Shahab's WebSpace

If I do a random survey about how many people like Brad Pitt, almost everyone would say yes. Though I really wish Jennifer Aniston would be his wife instead of Angelina Jolie. Jen is more beautiful than Jolie in my opinion, not that sexy though. However Brad is getting old now. And yesterday I saw one guy on TV who has the same charm and confidence on his face like young Pitt. It was on one of the TV channels called USA network. The name of the series is "White Collar" and the guys name is Matt Bomer and he is nicknamed "Snake Eyes". I liked the premier show. Almost every single character is elegant. Even a 60 year old lady, maybe 50, cant tell exactly. All the girls in that first show catches your eye. And the main character besides Matt , Tim Dekay,is perfect. The premier story was the perfect start to the series I think. The only thing/person which I didnt like was Tim's wife. She, for some reason, didnt fit in the range of beauty of other characters. But I am sure she will change my view towards her after a few more episodes. But this couple doesnt have any kids. I guess that is one of the tragedy here which will come in later.

I guess I have got too much time on my hand. I never used to have time to watch any TV except some things here and there. But the economy is taking its toll I guess. There is not much to do in the office recently. Hence I am in my house enjoying the weekend on the couch infront of my TV.

So, I got my H1B renewal application approved. A little happy about it. I need to go to Tijuana, Mexico to stamp my visa on October 5th. I did the same 3 years back when my H1B was approved first time. I need to provide a cashiers check in Mexican Pesos as a part of application. Though I did this 3 years back, I just can't remember how I did it and where I did it. The worst thing is I cant find any emails or any other info about it. Not even online. Well, I guess I will just go over there and then go to bank and get the cashiers check on the spot.

This was a bad month for me financially. I lost about three grands in stocks. There was a company called Genova Biotherapeutics. People said, its going to be a great hit. Also, this company was releasing press release after press release. I used to think that the press release cannot be fake. A company is not allowed to fake a press release. But it was not true. It seems like this company faked all the PR's. Apparently the stock jumped from 3cents to 1.18USD. I bought few shares at 29cents. In 3 days my money tripled. Seeing this, I started getting greedy and instead of taking out the profit and re-investing the house money, I just invested more money...a lot more at 97cents. And as soon as I did this, within 20 minutes, the stock touched 1.18$ and started tumbling down. And at the end of the day, it went to about 48cents and since then its going down and down and today its at 18cents. I couldnt believe myself. Why I didnt research about this company? Why I didnt google it? Why I ddint check forums regarding this company? Now when I see all this, they all say its a fake and dont waste money on this. But well, I learned a big lesson.

I dont know why but for the last few weeks I am getting flashbacks of my life. Maybe the end of my life is near, because as they say, whenever the end of certain thing approaches, the flashback cycle starts automatically mentioning all the good and bad events of that era. Or maybe its not my life which is culminating, but its my life here in USA which is about to get over. The reason, well, my H1B visa renewal is pending and I was suppose to get the decision by yesterday as per their time table, but still there is no result. I dont wanna go back as I like living here but I cannot fight against what is in my destiny.

Lets see if I can remember all those flashbacks at this point. The first thing which I remember is the five star chocolates which my dad used to bring for both us brothers. He used to work out of town most of the time coming home once or twice a month staying for a weekend or few days at max. We both used to enjoy that chocolate bar so much that we used to get goose bumps knowing that dad is gonna come tonight. We used to try stay up late night to see him come home but his timing were so late that we used to doze off most of the time at his arrival. But then, the next morning used to be the sweetest of the whole fortnight as we used to get that chocolate after waking up. I still cherish those 5 stars and those mornings.

Second event is my love for cricket , fast bowling, to be specific. I always used to conisder myself as a fast bowler but people used to draft me in their team as a batsman. But there were these twins: Shabbar and Afzal who used to draft a team to play in small competitions. And they used to draft me to play for their team as a fast bowler and they seem to be thrilled with my bowling speed. They used to compare me with the West-Indian great bowler Malcolm Marshall. I never understood the relation between him and me. Maybe its just that they used to think that I have a long run-up with fast speed just like him. I used to feel good about myself when they(twins) used to look up to me when the team used to be underwater. And most of the times, I used to take care of the situation. However sometimes I used to flunk. Well, its a part and parcel of life. No regrets.

Third event is my ability to lead the team or group of people. People say that Engineers can never be good managers. For some reason, I think I belive it. But then either I am not an engineer or not a good manager. Because I am an engineer and consider myself a good manager. Dont brag yourself  shahab so much. "knock on wood".  Considering my ability and willingness to help my colleagues in college, my head of dept made me the Class Representative. One day I was suppose to select a committee for an industrial tour and there was widespread discontent among the selection of the candidates. It was decided that the entire class of 29 students will vote to pick 5 candidates for the committee. And when the results were out, I was so surprised and shocked to see that I had acquired 21 votes out of 29 and the second highest was 17 or 18 I think. I couldnt believe that my class trusted me so much. Some guys were more skeptical about my vote count but I dont care. All I care was I got 21/29. This is one of the most memorable moment of my life.

Hopefully I will have many more moments like these ones to cherish upon later in  my life.

Well, I guess I have got a little off time from work. Since I dont have much happening around me in my personal life as of now, I spend most of my time watching television. Since the economy started going down, around the downfall of Lehmann Brothers, I started watching the business channel on TV, the CNBC. My favorite shows are Mad Money by Jim Cramer, Fast Money with Michelle and traders, Suze Orman show with Suze. And I have started developing interest in stock market. Unfortunately I dont have much money to put into stocks, some might call this a fortunate thing so that I wont have any money to lose later, but I want to have some money invested in stocks.

Watching the people like Jim Cramer , Michelle Lee, Erin Burnett etc on CNBC makes me think why I cant be one of them? Maybe if I can get back in time when I was a student and I was given options to plan my future, I would have gone to a business school majoring in finance. But man, I missed the opportunity. However I enjoy looking into the lives of these people. I read on wikipedia about Jim Cramer. How much energy that guy has got. After working the whole day, he hosts the show Mad Money with so much zest and enthusiasm that I am really at a loss about how he manage that.

Michelle Lee, once was discussing Fast Money with her traders and some topic about India came up, I think it was the time when Indian navy did some work to bring back the american ship from the hands of pirates. And she said "Can you believe India has navy"? That was not so smart of her. But I think that she just said that to say something and she didnt mean it really.

Suze Orman, the financial advisor, is also a great name in the name of finance. So many people look up to her to decide what they should do with their money. However while watching her shows, I dont know how but I feel like she doesnt want people to get married and mess their finances. The way she tries to handle a couples problems is sometimes a little difficult to handle. Whenever there is a problem between a couple, she seems to come a little strong on the guy. I cant remember any case, where she was hard on the girl, but I think most of the people calling over there are women. Guys, I think , consider themselves literate enough to take decision on their own, so as not to bother Suzy.

When I started watching these shows, I just wanted to keep myself abreast of the current market condition. But that channel is so informative that you just cant change the channel to something else while one of these shows is on air.

The cartoons about 20 years ago used to be just for fun. And I use to like Donald Duck and Tom and Jerry (FYI: I still watch Tom & Jerry sometimes). I never liked Mickey Mouse. But nowadays, they are not only funny but informative too. A couple of years back I was visiting a family and over there, the kids were watching some cartoon channel and that show was about a guy trying to find a way to his friends' home from his own. To get to his destination, he was suppose to cross a road, pass through the bridge and then something else which I cant remember. It was kind of an exercise for the brain. They were watching it so attentively and telling me the path about how to reach the destination. I was amazed.

Nowadays, the most talked about problem in USA is the credit crunch. On an average, every American has a debt of Ten Thousand Dollars on credit cards. The reason - you guessed it right - the credit cards. Here you start getting the offers for the credit cards even when you are a teenager. And once you have the credit card, you are your own boss. You can spend wherever you want, wherever you like.  And if you dont have knowledge about how to handle the credit, it can be your gateway to disaster. In other words, you can ruin your credit and thereby your life. Because everything depends upon your credit, I guess.

Recently on 'The Suze Orman Show" on CNBC,  she interviewed one guy, who had a debt of about Nine Hundred Thousand dollars in about 65 different credit cards. Can you belive that? I couldnt, but it was live show, so no doubt about it. The way he accumulated the debt, he told Suze was, he used to max out the CC and then his parents used to transfer the balance from his CC to theirs. And this kept happening for the next ten years. To a certain extent, I feel, the parents are responsible for this fiasco too. How can they let their son spend like this and never stop him? I mean everybody loves their children but there has to be a limit.

This led me to think about why this happened and how can we stop this from happening with our future generation. Well, if you think of this credit crunch, its only this widespread in USA. You cannot be under such debt in other countries like India, because over there, the credit system is not that developed, just like Social Security. So I was thinking about this USA's credit situation along with those cartoons and then something struck my mind. Just like other informative cartoons, why cant they make informative cartoons which will educate the kids about the credit system and tell them how to stay away from the credit swamp. Since kids are very fast in learning, even an iota of information on this topic can prevent kids from getting into this problem in the future. Even in the school, they can have a COMPULSORY subject which will educate them about the basics of the credit handling.

Thats one way to eradicate the credit problem here. And I think that day is not too far, when we will have these two things implemented. Only then, will we be able to enjoy the real happiness of having the privilege of the credit or the smart credit, if I may.