Gotta do tourist stuff like going to Times Square.

It was Big

it was BRRRIGHT

Almost all of my prejudgements about NYC are shattered.

People were super nice.

Cops were super friendly.

Even their beggars were  non confrontational

You can’t go to NYC and not visit MoMA.

to see the backs of the heads of hundreds of people from all over the world.

All and all, it was short, sweet, and to the point. Just like Nuuu Yawkerz.

I loved the trip.

I want to say more, but like a tweet to Marilyn ….all I have is 140 characters.

Mad shout out goes to my favorite travel partner Jill

Looking forward to next one

I have never had  dreams past the age 40.

That’s odd.

I guess when you’re a kid you think 20 is old and 40 is ancient. and surely the age of our parents must play a role.  (My mom was 21 when she had me.  So when I was learning about age, life, death etc. she was in her 30s at best.)

Everyone over 40 has an opinion about turning 40.

” Aaaah being 40. Health goes down from here.”

“When you turn 40. eye sight goes. Get ready for glasses.”

“40 is the new 30.”

” 40 is when life begins.”

” I wish I was 40 now.”

I think of years as laps around the sun. This  was the completion of the 40th.

One thing came out of turning 40, is I can now wear big boy pants.

I hope my blog posts will reflect that.

Let me know what you think?

THanks

I have to admit I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, so I don’t have the sentimental attachment to it as many of you seem to have. In Turkey we celebrate New Year. ( with population of 99.8% Muslims, fake birthday of Christ is not a big deal) In New Year much like here we get together and exchange gifts.. Some even decorate pine trees.

I think the main reason I don’t like this time of year is originally started because I never got the gifts I wanted. So, the New Year’s day for me was hiding my disappointment by faking to love the gifts I didn’t care to receive.

When I moved to US. I almost always volunteered to work on Christmas (x-mas) so people with families could spend it with their families.

To me X-mas today is a well organized syncronized shopping craze for the people who are conditioned to buy junk and have no idea why.

If I see something I’d like to give to my wife or someone I care for, I buy it, and give it without delay. If I think about a friend in August I send him a card in August, I donate throughout the year to the organizations I like to support.

I think If only time you give gift to someone is during Holidays, you don’t really care for’em, and you’re simply buying something out of obligation, and that’s just waste. Not to mention the person who only receives gifts from you during holidays knows it too, and likely to not appreciate it.

Call me crazy, but to me better than nothing is not a good enough, and I find it offensive to my intelligence when someone thinks because they send me a card during x-mas (and only in x-mas), I think they like me. I know I’m a check mark in their x-mas card list, and will eventually drop off. And I am find with that. Seriously.

My friends who would be x-mas gifts people know last thing I would want them to do is try to find a parking space during this time of the year. I care too much for their qi for that. I’d rather have calm/healthy friends than gifts.

I should probably stop here, before I start calling Santa fat man in red suit.

The irony of the whole thing is St.Nick who is suppose to be Santa is actually lived in a few hours from my town in Turkey.

Happy Hoh Hoh Holidays.

If you haven’t explored TED yet, you’re missing more than you can imagine right now.

Locals didn’t think much of the rice patties in fact for them it’s just farm land.

A few minutes later a bus full of tourists stopped on the side of the road and start snapping pictures of the “farms”. What I noticed was while tourists were taking pictures of the patties at some of the lower patties locals were destroying the patties to build pansions (house with lots of rooms to rent to tourists for nightly rates)

Growing up in Bodrum a small fishing/orange grove town of 9000  became the #1 tourist destination in Europe I have seen this view many many times. Where the locals (to accomidate the tourists) destroying what was attracting the tourists in the first place. Until that is all the orange trees are replaced by hotels, bars, McDonald’s etc. and naturally tourists stop coming because nothing special left to see.

Apple is experiencing such “tourist explosion” with the successes of ipod, and now iphone. It was a small company (compared to PCs) with loyals (like a small sleepy town in remote island of Bali with locals) and now the word is out Everyone wants to visit the Apple land, wanna buy a white laptop, black iphone, RED ipod. Apple deserves all this success, but many old school Apple users are able to see what tourists don’t.

Apple is destroying all the rice patties, orange groves in 1 Infinite loop dr. to accommidate the tourists.

Apple is the new PC with all the updates that don’t function, apps don’t run properly, can’t get good customer service, and nice clean stores with cool guys and girls with more tattoos than understanding of the Apple Culture.

I haven’t been in Bali for a few years now, so I don’t know how they’re playing out, but in my town there are no restaurants that serve good local food, not a single orange tree, no more than 20 fishermen left, and now locals are crying about lack of business and looking around to find the tourists.

I’d like to be wrong on this, but my money is Apple….. First one I used was Lisa, first I owned was 2ci has begun the descend.

I hope I am wrong.

* No matter how hard you try, you can’t baptize cats.

* When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair.

* If your sister hits you, don’t hit her back. They always catch the second person.

* Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.

* You can’t trust dogs to watch your food.

* Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.

* Don’t sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.

* Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic tac.

* Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.

* School lunches stick to the wall.

* You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

* Don’t wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.

* The best place to be when you are sad is in Grandma’s lap.

My favorite thing to do is to take my dog Djembe for a hike in the mornings. We’re normally the first ones at the park and pretty much have the trails to ourselves. This allows both of us to enjoy Mother Nature off leash.

What I’ve learned during these walks is that my dog does not care what day it is, all he cares about is that we are at the park.
He doesn’t care which trail we take, he’s just excited to be taking the trail. He absolutely never thinks something terrible could be waiting for us around the corner (like a mugger or a big bad dog.) All he knows is we are at the park and he is happy to be there.  One day we had to return back home right after we arrived at the park. He didn’t complain once. He just sat there smiling in the back of the car….           Meanwhile, I was complaining and fussing about it all the way back to the house and pretty much the rest of the day.
The moral of the story?
Just because you are “holding” the leash doesn’t make you the wiser one.