nomadfest begins

The Messiah has already come. Katie and Jenna arrive in 12 hours.

I better get in a taxi. Kevin lands in 37 minutes.

word spreads

From steve:

first a little story...going to smoke Nargila with some trainees and this guy from egypt, M. Habib, asks where i'm from...i say madison and he says "oh u must know mixmaster!!!" and i said "yeah u know him?" he replies "no i never had the opportunýty to meet him but everyone knows about this guy!! he's throwýng a big new years party and ppl from all over the world are coming." and then the tragedy struck "when's he leaving egypt?" he replies, "on jan 2." oh no!!! i booked tickets to egypt on jan 6 because we have a one week holiday. how can u leave egypt so soon and return to the brutal winters of the midwest??

Luckily my current ticket outta Dodge isn't until January 7th; Prague Navidad!

if it were me

Someone from AIESEC US should apply to this. They should also look into a partnership here, if they haven't already.

Tornado's

Mike at Tornado
Originally uploaded by aakashs.

Tornado's is an excellent cafe. Here's to rocking the cappaccino shisha with Aakash.

done

...5 minutes early.

finale

What I hate about finals is you can't just fuck them and go bowling.

Stats in 6.5 hours. Fucking regression.

My last official day of classes at the Great Institution

...and I realize: of the seven people I talk to daily on campus, five are girls.
A pity I'm leaving so soon.

new one

So, the title of the blog inspired me to check it out and when I did, lo! I know the owner. She's a new member of @Cairo University and I met her at the NLDS conference I faci-ed back in October. Stop over there and welcome Sara aboard. She's nice.

genius

Man, I would have loved this job circa 1997.

"For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, my colleagues and I are killing monsters," said a 23-year-old gamer who works here in this makeshift factory and goes by the online code name Wandering. "I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good compared with the other jobs I've had. And I can play games all day." (NYTIMES) via TP blog

two highly coveted compliments

1.
You're looking awful Dude-like.
As I head to a party in a T-shirt, tear away pants, and flip-flops.

2.
No man, he pays attention to that stuff. He throws good parties.
As I try explaining to a third party why a party was bad.

I'll take it.

10 minutes ago

Not a bad day to bring my camera
Originally uploaded by Mix Master.

Here I am just looking for a garbage can to throw away my rice pudding and look what I find instead.
Here's what you get when you store big piles of shredded paper in a small corner of a university where everyone smokes. The hilarity was watching 87 dudes wrestle over 4 fire extinguishers and the actual hose not working. Tack on a huge crowd watching (in the pic the audience is still building) and it was a regular party.

Atheist Manifesto

"Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If he exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man." (truthdig)

For my own reference

To be used later.

To all the knobs in the subway

If you don't let the crowd get out of the car, you'll never get in.

I wish, just for a second...

she'd turn around.

come in from the cold for a while

Before hand
Originally uploaded by Mix Master.

Met up with Aakash last night (finally). Hanmeen, the new title of "The Korean," is on his way to Dahab. I moved into Andre's room last Friday and already it will hold its second visitor this evening, a new trainee from the US. Last night I met up with the random polish dude who found my blog and emailed me (cheers to someone cool finding it). He's taking a break from school to travel Cairo - Johannesburg via Eastern Africa, and has done other similar journeys previously. Cool Dude. His blog is in Polish, but it has some photos of the utmost sweetness. He studies journalism and figured a little experience on the road is worth more than sleeping through class. I buy that. Guarino was here a few days back; we failed to connect though.
Anyway, I've come to realize how much of a stepping stone Cairo is for so many people. Whether it's for travel or for work, there's a ton of people in the city simply so they can get somewhere else. I've met numerous people here for work experience they can't get at home, i.e. reporting or getting a foot in a multinational door. Very few are here long term, and that makes for a certain dynamic atmosphere. Few faces are seen for long, and some not more than once. Enjoy the moment, son.
And my last ponderance: why is your average nomad (I differentiate this from "traveller") so much cooler than the average of "the rest"?

liveblog

Fucking Favre. I'd give my life for him, but these interceptions are driving me insane... like I might join Facebook or something.

Via Cairo

Sitting here in Cairo with The Professor about to listen to my Packers destroy his Bears via streaming radio. In Chicago and The Pack still are favored.
I love the internets.

US Debt

Find the numbers here, in a fun, easy to read format.

gettin' darker

I hear the first few notes slip around the corner and into my ear, quickly recognizing the simple, elegantly notes dancing all around. Then the lyrics.

Momma take this badge off of me...

but it's in the voice of Def Leppard.
The Shame.

Insider

The past few days I've had several run-ins and conversations with someone I might now title friend. He's here doing a Master's degree at AUC and focuses on the democratization of Egypt. Exceptionally interesting.
But that's neither here nor there.
You realize he's a bit different when he mentions his place of residence, Haram, which lies well past Giza (and the pyramids) in a very local part of town; foreigners don't really roll here and some source of street cred is pretty necessary. He spends his slow days in a galabeya drinking tea with the shopkeepers and maintains the utmost respect for their way of life and mentality; no alcohol or ladies have stepped foot in his house. While most others were out travelling and/or partying for Eid, he sat around a fire in a village, listening to the Elders' concerns and thoughts on the upcoming elections. He then presented his findings to colleagues (including Egyptians) in his program. He even has a recorded Muslim Brotherhood rally on his phone.
It's refreshing to see someone commit so fully to understanding the region he may eventually be advising policy for. While on the topic of language study, he explained his pursuit of mastery something like this:
You know, Arabic is hard. It's a bitch! And sometimes I question why I kick my own ass so bad to learn the language. I mean, look at Professor _____ (forgot the name). He was at Camp David, sitting next to Sadat (and so and so), on the National Security Advisory Team, helping negotiate the peace.. and he doesn't even speak Arabic. It just goes to show, you can get that far without even knowing the region's language. But then I go home, and hang out with Islam or sit with the guys drinking tea and only Arabic is spoken. Here none of that matters and all the work finally starts to bring the gold. I study Arabic for the times with my friends. I study it so I can express myself.

That's how it should be done.

Replacing holes

Bolton
Originally uploaded by Mix Master.

Andre saddles up his jet plane in about 17 hours, so I gotta head home soon to power up for tonight. We will be missing our house accountant, a deep contact list, and a stellar friend. I'll miss the fucker for a day or two, probably.

Juan left last night. He took a 12 hour train to spend 15 hours in Luxor and then hopped another 12 hour train back. Another one under the belt, with more planned. Aakash comes in to town in a few days, so does some Korean (to be named later). Keep 'em coming.