I know a guy who’s wife spends $250,000 a month on herself

January 30, 2005 by

Most of my high school friends who graduated and went to college in the traditional sense are currently either unemployed, or employed and just barely making it or hating it. My other friends are in their 30’s and 40’s and still paying off student loans. I met one of my good former schoolmates and he went into engineering. I asked him why he did that, and he said that the high school counselor told him to. I asked him if it’s what he always wanted to do, he said no, he doesn’t know what he wants to do. He will be designing the bridges that we will all be driving on. He’s a good guy though. My point in saying this is that I really hate the rat race of life.

In both middle school and high school people started to really separate into groups (or clubs as I call them). You had the party girls, the dope smokers, the nerds and the loners to name a few. I wanted to be a loner but I would always end up being the leader of the nerds (and some times a loner). The party girls would sleep with as many people as possible and then boast about it during class. The dope smokers would usually be high and had a passion for video games. The nerds weren’t noble either. They would hack into the schools computer systems to look around and learn more about computers, we wouldn’t do mischief or cause harm, and we let our teachers know how to patch up these security flaws. There was this one time I was trying to impress a group of nerds so I set the libraries computers to sort of auto destruct upon boot up, but before anything bad happened I realized how stupid this was and undid everything before anything happened.

Instead, I ended up upgrading many of the schools computers in a way that completely delighted the school plus saved them tons of money. The staff was very happy with me. I enlisted my nerd friends to do a lot of good in my high school. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff anymore. I was an expert for a brief period of time and now I’m a beginner again, I don’t care to know anything about computers anymore, other than how to get my work done on them. I’m usually several software updates behind.

I’m still friends with some of the teachers and staff. Today I was talking to one of the previous staff members from high school, we were recounting some of my antics. He told me that he still talks about me to his circle of friends and colleagues – good stuff, mostly. I was in the food court of the mall today and one of the old nerd friends of mine asked if I could do some consulting for him. I hadn’t seen him since high school, but he walked up to me like we were still there. In a way I wish I was.

Any way, back to my talk about clubs – no club is perfect, but you’ll end up in one so choose wisely or you’ll have many regrets later on. One thing I’m glad of is that I never got into the cool people club. I hung out with them once or twice, but thankfully no more than that. Looking at them today, none of them have done anything with their lives.

In the year 2000 I was a member of an investment club, monthly membership was about $500. I think we had about 100 members. We would meet online at 8am, and have the chat window at the side of the screen. Some of these guys were geniuses. I witnessed a guy
make a 2,000% return in about 3 months and one guy claimed to make 12,000% in one year but we didn’t have any proof. Most people were conservative, aiming for 10% gains per month. I saw their stock trades. I saw what they were doing. I saw the buy orders and sell orders live on the exchange.

Around lunch time, trader all over take a break and you’d see the trading volume on the exchanges drop off. We use this time to relax and chat a bit, getting to know each other. I would catch up on studying mostly. One of my friends in the club said that his wife spends $250,000 USD per month on herself, every month. Month after month, year after year. Clothing, travel, fancy parties, jewelery. That’s how she lived and why he he was compelled to continue to work. Others continued to amass great fortunes because that’s what they loved to do.

On Jan 10 a squirrel tried to humiliate me, and it won. It started out with a squirrel visiting my balcony. So what did I do? I fed it a slice of bread. But it continued to show up daily and I didn’t have time to be feeding it everyday, so this one day I told it to go away, and instead it started using the bathroom on my balcony and eating my mountain bike seat. I put a slice of bread covered in hot pepper sauce hoping it would take a hint. That made it angry and it bit through my cable wire, cutting out my tv. While I saw it chewing the tv cable, I said to it “I’m going to go look up on Yahoo how to kill squirrels” and you know what it did? Yes, it then ate through the internet cable, cutting my internet access before I had a chance.

After I went to Canadian Tire and got some real squirrel repellant and I ran new wires (a big annoyance for me) for the tv and internet and cleaned up the pee and poo it left on my balcony.

Okay, so my friends asked me for like a real simple yet emotionally rewarding cool thing to do to brighten a persons day: so I shared with them a thing I’ve been doing for a long time.

I set aside $20, $100, $500 – whatever I can afford at the time and I keep a list of wonderful hard working people I know who could be blessed by it and then I hide the money plus an encouraging note where they would find it within 24 hours. I’m writing about this not to boast, I keep most of my giving private, but if you’re looking for a great idea like my friends are, this is one.

Last month I hid $500 and a card in a box of chocolate. The hardest part of this whole thing is when you go to the persons house, you need them distracted for enough time, for example when they use the bathroom. You have to move fast! I have been caught trying to hide $400 in someones shoe, $200 under a tin of baby formula. Another thing is you have to make sure it’s somewhere the person will actually check within a reasonable amount of time, make sure they just won’t throw the item away. For example with the chocolate, I put the money in an envelope under the first level of chocolates, so they would have to eat through that first level, pickup the plastic to get to the second level and see the envelope. They didn’t do this though, and to make things worse, I was at their house a few days later and they were asking me to pray because they needed $400 – and I was trying to drop hints to go eat some chocolates. Finally I had to flat out tell them to go look in the chocolate box for money, lol at first they might have thought it was a miracle and I was a prophet. Nope, I’m just a brown man trying to make it in this world.

Filed Under: Family, Friends, Life, memories, school Tagged With: , , ,

Tired

October 31, 2004 by

I was visiting with some old friends recently, people who don’t live far from me yet somehow time has gone by so fast that it has been years since we’ve seen each other. It was fun. Friends are getting older, fatter, having babies, buying houses, taking vacations. They ask me about my missions work and I ask them to set me up with nice girls. And they do! Just not the right nice girls for me. One time we were sitting in Wendy’s and they cornered me in and had me sitting beside a girl they wanted me to get to know. Lots and lots of great beautiful and smart girls, just not the right one for me. At least not yet.

Some of them are telling me that my wife-beating former associate has been talking crap about me still. Anytime he sees my circle of friends he tells them all kinds of stories. Any way we had a good laugh about it and they told me that they think he’s a complete loser, they listen to what he has to say then they laugh at him behind his back when he leaves. Actually he called me up on the phone a few weeks ago, I was surprised to hear from him. He was asking me to help him write a book on investing. I declined. I should have always been declining.

On another note, I’m kind of tired. Not like tired after a workout but tired of existence. I’d be perfectly happy if right now, right at this moment Jesus shows up and is like “it’s time to go home asif.”

So the consulting project I started late last year is complete and the last few months I started getting paid. I started by catching up with my bills which were desperately overdue and I’ve been enjoying the lower stress of having money coming in each week.

I’ve been bike riding on my own and I must say, after riding for several years with my friends, it really sucks to ride alone. I used to think that it was amazing because of the Trans Canada Trail, now I realize it was because of my cool friends. (who now live far away).

Any way, an old friend called today and asked me for a stock tip. He’s a good guy, a better man than me. I’ve been watching Apple Computers for a long time, and I’ve been watching Google since I was a teen. To a lesser extent Telus. I think all 3 of these would be good to buy and hold for 10 years or more, taking profit regularly. Apple because the CEO is a madman in a good way, Google because whoever controls search, controls the internet and Telus because…I don’t know, I think someone else gave me that tip. HAHA.

So I told my friend to do his research, set aside an amount of money he can afford to lose and then buy as much of apple as possible, buy as much of google as possible (it’s already an expensive stock unfortunately) and buy some Telus with the leftovers. Set a stop loss, say 50% (I know, big balls) and hold it for as long as you can stomach it. I also told him that I’m a nut job, and he shouldn’t just buy stocks based on what I’ve said, and that I could be wrong and that he might lose all his money if those stocks tank. That’s my standard disclaimer.

Filed Under: Friends Tagged With: ,

Whiskey business is risky business

July 27, 2004 by

My first drink was beer, I was probably 6 years old. My guardians were having one of their wild parties where the police would usually be called and there was booze everywhere, so I had some beer. I was surrounded by drinkers from day 1. There’s a photo of me having my first drink, sitting in my red kiddy underwear smiling, holding a beer bottle. In front of me is a coffee table with several empties. That photo is usually on my fridge for me to laugh at every day.

Then in grade 8 I went over to my friend Steve’s house after school and I tried a sip of whiskey. In high school once or twice some girls spiked my soda with hard liquor. That’s basically it. That’s the drinking that I’ve done up to this point in a nutshell. Hardly anything.

Today I purchased one of those mini bottles of whiskey for $4, a single shot serving. I don’t know why, I was just at the mall and saw it and thought “maybe I can use it for cooking.” Except instead of cooking with it, I drank it. I’m in my mid twenties now so I figure that’s not so bad. I honestly consider this to be my second real drink.

My cell phone bill this month was like $850.

Mason and I walked over to the east side of Malton to pickup some furniture and an area rug, to take it over to M’s, who does not live in the east end. On the way to deliver it people would stop and chat with us, there would be little detours, and a piece fell and broke when we finally we got there. The area rug was the toughest because it would sag in the middle. We were so tired we didn’t even care. We didn’t drive this stuff over, it wouldn’t fit in a car so we carried it all over. After I took pictures from her high balcony of Malton. If you get rid of the bad people in this town, it’s actually a super beautiful town. But I guess you can say that about anywhere. To add insult to injury, M’s mom didn’t want the carpet, which was the biggest and heaviest item to bring over hahahahahah.

A few years back in 1999 or 2000 M’s mom was walking down Etude Drive in broad daylight and a black young adult beat her up and robbed her, she had $5. He probably used the money to buy drugs. Well I don’t know but I doubt he used it to buy books.

I’m enjoying the rainy weather a lot. Listening to music on my cd player, which was super cool when I bought it in 1997 but starting to age.

Filed Under: Family, Friends, Fun, work Tagged With: ,

the roof is on fire

May 30, 2004 by

A good teacher is priceless. And I do believe that it takes a community to raise a child, especially these days where there aren’t many good parents left in Canada. In middle school I would visit my primary school teachers. In high school my friend Corey and I would visit our middle school teachers. In college I would visit my high school teachers. I’m still friends with some of them, and a lot of them are in the retirement stage. I fear for them though, because even though most of them are in a stage of retirement, the ones who are left might be fired for what is being called politically incorrect or intolerance. Back in my days teachers were in charge of the kids and allowed to teach and say whatever they wanted to say if it would raise up good men and women. For example our gym teacher Mr. K taught us about being responsible, my English teacher Mrs. Bell taught us to wait till we are married to have sex. Today she might be forced to hand out condoms. Today the kids are in charge and the teachers can only say what is politically correct, even if it’s wrong. And because of this I fear that many of Canada’s children will grow up to be wimps. I think the bully problem will get worst and based on what I see on the net, things are getting worst in society.

Anyway about 10 years ago Corey and I visited Mr. Morris and incredibly, not only did he still remember me but he still had an unfinished project of mine tucked away near his desk. He pulled it out from his files and asked me to finish it. I told him no lol but I was amazed that he had my unfinished homework.

He taught me several life lessons I still use to this day:

– Sometimes rules need to be broken. Middle school had a serious rule that only 1 person per class was allowed to go to the bathroom at a time. One day one of our classmates was moving away to Kingston Ontario and was crying, Mr. Morris let her go to the bathroom with a girlfriend. He said no at first, then said yes when he saw her crying.

– Get a different perspective on problems when you are stumped. He would do this thing where he would write a complicated problem on the chalk board and pretend he was solving it with us. He would pretend he didn’t know the answer, get up from his desk and go stand in a bizarre corner of the classroom. He’s say something like “I need to see this problem from a different angle.” I still do this to this day.

Now here’s one of the real reasons I really liked him: At that time in life, grade 8, I didn’t know anything about computers, I used to make fun of people who had them, “oh hi I’m Asif, I’m a genius, I have a computer, I can help you with your taxes.” is what I used to say to people who had computers. Many of my classmates had them though. Mr. Morris would ask me to fix computers and it got me out of class. I don’t know if he thought I knew about computers, because I didn’t, I rarely ever touched them at the time. It could have been some kind of lesson he was trying to teach me. But I would learn all about it because the more computers I could fix for the school, the more class time I could avoid. I ended up fixing just about every computer at that school, while getting full class credit.

He is on my list of favorite teachers. Of course today he can’t pull those kinds of stunts. Kids like me would be heavily medicated and given false disabilities. He would simply be fired for giving too much homework or for pushing kids too hard. Teachers are no longer in charge, it’s nut job parents and kids who are in charge, and if their children don’t want to do their homework, the parents just complain till the teacher gets fired. Get their children falsely diagnosed with some fake disability and over-medicated. I see parents all the time who complain that their child has ADHD, when really they are just bad parents and their child is spoiled rotten. Okay, obviously some of the kids have real disabilities, but every reasonable adult knows that most people fake it. Go ahead, ask your doctor.

The last day of Lancaster middle school was filled with action, one of the local dope smokers lit the school on fire, apparently starting with the massive stage curtains in the gym. Turns out that now many years later the school will undergo a massive renovation.

A few years later in high school when I was walking up Airport Road back to Malton, this same kid caught up with me for a chat. He lived in one of the newer, nicer houses and had a lot of toys. People told me he was basically a spoiled brat who was always on playtime. He ruined that last day of school for us, my backpack had some of my prized possessions inside at a time in life when I didn’t have very much at all. It was lost due to the fire.

Fast forward to when I was in high school, he was coming home from his probation meeting or something like that and I was coming home from job hunting. I considered pushing him off the sidewalk into traffic but during the long walk with him I thought it through. Too many witnesses first of all, but more than that, I felt sorry for him. He was a real loser. Today I hope and pray that he’s doing better.

Today I woke up, had some tea, read the bible, worshiped, spent time in prayer, then I worked to around 530pm, then did some errands. For dinner I had a salad and a cheeseburger from Mcdonalds. As a treat I have cotton candy. Now I’m typing up this journal and hopefully I’ll watch some tv tonight, go out for a prayer walk and be ready for bed around 11. Almost every day I’ve been doing a lot of biking riding all over the trans Canada trail and Malton with Mason and Eggbert. Sometimes we invite others along and it’s really fun. One time we went to Woodbine Centre after to get Chinese food and another time we went to Popeye’s at Albion Road to get biscuits. I like getting discount clothing from Albion Mall. They have track suits there for $8.

I have this box of precious memories, I call it my treasure chest. My grandma would usually throw out every good thing I had, so it was a struggle to keep certain things hidden within the furniture of my bedroom. I’ve amassed a small box with hundreds of little important trinkets that I like to look at. I’ve been keeping them in a secure location the last few years, I have them with me again. This month I’ve been looking through it, organizing it as best I can. There’s my stamp collection, stock certificate collection, old currency collection, fathers day cards to me. Photos, old video tape, there’s notes written to me by children that say “I love you Asif” or “Asif I wish you were my dad”, drawings, old letters, report cards that say “Asif can do better.” If those teachers would have spent a few nights at my house they would have given me straight A’s.

My neighbor across the hall does Tae Kwon Do. She seems to get locked out of her apartment often. On May 13 I invented a really good lemon chicken recipe. I own 2 pairs of shoes and I’m happy with that.

On May 29, Mason and I did our longest bike riding adventure so far. 7 hours in total, we rode from Malton to Harbor front in Toronto. We used the Trans Canada trail, riding through forests and so on, so it wasn’t a direct route. We didn’t ride for speed, but for enjoyment. When we got to harbor front we took a break, ate a hot dog from a street vendor, and then started the ride back. I saw chipmunks up close for the first time, and there was a shot my camera couldn’t get – we were riding through a forest, on a dirt path, something like you’d see in a movie. The sunlight pierced through the trees and it looked like beams of light shining through. We got back after dark. Talk about work out. Talk about fun.

Filed Under: children, Friends, Fun, girls, Life, memories, school, work Tagged With: , , ,

Old things can lead to new things, new things can lead to old things

January 27, 2004 by

In Guyana, I slept on a real bed with my grandmother. Her house cost her $500 USD cash back in the 50’s and is still standing strong today. Maybe some Canadian construction companies can learn a thing or two? When we moved to Canada, I slept on the floor for the first few years. I had a sponge to sleep on and it was perfectly fine. When I turned 7 years old I got my first bed. I gave that bed away a while back, and I’m now sleeping on the floor again which is very enjoyable for me.

My friends call me a minimalist. I like to give away my things and have the least amount of possessions as humanly possible. I don’t even like having multiple pens.

I’m at the gym 5 days a week even in the winter. I walked through like a foot of snow and ice cold wind to get to the gym, which has been moved to the other side of town while renovations are happening at the main location. One of the long time trainers was there and I asked her for some advise, she complimented my little muscles. Yes, I will be extending my membership!

I helped Mason with his job hunting, writing his resume and handing it out with him in many places. He got a job at Woodbine Centre, specifically he helps a woman’s lingerie / underwear department. He’s as happy as can be and all I hear from him is about how great his job is. He text messages me to tell me about how happy he is to be walking to his job (he even goes early), he texts me during breaks to tell me about his adventures, he even stays late after work. He goes on and on about the beautiful women he helps all day and night. I’ve never heard anyone speak so happily about their job. I haven’t achieved this yet. Most people haven’t. Most people aren’t super excited to go to work, most don’t stay late on purpose.

I visited him there, well, I went there to spy on him, and the dude was helping women choose lingerie with a huge smile on his face. I watched him smile for like a good 10 minutes straight. I was laughing because I thought it was hilarious, and I was at awe at how this young man had reached such a great level of happiness so fast. I’ve known him about 7 years and never seen him smile so much. Most of us will never reach that level of happiness at a job, or at anything, ever.

So the consulting project I’m working on right now will provide me with an income for 2 years. Not a big income, but enough to pay my rent, car, gas, phone, insurance, etc and several decent sized missions projects. I’m also going to try to do a big project along side this one and see if I can get a small bank to like my idea. Problem is it won’t actually pay me for like 4 more months which is making things really tight around here. Another risk is that I won’t get paid at all, this has happened several times and leads to great discouragement. Nobodies fault, that’s just the way it is. I’ve consulted for companies that have gone under part way though, and I didn’t find out till I visited the office to see the eviction notice on the door. Other times I’ll find out that the company I’m working with / for has been purchased by another company and all the previous management fired or replaced – and they have no idea who I am. And yes once in while things will work out better than expected and I’ll do better than expected and get paid more than expected.

I’m still in the beginning stages of this project which involves making a lot of phone calls, I’m on the phone almost all day doing my research, which is annoying but still better than traveling. My little suitcase is gathering dust, I like that. Maybe one day soon I can give it away to.

Most of my friends have internet access now. So we all chat online after work. It’s so different. No waiting weeks or even months for letters to arrive in the mail from my missionary friends, or phone calls at hours with static connections. They are basically in countries all over the world which makes communication difficult. Pretty much all of them have some form of internet access now. Time zones aren’t even such a bother anymore. One of my friends doing missions in the Ukraine got spat on, simply because she was there and the person didn’t like Christians. I’m currently trying to gain steam on an Orphanage in the Ukraine, at the rate I’m going this project will be done, realistically by the year 2015. I started it in 2001. It breaks my heart but it’s the best I can do. I hate that so much but it’s out of my hands. Some projects move fast, some move slow.

Filed Under: children, Family, Friends, Fun, Life, work, Workout Tagged With: , , ,

If Frodo can do it then so can we

December 30, 2003 by

Yeah I watched part 3. I got the books for Christmas as well but I can’t read the books after I watch the movie. Spoiler alert: Frodo did it. He completed his quest and lived happily ever after. Find out from God what your quest is, then spend your life on it. Heaven is your happily ever after.

The past couple of years for me has been almost non stop adventure and bizarre circumstances, one after another. 2003 was an awesome roller coaster, I spend today looking at my journals for the year. There aren’t very many because I’ve been so busy doing so much. Moving into 2004, I’m hoping for like, no adventure. Just a nice boring existence. Winter has set in nice and good and I’m enjoying it.

In Canada, there is talk about legalizing drugs. I don’t care if we do, as long as whoever does drugs doesn’t expect society to pay for their mistakes. I talked to my doctor about doing anabolic steroids just to try them out, and after getting his good advise, I tried some.
This was last year – I did a very short, 2 week cycle of testosterone precursors called androstenedione or something like that. Why did I do it? Call it youthful curiosity. I wanted to see what would happen. Maybe I just wanted a boost.

When I was a teen I setup a makeshift gym and fight club in my garage, people from the neighborhood would come to fight or lift weights. We didn’t have any good equipment, a home made squat rack, a portion of a skid for calf raises. Different sizes of plastic weights. I filled a large US Army issued carryall bag part way with sand and we used that as a punching bag, when we weren’t using each other for punching bags. People would come over asking for me and my grandmother would use her fists to do a boxing motion and would say “asif is boxing, he’s boxing”.

The dealer I bought the stuff from was the size of a bear and he said the stuff works – and boy did it. Strength and endurance went up through the roof almost right away. I think I did over 100 full pushups and 25 full pullups and went about my day like it was nothing. I can’t believe this stuff is completely legal in America. I bet that lots of young people will start to do steroids. At the 2 week point I started to feel like it would turn me into a flesh eating zombie so I threw out the rest of the supply and lost most of my gains. My doctor (who I spoke to through this whole process), laughed and laughed. He told me that when I’m much older, in my 50’s that I should ask him again, and maybe we can do it properly and in a way that actually benefits me permanently.

Which brings me to my Merry Christmas and Happy new Year message: Sometimes it’s a good idea to abandon your direction. Sometimes the plan sounds smart but will lead to stupid results. Sometimes the outcome isn’t worth the consequences. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is to stop, and walk away. To give up doesn’t mean to lose. Sometimes the biggest losers are the ones who don’t know when to give up.

Filed Under: children, Family, Friends, Fun, Life, memories, ministry, work Tagged With: , ,

Family Reunion

August 27, 2003 by

Lets start off with me venting then conclude with something good.

Have you ever tried to do something good, and have it blow up in your face? This happens to me often, and I never seem to learn, and chances are I haven’t learned this time either. I helped someone get an apartment by paying first and last, 6 months of rent, signing my name for the apartment and helping them to move in.

The moving in was fun, because something good was being done for someone with a baby. I’ve done this many times before, and I will do this many times again. The apartment was nice, it did need an initial cleaning as most do, and in a crawl space were many empty beer bottles. Eggbert, and I packed what seemed to be 500 empty beer bottles into my car. We saw some grouchy church people pass us by holding all the beer bottles, shaking their heads. Later I would learn that a rumor was started that Eggbert and I were having a fling and that we were both drunkards.

Now for those of you who have never done this you’re thinking “ah, he shouldn’t have put up the money.” No. It’s the putting up my name where I shouldn’t have. This person over the course of 6 months has turned the apartment into a pile of poo-poo, like literally. I’ll explain more after. It started with the landlord calling me at all hours complaining that the tenant was not home, and the 2 year old baby was alone, crying. I couldn’t believe this to be true so I would go over to get some answers. I would get further calls of noise and dirty smells coming from the (basement) apartment, I would go over and get some answers. This got worst and worst until I got a call that the tenant had left, and that I should come over to see the apartment.

I went over, with 4 other friends, the same that helped move her in just a few months prior. Well, what we saw is something we are still talking about, something we’ll be talking about for a long time to come. A 800sq ft apartment turned into a garbage dump. Dirty baby diapers piled up into the bathtub (HOW DID YOU SHOWER?) and garbage everywhere. I mean, everywhere. I mean really everywhere. We brought 10 large garbage bags with us, and I had to go to the store to buy 40 more. Yes 40 more garbage bags.

There were some items we thought to be in good condition; particularly clothing and baby items and so we took those over to the goodwill donation truck at the Westwood Mall. The intake manager was delighted to get so much stuff all at once. It was such a stressful night that after I took everyone to Mandarin so I could drown my sorrows in shrimp and honey garlic ribs. A few days later we would read in the paper about a Mississauga goodwill donation that had to be burned because it caused the staff to get sick. We jokingly laugh, with a touch of fear that it could have been the donation we made.

The worst part of this story? The landlord told me she trusted me when she took in this tenant, and now she doesn’t trust me. I do this thing all the time. This year so far I’ve paid for 3 peoples first and lasts, 2 turned out very well and this one blew up in my face.

And now to some good stuff as promised. My friends invited me to go to their family reunion. I jumped at the opportunity because I’ve never been to a family reunion. I’ve seen them on tv in movies, but my family doesn’t do that kind of thing. This started off with a drive out to the country. A farm, maybe 10 acres or more. When we drove up I thought “wow look at this massive property.” Turned out that was simply the front yard. The backyard was 10x bigger and had several crops growing including corn which we would later pick, roast and eat.

We arrived rather early, and just helped with the cooking and the setup. One of my favorite things to do is walk around, so I walked around. I walked up and down that country road, enjoying the absolute nothing that was out there. Back at the property people were starting to arrive, young and old. The children wanted to play so we did some Frisbee games. I sat on a tractor. I had conversations.

Now it was the conversations that made this family reunion so much fun for me. So many different generations of family, from babies, to grandparents and I think there was a great grand parent as well.

God does the same thing for us. He invites everyone into His gigantic family which consists of all kinds of people of all ages and all backgrounds. Strangers are welcomed in and treated as family. And there’s lots of food :)

We spent the time talking and talking more, taking photographs, laughing, telling jokes. Someone told me they were going to propose to someone else, and then that someone else asked me what that someone said, but I won’t tell. I will be at the wedding though :)

Filed Under: children, Family, Friends, Fun, travel Tagged With: , ,

Keeping my head above water

July 26, 2003 by

Okay so Peterborough last month was fun, so what happens when you do something fun? YOU DO IT AGAIN!

The trip started very early in the morning so we could get to Peterborough and do some major ditch digging. A friends house was being flooded constantly, and so several us would spend the better part of a day digging a ditch along one side of the property to run a proper drainage system so the water would run away from the house. The hardest part of this was hitting tree roots.

During breaks we did fun things – I played with the fattest and cutest dog in the world named Waketa, and I let Eggbert (age 13 or 14) steer my car while I push it down the street (the car was powered off and in neutral). I figured when I was her age I was already driving on the highway, she should at least get to sort of drive.

Waketa was in the back of the car and having a blast. I don’t know what kind of dog she was, a collie I think? Similar to Lassie. Except Waketa is super duper fat. She brought me a bottle of water while I was digging. Now that’s a good dog! Wouldn’t it be nice if all dogs were this great? Instead of just barking early in the morning or pooing all over the place.

After ditch digging was done, it was time to head on over to this other house for fun time. This house backed onto a lake, which as you know is one of my favorite things. We all swam and did a BBQ. The neighborhood children (2x 10 year old girls) came over to swim as well, and they both took a liking to me right away. I think it’s mostly because I’m super fun, and partially because I’m brown which is a huge novelty here. They were definitely country girls who’s lives consisted of swimming in the lake and the like. It was such a fun day and I wish I could do this kind of stuff everyday, even if I had to start it out with hard labor in the hot sun.

Actually I learned to swim today. When I was 6 years old someone held my head under water in the bathtub for a while, and my nose was already busted and bleeding badly so it sure helped me gain a fear of the water – so I haven’t taken the opportunity to learn how to swim. I mean in grade school our class would to go over to Westwood Secondary School to use their pool, but that was more of me and my friends spying on girls and getting out of class. Swimming in a lake is much different from being in a pool, the water feels endlessly deep and you feel like you’re a part of it. I can swim for like 50 feet with no problem, and it’s interesting how I just walked into the water slowly, and started swimming, as if I had been doing it my whole life.

Picture this: I was actually swimming with 2 young girls latched onto me, they were giggling and it was good exercise for me, even though I was already exhausted from ditch digging all day. Neighbors passed by on their boats waving to me, and I was invited by another neighbor to come over for a beer. The sun was starting to set, it was still nice and warm, the water was warm and I could smell bbq.

When we had to leave I simply didn’t want to, and neither did the 2 girls, who asked when I’d be coming back and wouldn’t let go of me. I wish I could do this more often, I wish this was my life!

Filed Under: children, Friends, Fun, travel Tagged With: , ,

15 kids and counting

May 26, 2003 by

When you have children in your full time care, you have to get used to:

1.) misplaced everything. Prescription glasses, keys, cellphone, batteries, everything you need will be missing. EVERYTHING. They play with everything. They see you touch something, they want to touch it. You tell them not to touch something, they want to touch it. I’m still trying to trick them into using the vacuum.

2.) everything is covered in slime. Children produce a natural disgusting slime (okay okay not really) and they cover everything in this slime. My clothes, my car, my keyboard, monitor, you name it. I go to church with spit up on my shirts and pants, boogers cover all my possessions. There are boogers on my eyeglasses right now.

3.) being tired all the time, yet having adrenaline enough to do anything you need to do.

4.) having no available cash left over because they need something (or they broke something or lost something and you have to buy a new one).

5.) privacy no longer exists. There is a child hiding under a table, in a cupboard, under a bed, in a closet. There is a teen sitting so quietly in the corner you don’t even know they are there. They hear every fart and every prayer.

6.) birthdays, Christmas, etc involves me giving out money so presents can be purchased for me.

I love it. 15 kids so far, yes fifteen. Not bad asif. Now to get a wife and start making some biological ones :)

Nadine is 6 years old, she loves to collect frogs in a jar and bring them in the house, I told her to stop doing both of those things. Did Nadine fill a jar with 100 baby frogs (she counted) and then bring them into the house and accidentally drop the jar, spilling live frogs all over the floor? Yes!

While yelling at her about this, I accidentally call her Renee, she points to a 5 year old on the sofa “Asif I’m Nadine, that’s Renee.”

I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up with an armpit filled with ketchup. What I’ve learned is, don’t try to fight it, just enjoy it while you can.

On another note, N and I was driving down Steeles Ave and we saw these 2 small children, maybe ages 5-6 trying to flag down drivers. So we stopped to see what was going on, it was actually a young father and his 2 children, the father had walked away for a second. They had come here for camping in the Etobicoke area (near that campground around Wild Water Kingdom) and had somehow ended up far away while running errands. They reminded me of those “end of the world survivor” type families. I know a few. Anyway, we drove them back to the campground since we were actually headed that way. Made sure everything was okay and then left.

Filed Under: children, Friends, ministry Tagged With: ,

More than 100 children and 20 call me dad

April 26, 2003 by

Okay, so here’s a fun twist to my life. My friends approached me asking if I wanted to go garbage picking, and I laughed and laughed. They were serious though, so I went with them to see what was going on, you know if I should check them into the local loony bin or what.

We drove to Oakville, this super gorgeous city with beautiful women jogging on the sidewalk (in Malton, you don’t see this, you usually see people running for their life). Anyway in Oakville, once a year they do this cool thing where people can put their used items on the curb, for other people to come and take. Not garbage, but actually useful items like furniture, electronics and nic nacs. The reason this is great for us is that we know people who need things for their home, and we can’t afford to pay for all of that stuff out of our own pockets but we can spend time looking through items on hundreds of curbs and pick out the items.

We found some great treasures including working computers, tvs, and of course furniture.

We found a beautiful solid wood office desk, that was way too heavy but so nice we didn’t want to leave it. We knew who we would be giving it to and were excited to get it there. Nathan and I had to take this thing in the elevator up 3 floors and then down a long hallway, and then up a narrow flight of stairs and we were wondering how we would do that last part, this desk might have been several hundred pounds with no real place to hold it while taking it up the stairs. When we got to the location a young black teen was standing around outside in the dark and to my amazement asked if we needed help.

This surprised me, at first I figured he was one of my former kids who was now a teen but I couldn’t recognize him at all. I didn’t want to say anything though because if he was one of my kids and I couldn’t remember, then he would be hurt and I would feel terrible. It’s fair to say that I’ve worked closely with over 100 children and teens at this point, and I can’t remember them all. Sometimes I’ll be walking in the mall and they’ll walk up and hug me, most are way taller than me now. Even some of the girls. There’s a young man who comes over for dinner 2-3 nights a week, he’s a tall, muscular super dark skinned black youth. He doesn’t knock, he just finds his way in somehow. I’ll be watching tv, and turn around and there he is. I know he’s from one of the churches, and he’s a good kid. Always listens to me, never causes me any problems.

It took a long time for the 3 of us to get that desk up the stairs, it was really brutal. I was so impressed with this young man that I offered to buy him a whole pizza, and he wasn’t even surprised at all, as if he hung out with me before. We drove him over to 241 and got him a media pizza and some soda, then drove him home. I still have no idea if he’s one of my kids I worked with in the past but anyway, God bless him for being such a help.

Now in Guyana, and other parts of the world, this is how we got most of our possessions: picking through the dump. I remember my first tricycle, right out of the dumpster, and my uncle made 2 solid wooden rear wheels for it that weren’t held on by bolts, so they would wobble as I rode, I loved that bike so much and you know what, it’s still being used today. I have a photo of me riding it in my underwear and it’s one of my favorite memories.

Filed Under: children, Friends, ministry, Workout Tagged With: , , ,

I lied to peel children aid and so did everyone else

March 26, 2003 by

There’s a bad man we all know and put up with, and he beats his wife and children. Everyone knows it. They don’t know it because someone told them, they know it because they aren’t morons. His wife used to show up with black eyes and bruises, saying she ran into a door (do all women use this excuse?) and his children would sometimes let it slip that their dad beats them. To be clear, this was all in 2001, during very difficult times when much was going on all at once.

Back in 2001 before I moved to Ottawa I was asked in haste, after a long day of work to give a reference for this person, to save his life really, more so begged to give him a good reference. He promised he was a changed man, so I gave a quick “he’s not so bad, this whole thing has been blown out of proportion” type reference. This saved his sorry ass, and later I would find out that he was 10x worst than I thought.

Growing up, I myself fell through the cracks as did many of my friends. Daily punches, cuts on bruises all over. Bloody noses, bumps on my head were normal. Peel police would get to know me by name, and I would get to know some of them by name, since they were at my house so often.

Good teachers would often ask about cuts and bruises and I would make up excuses, and my friends who were in the same situation would trade war stories.

Girls always had it 100 times worst though, and their war stories were the worst. Being abused by their moms boyfriends while being videotaped or prostituted out by their crack head moms to strangers. It made me and my guy friends think that things weren’t really so bad for us after all. We got used to seeing social services and hearing and saying lies upon lies. You’d visit a friends house and social services would show up, or you’d visit my house and the police would show up. I wouldn’t even invite someone to my house until I knew what their home life was. If they had a good home life, they wouldn’t be invited to mine because they wouldn’t understand. Same with them, I couldn’t be invited to some peoples house until they knew what mine was like.

White people, black people, brown people, everyone had it rough in one way or another. In grade 7 I kept a photo of a picture perfect home in my pocket, looking at it to make me happy. One time in grade 7 I was planning on teaching this one bully a lesson as I was known to do, and my super duper awesome teacher Mrs. Prates told us all that we should be nice to him, a young thug, because his dad beats him, and we hazed her because we were all being beaten but he was the only wimp that let the teachers know. Mrs. Prates is one of my favorite teachers to this day, but this was all way over her head.

When I was 7 I slept with a heavy metal flashlight, by the time I was 11 I slept with a trusty switchblade. By the time I was 13 I had several weapons. One time my boss at Pickwicks Potatoes drove me home from Dr. Fleas Flea Market and there were 4 police cruisers at my house. It shocked the crap out of him, a middle aged Jew, but me, a 13 year old Muslim had a list of about 75 great excuses as to why they were there and I said my lie with a smile and went back to work the next weekend as if nothing happened. It was the only way to survive at the time.

About 2 years later I stopped smiling. My list of great excuses began to anger me, I was getting older and growing, but things were very much the same at home. One very early morning I woke up hearing the angry screamings of my mom and her boyfriend, and I figured I would save the police another trip to our house by taking care of the situation myself. I grabbed my trusty Louisville slugger, and kicked down her door swinging the bat at both of them, and I clearly threatened to kill them both. My exact words were something along the lines of “I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to kill you, if you don’t stop this crap and grow the f up.” Now for those of you who know me, you know I don’t use that kind of language under normal circumstance. There’s just something about family that brings out the crazy in everyone.

There’s a sort of freedom you gain when you threaten to kill someone and really mean it. And I’m not joking, I would have actually killed them both that warm summer morning, and lived happily ever after knowing I made the world a better place. To be fair, I now know that her life was much harder than mine.

Fast forward to today, we’ve all given our life to Jesus, my moms home is the place ALL my friends like to hang out. There’s peace, joy, food, laughter, fun stories (ask her about the time I ate my own poo) and just general goodwill. Shes known as the super cool mom and I’m known as the lucky son. She takes in everyone, all the teens in town and there’s always fun stories and joy to be had. Just a few nights ago she called me asking if I can help her out, she took out several teen girls and boys bowling or something like that, and there was some project they wanted to do that would really help them out but cost too much. The teens were super excited and I was really happy to be a part of it all. Only Jesus can spark these kinds of changes.

I heard in the news that churches are in decline in Canada because people no longer believe in God. This is a lie. This is a complete lie made up by liberal media and the liberal government. Churches are in decline in Canada because people do believe in God, and they are scared out of their mind that if they or their children go to church, people will find out what’s going on in their homes. An atheists worst nightmare is when they will one day face the God they’ve been pretending to not believe in. But we’re all going to have to face Him one day.

Filed Under: children, Friends, girls, memories, ministry, school Tagged With: , , ,

Cocaine and cocaine related problems

February 26, 2003 by

If you live in Malton, you will at some point be exposed to drugs. Probably weed by grade 6, and harder drugs by high school. Girls will get introduced to drugs earlier, because boys use drugs to get sex from girls in high school. Girls do drugs to impress boys, it’s a vicious cycle, plus add in the fact that there aren’t as many fathers and mothers as their should be and everything is crazy in this country. I mean we live in a great country but we are allowed to kill innocent babies but we aren’t allowed to kill baby rapists? Is there any wonder so many people do drugs?

Anyway, when I was around age 14 my friend Steve and I walked up and down Airport road, applying at every single place for a job. We were well dressed and walked for hours, pretty much an entire day down one side of the road and up another side. Airport Road becomes Dixon Road after a while, we walked further than that!

We applied at offices, gyms, even Hooters. We applied to several Mcdonalds. Steve used to make home made popsicles and sell them in his townhouse complex and I had my small businesses running as well, plus an idea for a game called goodmitten, it would be a better version of badmitton. We just really needed steady employment because of our life responsibilities.

It was rather obvious that nobody was going to hire us because we were young, and although I had a small business at the time it wasn’t bringing in enough money to support my needs and family.

Steve then got an offer to deal acid / LSD on Goreway Drive near Brandongate and he asked if I wanted in. We talked about it for about an hour. The money was a big draw, you could make several hundred everyday just in a small area, the territory would be protected for us so we wouldn’t fear gang wars. We decided to sleep on it, and the next day concluded that neither of us would do it, we would just try to be successful in business and try even harder to get jobs. We must have applied at almost every Mcdonalds in Mississauga and Brampton, possibly some in Etobicoke as well.

What kind of drug dealer would I be? I’d give away the drugs for free, and to those who couldn’t pay. And if I made a profit it would go into missions work. LOL. I’d be the kindest, gentlest drug dealer in Canada – and probably the quickest to die and the most made fun of.

You see drug deals take place here, especially at the schools. People aren’t generally shy about it, and a lot of people are armed. Systems are in place to prevent getting caught. If you want to buy a small amount of drugs, you go to a local high school, you can get any drug in a high school. I’m surprised there aren’t more video cameras and police officers in high school.

I’ve actually witnessed a massive multi million $ drug bust but I can’t talk about it here, plus the details are fuzzy anyway.

Anyway fast forward to today, Nathan and I were in my old Neon, the car was in park, but on, and a drunk man in a van, who was driving too fast anyway, hit the backside of my car going in the opposite direction. He got out of his van, stinking of booze and started yelling at us that us youngsters do too much “crack cocaine”. I assured him that I have never had involvement with the stuff and felt good of my clear conscience.

Filed Under: children, Friends, memories, work Tagged With: , , ,

You wouldn’t believe me anyway

December 31, 2002 by

Due to a computer failure, I’ve lost over 50 good journal entries. To complicate the situation, the website that I used to post my entries on has gone bankrupt and shut down. These entries told of my many, many great adventures like being stabbed at, almost blown up by a fire bomb, plus fun things like camping and visiting Lake Huron and eating dinner by a campfire. I also lost a lot of photos that I took with a digital camera. :( which means a lot of these things will become distant memories later on.

The internet is really growing, and technology is advancing a lot but I kind of miss some of the good old ways which were more secure.

I’m ending 2002 the right way, with prayer and fasting. And boy do I need the fasting! If not that, then bigger pants. Ha-ha, okay seriously, I watched Lord of the Rings part 2, gave away a ton of cool Christmas presents again, had 7 children under my care, petted a bunny rabbit, fed a candy cane to a bunny rabbit, went golfing, failed at building a go cart, failed at adding a motor to my mountain bike, and so much more.

2002 has been a good year, full of wonderful family and friends time, trips to New York and great lakes. Swimming and laughing and eating, what more can a person ask for? Oh – and there’s a redhead at church that my friends and I are all trying to talk to, I talked to her last week while my friends distracted her family for me, things are in motion!

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, ministry, Poetry, travel Tagged With: , , , ,

Ottawa visits

May 11, 2002 by

You should read my Adventures in Ottawa posts before this one. So 6 of my friends and I crammed into a mini van and took an impromptu day trip to -Ottawa. We visited cool places like Carlingwood Mall, some of my super cool Ottawa friends and of course took the Parliament Tour. I got a jumbo garlic pretzel with salt, as is my custom and then we headed back home. Fun day, and I don’t do these kinds of things often enough. There was no Ottawa magic for me on this trip, my wounds are still healing from last year, especially the fact that I had little to no real food for a few months towards the end. One month I ate mostly potatoes which I prepared every which way, and the next month bread and margarine which I purchased with my pennies. And finally hot peppers which my friends are still talking about, which I’m sure they’ll be talking about for many years to come, and rightfully so. What an adventure.

I chat with my Ottawa friends via the web almost everyday, and now I get to chat with most of my missionary friends online to. It’s so cool to not have to wait several weeks for letters in the mail. And we attach photos online to. Also I’m concerned that some of my letters have gotten lost in the mail, and some countries don’t even have reliable mail service, but internet is starting to become reliably available even in the harshest 3rd world countries, at least in major cities. One of my missions friends writes her letters to me on paper, then sends them with a team leader to the city, where the team leader types it up in an email and sends it to me. When she / they get back to Toronto though, that’s the best!

Filed Under: children, Friends Tagged With: , ,

New bike smell

April 26, 2002 by

Ah that new bike smell, I went to Canadian Tire and got a new mountain bike. Cheapest one I could find, because with my luck it will fall apart right when I’m trying to impress a girl.

A group of friends and I have been riding our bikes along the Trans Canada Trail which is this super amazing trail that goes across Canada. There’s a website for it also. We meet a lot of people and take photos and bring our cameras and snacks to feed wild animals. We’ve fed deer and bunny rabbits and saw a fox.

The ritual is as follows: work hard during the day, eat dinner, clean up after the kids, tune up our bikes, wave goodbye to the kids, and then leave for a 20km+ bike ride. Along the creek at night time do you know that tens of thousands of animals come out to play? Including baby snakes. It’s almost frightening because hundreds of them try to cross the sidewalk while we are riding and we don’t want to smash any of them, but there are so many!

When we get back closer to home we get snacks like a medium pizza for $5 or ice cream from Licks or Mcdonalds. We got invited to play baseball with some strangers we met and so this is a really cool thing to do plus it’s helping me get into shape and relieve some stress.

What I learned from the movies this month: always check your car before you get in, there could be a monster hiding in the back!

I like spring time because of all the rain. The downside to this all the mud that gets tracked into the house.

Filed Under: children, Friends, travel Tagged With: , , ,

Beer store blues

March 28, 2002 by

My neighbor was having a garage sale and I purchased his bike for $30, it’s a 50’s styled bike being held by rust. I’ve been putting a lot of miles on it. While riding my bike home from the westwood mall around closing time, I rode past the beer store on the way home and my bike simply fell apart. I mean it literally just fell apart completely. The seat, the wheels, the handlebars. Everything, almost every part of it simply failed. I did an almost 360 flip on the pavement, leaving me dizzy on the ground.

Now, did the beautiful wonderful people trying to get into the Beer Store parking lot run to my rescue? Or did they honk their horns at me while yelling out nasty curses at me like “get out of the way you dirty (insert racist word here)!” Well you take a wild guess. To be fair to them, the store was about to close and I guess I would also be upset with someone blocking up traffic.

Anyway I walked the rest of the way home with my cuts and bruises and the only salvageable parts of the bike – the seat and the handlebar. When I got home I was welcomed with laughter upon laughter (about my appearance upon arrival) and it was nice because I laughed to. Think of yourself coming home holding only your steering wheel and seat belt but no car in site.

Any way I’ll go get another bike at Canadian Tire as soon as possible. It won’t be super duper soon, after all I have kids to feed! Seriously though just about 4 months ago I wasn’t doing terribly well financially but now I’m doing okay. I’m doing well in fact. I’ve been investing in some new businesses that I’m interested in, including a nifty camera and accessory shop, and a grocery delivery service. Of course I’m still consulting, which is how I bring in a major portion of my income. Everything’s really changing with the internet. I have high speed now instead of dialup, and I think most people will have high speed soon. It’s expensive but probably worth it. I chat and meet with people and watch tutorials on anything I’m interested in. I still go to the library very often but with the internet you can get bits of information quickly.

Now I have had a negative experience though – I posted an important piece of my work online FOR SALE and sold several hundred copies. 1 person however, from Russia I think purchased a copy and made a few modifications to his liking and is now reselling my work on his own without my permission. To shame me even further, I suspect he’s making more money selling my materials than I did, lol. I’m such a loser. There’s no way for me to stop this and this is going to be a big problem with the internet.

Also it seems like everyone is downloading music and even movies, and I don’t like that, especially after what happened to me.

Filed Under: Friends Tagged With: , ,

Broken wieners

February 27, 2002 by

When I was 15 I worked a construction job that was way outside of my skill set. I was a skinny weakling barely able to lift the tools we used on the job site. But I gave it my all and did a great job, however I was eventually fired for messing up an important project. If you ever go over to 255 Queen Street East in Brampton, you’ll see a building with various stores (as of the time of this writing). I used a machine called a Flaky Jake to pull up the old floors, I mixed the flooring solution for the new cement floors, and I helped to pour and level the new floors. On the outside, I held up the exterior wall material while another person attached it. At the factory in Etobicoke I built hundreds of the high quality wall materials. And I built (by hand) the crown molding that sits atop the exterior walls. Actually that’s why I got fired, I forgot to add sand into the mixture for the molding, and when the guy went to attach it, it crumbled. This happened on a Friday night and we all had to stay late and do it all over. It was for the best, I couldn’t pull my weight at this job consistently enough and this held everyone else back.

As far as I can remember this was about 12 hours per day, Monday through Friday and I was earning around $9 an hour which was a fortune to me at the time.

Any way during lunch at this job I would sit on the steps outside with my small cooler, eating my boiled eggs, peanut butter sandwiches, etc, and there was a hot dog vendor who worked nearby, who would talk to me when there was no lineup. Once in a while if I had enough money I would buy a hotdog but that was rare, because by this time in life most or all of my money would go into family expenses. He (the vendor) told me I should marry as soon as possible, because – as he said it, wieners don’t work forever, and if you wait till your old to get married then your wiener might not work by that time and you won’t have a happy marriage. He made it very clear to me that my own wiener will one day not work. He made this point every time I saw him. I’m not kidding! Now at the time I couldn’t imagine this ever happening since I was a teen and suffered the opposite problem.

Fast forward to today in 2002, close to Valentine Day I woke in a cold sweat thinking about this very early in the morning, and figured I need to get married soon just in case my wiener really does stop working one day. My friend Nathan and I listed the different girls at church I could marry and finally decided on one. It wasn’t easy because initially we had some differing opinions. I ordered the nicest bouquet of flowers I could afford and sent them off to her to break the ice. She teaches a children Sunday school class and we are both heavily involved in the lives of children and missions work so it should be a good match. And now to play the waiting game :)

And in other news, I’m watching a movie on video tape or dvd almost every day after work, this is a nice new thing for me, as usually I work until it’s time to sleep. What with all the children I don’t have a choice but to rest. Hopefully I can get some time to watch one of my favorites soon: Planet of the Apes.

Filed Under: children, Friends, girls, memories Tagged With: , , ,

New year new beard

January 27, 2002 by

So I started off the new year in the best way I couldn’t possibly think of, I got a couple of trusted friends, filled several very large bags with presents, including a microwave, lots of brand new clothing, electronics, etc and took them to people door to door on Christmas morning who will enjoy them. It honestly made me super happy to give so much away, especially seeing so many happy, surprised faces on Christmas. What did I keep for myself? I kept one thing – a pet fish! It took a few trips and several helpers to give everything away. For new years eve I went to sleep early. I believe in starting the year off right and I definitely pulled it off this time around.

I’m helping to care for several children, something that I’m very well used to because of 8 years of babysitting and over 3 years of Sunday school and being a kids pastor. I know how to change diapers, calm crying babies, tend to minor cuts and bruises, settle kids disputes and have super fun plus get the kids to sleep on time (almost). So this is nothing new to me, but it is super cool. The hardest part is crying babies at 2am, but I’m a bit of a night owl anyway. . I thanked one of the parents for trusting me with his children, he responded that he trusts me with his life and theirs. I don’t take that lightly.

Also because of this I haven’t had time to get a haircut or shave in a couple weeks, causing me to look like a bum. Add that to the way I dress (like a bum) and I really do look like a bum. On top of all this, I’m constantly covered in baby spit-up and sticky food and messes caused by children. I like it. It forces me to slow down and keep my priorities in order.

This is going to be a good year.

Filed Under: children, Friends Tagged With: , ,

Ottawa Adventures 5

December 19, 2001 by

When I was 14 some of my friends kept journals. I thought it was a good idea so I started one myself and hid it under clothes in my dresser. One day I found out that my mom had read it, and in anger I ripped it up into pieces and threw it out. This is something I now regret. When you’re young, you want to be old. And when you’re old, you want to be young.

The first time I came to Ottawa I was around 12 or 13 years old. I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and we did a weekend field trip, staying at (according to my memory) the Connaught Barracks in Ottawa. Saving up the money to get there was damn near impossible for me because I also had to contribute money towards family expenses. This was angering to me because all my companions seemed to have the opposite problem: “what should I buy with all my extra money” syndrome. Extra money I thought? What is that?

I remember preparing for the trip by cutting my hair very short, thinking that I was being radical and later learning that most of my squad shaved theirs completely. My squadron took the bus from Brampton Friday afternoon and the drive to Ottawa was fun. I pretty much sat beside that same guy Forrest Gump sat beside on the bus, and I’m quite sure he was thinking that he was sitting beside Forrest Gump. (I don’t think the movie was out yet)

Let me explain something to all the parents reading this – parents send their male children to Cadets because they want to prevent them from getting into trouble. Parents send their female children into the Cadets because the girls are ALREADY into trouble. So you think this will be a place where your children will stay out of mischief, but actually it’s a place where a bunch of mischievous people can all join together. I don’t know what trouble my mom thought I was getting into. I wake up, go to school, come home, help with endless chores, then work to earn money for the family. Do homework (reluctantly) and then sleep. Summertime involved full time work, usually lying about my age to get jobs because I was too young. No drugs, no booze, no wild parties. I think one time in anger I told her that if anything she should have been the one to join cadets.

Anyway when we arrived at Ottawa and checked into a real army barrack it was the coolest thing for me. We had real Canadian Army soldiers training, with REAL guns and it was just super awesome. I ate meals with real soldiers and got poked (by accident) in the back with the business end of an assault rifle in the breakfast line. If you had a wayward child – THIS was the way to get them back on track right away. My uncle in North Carolina is in the US Army and so I’ve had the opportunity to use all kinds of awesome military equipment and I’ve visited the Fort Bragg base several times.

In the morning a lot of the cadets were being yelled at and having their rooms torn apart because they didn’t keep their rooms proper. The beds weren’t made the way they should have been, shoes weren’t shined properly. Not me though. My room was in tip top shape. My family has a policy, that if my bedroom isn’t in 100% perfect order, every single thing except the bed, desk and empty dresser gets thrown away or given away before I come home from school. This has happened to me several times and I’ve learned to keep things in good shape for the most part.

During one of the meals at the barracks we had a contest to see who can eat the most hot peppers, little did I know one day my diet would consist of them for a solid month. On Saturday we visited a war museum, and on Sunday we were asked to volunteer in a church, which I declined because I didn’t believe in Jesus at the time and felt weird about it. Little did I know that one day I would give my life to Jesus and do many thousands of hours in various churches.

Little did I know that parents would send me their boys and girls, mostly teens and I would take away their drugs and guns and ask them to give their life to Jesus and ask them to volunteer in church while they reluctantly decline.

On the ride back home from Ottawa (I’m still talking 1992-3 or 4 here) I was happy to be going back home, but at the same time thinking “one day I wouldn’t mind living in Ottawa for a while.” When my squadron arrived back in Brampton all of the parents were waiting there to pickup their kids. Except mine. This would be a recurring area of tension for me. It would be about 6 hours before my ride would show up. Yes, 6 hours. My superior, Sergeant X (I can’t remember his name, but I know he was a Sergeant who sleeps only 4 hours per night and has a loud voice) was not happy that my ride took long. Once again, and for the millionth time I was taking blame for something I had no control over. To make matters much worse, a massive house fire broke out down the street and Sergeant X couldn’t help as much as he wanted because he was obligated to look after me since he was the only adult left and I was a minor.

It was an embarrassing situation and I never went to air cadets again, and it would be a very long time before I would rely on anyone for a ride again. Even at age 13, I rather walk several hours than wait for a ride.

Fast forward. I guess I can scratch living in Ottawa off my list today. One fun thing about living in Ottawa now (2001) is meeting and greeting a new era of Air and Army Cadets from all over and sharing fun adventures.

I’ve had many beautiful adventures here in Ottawa these past 5+ months. The winter snow is brutal, I have no car, no money, and despite how sweet it’s been here, it’s been bitter to. It’s time to go back to Toronto. In a way, I feel defeated because I didn’t achieve everything I wanted to achieve, but I did achieve a lot nonetheless. My friends do NOT want me to leave but what can I do? I’ve run out of money and I don’t have a choice and I have friends waiting for me to come back home.

I’ll still visit Ottawa, especially for short weekend vacations and chances are, knowing me, I’ll end up owning real estate here one day to.

On September 11, when terrorists attacked America, I went outside of my apartment and walked down Carling Avenue and a white city worker stuck up his middle finger at me. I rode my bike pretty much around the entire city of Ottawa. I forged new friendships here that I suspect will last a long time. I learned a lot. This was a real learning experience for me. I’m certain that I’ll think about what I’ve learned here for a very long time. Hopefully for the rest of my life.

Filed Under: Friends, memories, travel

I can do 300 to

July 11, 2001 by

Too much stress all at once. U have no clue what I mean. Hum. I was on my phone with my mom and she was telling me how the bank was closed. I said “yeah they arent open on Saturday” She said “Asif, its monday!” Yesterday I went to her house and she is fasting for like 21 days. Well, we were talking and I asked “what day is it, Thursday?” She said “can I beat you?” Oops. Today I forgot it was Wednesday. I walked over to Wendy’s to get some food. When I was in the line I got a huge hug. Melina. She asked if she can visit me so I told her next week. She is a very tall 9 year old, however shes wearing those shoes with the huge platforms to make her much taller than me. Her mom asked if she can visit me at my new place wherever it may be, and I said sure. Melina was about to cry when I told her that I may be moving away far to Ottawa. She asked why I cant just move close to where I am now, with a childlike, hopeful look on her adorable face.

Shes such a good kid. God bless me.

I’ve been using the internet for over a year now and I really enjoy it. I talk to missionaries all over the world even in remote areas. Before we would have to do snail mails or wait for them to get back.

I was thinking about the Old Testament warriors. One would be considered great if he could fight off 300 other warrior men. One by one. One after the other. Thats pretty freakin good! Is that maybe why God let them have more than one wife? After all, when I finished off 300 enemies, will one wife be enough for me when I go home? Don’t tell anyone I said all this.

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, girls

Ferris

June 30, 2001 by

I’m so much cooler than that Ferris Beuler. Just kidding. Except I havent had a real ‘day off in a long time. At least not one I could enjoy without thinking about my millions of responsibilities. Not yet. Yesterday I thought up of an idea.

My friends and family are complaining they have little access to me lately so I setup my webcam to broadcast live video (whenever its on). Well set it up, took a nap, woke up ordered a pizza, and with the pizza man there was a family waiting to see me. A mom, dad, 3 young daughters. So we were all sitting in my living room chatting and and the kids were having fun. Nearly 200 visitors were watching us on the webcam! Wow, webcams are going to be causing some real trouble in the future, I can understand how this can go totally wrong. But it has benefits to because imagine if I want to do a video chat with someone instead of driving all the way to go see them. THIS WILL BE AMAZING FOR WORK.

Filed Under: children, Friends

Lydia’s Lunch

June 28, 2001 by

Lydia’s lunch:
– cauliflower garden soup
– apple juice
– crackers
– lemon cranberry muffin

Why did she eat such a great lunch? Because I asked her to :) Otherwise she would have had some yucky sugar thing.

Filed Under: Friends Tagged With: , ,

Black and White

June 16, 2001 by

“Dragon Whips his Tail”

His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth… – Holy Bible, Revelation 12:4

Woke up. Lounged around. Found out that the wedding was at 1 instead of 2. I did a mad rush to shower and get to church on time. The ceremony was great. It was so nice to see my best friends S and R get married. After a very sweet and long courtship. They are just 2 lovebirds and it was nice seeing them take vows. Its so cool to see my Christian friends court. Because everything is so pure and sweet and without DRAMA. I remember the many times S said she ‘slept over’ at R’s and I’d say “WHAT??”. And she’d explain how she slept downstairs and R slept upstairs and PARENTS supervised.

After the ceremony I met a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. I go my pics taken with the
bride and groom, my mom and sis. And a bunch of other people. My personal highlight of the day? I even got a kiss from a female friend I haven’t seen in a while, on the cheek of course, thanks L. What is it about a kiss from a beautiful girl, makes your whole day better :)

I took a taxi downtown Toronto. Anyway I go there right when the bus was about to leave at 9pm.
Halfway through the trip to Ottawa we stopped so people could get food and use restrooms.
I went into the restroom (the bus had a bathroom as well but I wouldn’t dare use it) and the stalls were filled, and so I figured I’d use a urinal for the second time in my life (other than when I was a kid
and used the kiddy urinals). The urinals were spaced to closely together, like 16 inches
apart, and this trucker guy to my right was looking over at me excessively. And he was not looking at my face!

Afterward I got a tuna sandwich and twix and fruit punch for the rest of the ride and arrived around 130am. Got up at 7am. It’s nice to wake up with gentle sunlight splashing on my face. Its harshness weekend by the drapes. I ordered breakfast for $25 and it was very very disappointing :( I did try some ‘yogurt’ though, something I haven’t really honestly done.

Showered, and left for church. Pastor G preached about really knowing God. He talked about evaluating yourself and then coming to God in sincerity to repent and follow Him. About how some people know God, but get stuck in a rut and then begin to wonder, especially if Satan gets into their lives. Some ‘evaluate’ their current relationship with God and go back, while others dig deeper and deeper into troubles. He is using the book of 1 Corinthians and says he has one more sermon left
in that book. He preached that sermon because he was ordaining 2 deacons that day and there were some unsaved people in the service. Good stuff pastor! Kinda funny cause its the same kind of sermons we get at any other church. Except our pastors do not do much chronological teachings, it could be one topic this week and another next week, from one end of the bible to another.

After service so many people came up to talk to me, and to make things even more awesome, this was my first time in this church, and everyone was white and I was the only brown person, which I personally love. The people I sat beside when I arrived moved right away when I sat beside them. No big deal, another family invited me to a BBQ. This is what I love about church. You walk in. You’re family. Okay okay there are rotten churches to, but you know what I mean.

Another couple was moving to Nova Scotia for good and it was their last week there. Sorry to see u go!
They were serving lunch downstairs but I had to leave, I had other things on my schedule.

Hopped on the #85 back to the Hotel. I decided to do something I rarely do – to stop and smell the roses. So I got to the hotel, but then decided to walk around Ottawa, enjoying the downtown, Rideau Canal and all the great sights. And I figured my manly direction skills would get me there. Instead I ended up going west back towards the church instead of east to the canal, and felt so silly after I asked for directions. I was walking which made it worst.

So I saw beautiful Parliment, Rideau canal, which is s dirty, I mean there is lots of green stuff growing in it. I was thinking it would be like fresh spring water. Whilst walking down Rideau lots of those white flower things were blowing all in my eyes and annoying me. I had my camera to snap pics and I ended up at a park. Ok walking down the park holding a camera, during a hot day. well there were a lot of people bathing in the sun. Girls wearing skimpy bathing suits, some wearing thongs for some reason. I learned that there were 2 large colleges nearby, and then I clearly understood. I was wearing my long pants, t-shirt and favorite shirt which happens to be a very furry sweater type shirt.

So anyway I felt awkward there with my camera, cause I was the only one not nude. Well, I decided to just get out of that park, cause I was just pretty much walking through anyway. On my way out, some girl strips down to some sort of invisible thong type bikini, and my right hand unconsciously slapped me in the face so hard that it stung. I just turned around another way and laughed and laughed cause I couldn’t believe my own hand would slap me.

I stopped at a bench to let my aching feet rest, I had been praying and walking for 5hrs straight.

Walked back to the hotel, got my bag, went to the via rail station, ate some burger king, got on the train.
Train pulled in the Toronto station at like 10:30 pm. Took the subway to the bus station, got there at 11pm.

Ran up to get the 11:03 bus home, missed it. I didn’t actually miss it, the bus didn’t stop
at its usual place but stopped at a new place across the parking lot because of construction or something. Doh! There was another girl waiting there named Angela. She was a young single mom. (I never met her before). We had to wait for the midnight bus so we started chatting. She told me about her weekend and I told her about my weekend. It started raining so I insisted that she take my favorite shirt and wear it till we get in the bus (I found out we live a few streets down from each other in Malton).

Anyway I had crouched down on the ground next to her and her son, age 11 comes and says “hey mom ask him for his phone number, hes the nicest guy, not like the others.

I’m not really good at exchanging / asking for phone numbers. Back in grade 3 I liked this girl named Kaitlin, and I hid in the corner of my school while my friend Ronald asked her for her number for me :) I got her number but now I’m used to having my friends hook me up. I still remember that number to this day.

Anyway the boy really wanted to be friends. He was sticking around me and asking me questions and stuff while we waited. I even left for 5 minutes to make a phone call and he came looking for me in the station.

But anyway I got on the bus, enjoyed the drive home with my new friends, walked home, went to bed.
I’ll remember this trip for the rest of my life.

I was riding my bike yesterday and a little girl with very nice crimply strawberry blonde hair
jumps out from behind a short bush I tree type thing and says ‘BANG.’ And I stop (I wasn’t going very fast) and she says ‘what are u doing here’. And I said ‘I’m riding my bike is that ok?”
She said ‘yup’ and continues to play.

I purchased a bunch of good plants because all of mine have died because of lack of sunlight (Although I have a gorgeous one on my desk which has flourished) I purchased them and left them in the car, the next day the sun was out and it got very hot in the car, because when I went outside the plant was dry and withered, almost cooked. I wont be coming to Ottawa this weekend, I have so much work to do here. But I thought of something, wouldn’t it be interesting to live there for a while?

Contemplate: to view or consider with continued attention: meditate on

– Asif Zamir

Filed Under: children, fasting, Friends, girls, memories, travel Tagged With: , , ,

Mrs. Latezel

June 14, 2001 by

Had a 12:15 apointment. A friendly lunch, something I rarely do. When I left the house I decided to pickup a soft pinkish colored tulip, because I heard she liked those. I got onto the HWY only to find that there was a lot of trafic, more than I expected, but I got there maybe 2-4 minutes late. Finally, after over a year online, I meed a good friend. Yes, a friend, this isn’t a romantic thing, for all my friends and family who are reading this! How cool either way! I picked her up from her internship and we went to Williams which is a coffee house and restauarant. I explained to her I dont like eating in public, particularly in formal settings. (I usually sit on the floor in my living room so I can watch tv while I eat.) It was a really good time, and then we both had to get back to work.

I didnt do groceries so I drove over to Tim Hortons to get a snack (i’ve been doing this too often lately). The same nice dopesmoking girl is there and I ask:
“do u have any sanwiches” – no
“do u have any soups” – no
“what do u have?” – a couple donuts and a couple muffins
“Okay I’ll have a fruit punch and a boston cream donut”

Ok so I drove through and the girl told me that I shouldnt worry cause shes just as hungry as me. And she told me about how they are now paying the bakers by the hour so they take their time to bake, and it means they run low on stuff to sell. I told her “I would make my own sandwich if I wasnt so lazy” She says “yeah yeah you should have gone grocery shopping instead of looking at so many girls” laugh laugh laugh.

Filed Under: Friends Tagged With: , ,
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