within several days, so my travel date and time has been reserved to be March 03, 2:55 AM.

I'll go first to Amsterdam through KLM airlines in a trip which is taking 5 hours and stay there for about 6 hours and then through Northwest Airlines in a trip which is taking around 11 hours directly to Seattle.

After that I went to make the international driving license, and after spending around 2 hours (and paying additional money to get it finished quickly, as you know Egypt ;) ), I got it.

I was thinking about it to be something like the local driving license, I mean good and small license covered and looks clean, but here you're what it's looking like:

After getting it, I went to the "El Shahr El Akary" (Don't know its meaning in Arabic) to make a general permission to my father "Tawkel 3am we shamel" to use it in any thing here in Egypt which is in need for me without my physical existence.

After that I went in a small outing with my friends (college friends) into Pizza King El Mereland and spent some time with each others.

Next day, I went to the Army to get my travel permission, and I really admit that this is the first time in my whole life to find that making a paper in the Army is the easiest part in this whole post, it was really so easy and so quick, I just filled a paper with my info, pay the fees, and wait for about 10 or 15 min and get the permission!!!
Really it's nothing when compared with my old adventure in Hykesteb ;)

And here you're a photo for how the Travel Permission is looking like:

That's all for today, soon I'll continue talking about what I've done next, also I hope if I could get an entry visa during my transit in Amsterdam to visit the City in this 6 hours.

So stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....