The 3rd World Rocker

…I must say Al-Hamdulillah (Thank God). Because, it has been a fantastic week.

Monday, I get a call from Sophie the recruiter, informing me that the job is mine if I want it starting Wednesday (without an interview). I eagerly accept.

Tuesday, she tells me I don’t have to actually drive up to Silver Spring to fill out the information, she emails me all the files, I print, fill out, scan, and emailed her all the information and its done.

Wednesday, I started my job as a contracted Computer Tech Engineer at Bowie State University. The day goes well, and the other Tech, Floyd, is a super cool dude and we instantly became friends. By the end of the day Sophie talks to me to check if everything went well, and informs me that my first payment will be directly deposited to my account (sweet)…Later that day Meezo gets an email informing him that he has been accepted to McNally Smith College of Music (remember the Minnesota trip? yea, that one).

Thursday, the day was smooth and lovely, I was actually helpful at work and took care of a couple of issues on my own, had a whole night planned out too. Unfortunately my dinner date with lovely Lisa fell through, but I got to take my buddy Donald to go see “Verse The Tempest” play at the Talking Head in Baltimore.
The show was AWESOME!! those guys rocked, the other band that played called “Eat It Raw” was amazing as well. Now the lead vocalist for VTT is a good friend of mine, and he’s a UB Alumni (like Donald & myself), the 3 of us are SDE Program majors. Needless to say it was a loud and awesome night, I got home around 1:30am, went to bed around 2am, then got up at 6:30am to get ready for work.

Friday (today), has been a BLESSING! Oh My God. I got all my tickets done, Floyd and I went form building to building fixing things. Then I made a call and found out that I could get a wicked awesome phone+email plane from Boost Mobile. $50 a month, unlimited everything (text, minutes, data). AND you can buy any Boost Mobile or Nextel phone….the exciting thing about this whole thing is this: I’ve been thinking of getting the Palm Centro, because its basically my PDA+Phone integrated…..AND, its on the Nextel/Sprint phone list. Which means, I will no longer have to walk around with my phone in one pocket & my PDA in the other. I’m so EXCITED! about this. So Insha Allah (God Willing), I will be making the switch, and I’m sure Meezo & Mom will be happy, because they also carry the BlackBerry (which he has his eye on).

Future plans:
Later today, a gathering with cousins and friends at my aunt’s house, which we have now labeled “Mona Cafe” =)

Saturday afternoon, the Nubian Youth 1st kick-off meeting in D.C.

Sunday afternoon, lunch and packing party at my friend’s house in Laurel.

Oh man, I hope I don’t forget to breath! =)
I hope your weekends go well, be safe and seize the day.

Salaam

Alright, we are now safely back in MD, we got here last night.
Here is what happened on our last day in Minnesota.
I got up at around 9am, took a shower got dressed up, and packed. To save us time, I decided to go get us breakfast while Meezo was showering. Came back and Meezo was all packed, dressed and ready. We had breakfast and waited for the teacher to arrive. He had gotten “lost” and was only a few minutes late, so by 11:20am he was at our door.

He came in, got his MAC laptop out, asked a few questions, made sure his mic was working and had Meezo audition for him. He had recorded the audition, then had Meezo pose with his Tabla for the camera to take a picture to put with the recording. It seemed to go well, he gave him a thumbs up and headed on his merry way.

Not shortly after we were out as well, because we have to hand in the keys by noon. We check out, pack up the car and drive up to the airport, follow the crazy zigzag signs to the car rental return area, park, fill out the application and into the terminal we go.

Our 1st flight was actually very cool, there were not many people flying out at 2:45pm, we we had almost a whole row to our selves, we sat very comfortably, and I got to watch more than just 10 minutes of “The Last Mimzi”…its a VERY slow movie and I’m starting to get annoyed with it (I still haven’t finished it yet). We arrived in Atlanta safely, but this time we had a 2 hour wait period, which gave us time to actually sit and ENJOY our meal this time, instead of wolfing it down like no tomorrow.
After food we went to our terminal waiting area, charged my Zune, grabbed my eReader and read “The Invisible Man” for a while. Meezo took a stroll around the airport, got us some candy and soda.
We hear and announcement that the flight is actually Over Booked (ouch!), and they needed around 6 people to volunteer to take the next day flight, and they were offering all kinds of cool perks that would come with it, like free hotel reservations for the night, and a free round trip to anywhere AirTran goes and what not.
I was too damn anxious to get home to even consider this, also Meezo has school, so I continued reading.
We got on the plan and lucky for us, we ended up on the 2 seated part of the plan, so I wasn’t squeezed between Meezo and a stranger, wohoo =)
The ride went by fairly quickly, I was too deep into the book and I was actually sad we made it before I had finished the chapter I was on, during the flight I was reading “Through Violet Eyes”.

When we landed I found a voice mail from Dad saying that he’s at the airport and that it says that we’ll be landing at midnight, so I called him right away and informed him that we have just landed and will be out shortly.
He met us at the baggage claim area and drove us home.
We sat chatted about the craziness we had, and the awesome cool Prius that Meezo & I feel in love with, and had a few laughs. I was jet lagged I guess or something, because I had a headache and was tired, so I went up to bed.

Now I’m here, recapped what happened to us for ya =).
As for today, its now Monday, and I’m officially in Maryland Time =)

Hope you’ve enjoyed the adventure.
Salaam =)

Today was the big day.
All in all it went well al-hamdulillah (Thank God). I dropped Meezo off at the school in the morning, after we grabbed some breakfast from McDonalds (because its close & fast). After he packed up all his instruments and went to the open house, I drove back to the hotel, got a few hours to myself, watched Face-Off, and did some internet-ing. It was a good chillaxing time, and also I gave Meezo some time off from me breathing down his neck, and it seems that he had fun on his own, meeting other students and what not.

Around 1pm or so he gives me a call, he apparently didn’t take his extra CDs with him and needed me to drive them up to him so he could hand one out to the Hip-Hop Ensemble.
So I got dressed, packed up my eReader & my journal, his CDs & Envelope and heading down to the College. I figured, there will be no point in me driving back to the hotel because he’ll be done in a couple of hours anyways.

I drive up, park in a garage, and walk up to the main lobby. Meezo meets me up shortly. I give him what he asks for and ask about the progress. The violin audition went well al-hamdulillah, he made friends with the Hip-Hop Ensemble students and staff, but the person who was supposed to audition him for the Tabla had forgotten about it, and left.
We speak with a Mr. Cliff, who ended up being a Dean at the college, we makes a few phone calls and jots down my cell number in case he needs to get in contact with us.

At this point Meezo only has to take the placement test, so I take his bundle of instruments (and my stuff) to the car, and leave him with his bagpack to do what he needs to do.
Since I had at least a couple of hours, I decided to roam the cold, white streets of Downtown St Paul. I took a few pictures which are posted now on FaceBook. A few minutes into my walk I get a call from the dude who was supposed to audition Meezo, and we arrange for him to actually come audition him at out Hotel tomorrow about an hour or so before we leave of the airport, so that’s good news =).

After walking around for a while I went to the Dunn Bros Coffee shop and got a really nice hot chocolate, and read 2 chapters of “Through Violet Eyes” by Stephen Woodworth on my eReader, I’m really loving this book, its awesome.

After a while I walked back to the car, wrote in my journal a bit, and before you know it Meezo calls me, he’s done. I pick him up, we go to the hotel, drop off the instruments, changes cloth, and then we were off to get some dinner.
Pizza Luce was recommended to me by my good friend Auggie, and it was a great eat.
After dinner we decided to drive into Minneapolis to check it out, we drove around a bit, it was full of bars, restaurants, and lights =).

On our way home we stopped by SONIC, grabbed a couple of drinks, and now we are chilling at the hotel for our last night. So tomorrow you’ll have to check my Tweets if you want to know what’s happening =)

Thanks for reading, and see you all soon Insha Allah (God Willing)

We did a little touring today,we drove down to Saint Paul, found McNally Smith School of College, we went into the admissions office and arranged his test for tomorrow, so all is good.

It started snowing here today, and I took a few phone pics of the area, Meezo has been taking little videos of our adventures, but he doesn’t have chord to post it up on FaceBook, so hopefully he’ll do all that after we get back to Maryland.

I’ve downloaded pictures onto my Lappy, and after posting this I will post pictures up to Minnesota & Rob’s birthday event.

We’ve bought some apple caramel candy on a stick, as well as juice & soda. We figured we might need something to drink at night, we’ve learned our lesson from last night. We’re thinking of getting some drive through from Sonic later tonight for dinner.

Alright, that’s it for now.
I’ll check back with you all later.
Salaam.

Friday Feb 20 (1:51am local time).
We are now safely in the arms of the Holiday Inn hotel in St. Paul Minnesota. The trip has been interesting and fun so far.

It started off with Mom dropping us off at Dulles airport, this was my first time through Dulles, they are so freakin uptight there, they wouldn’t allow me to take my deodorant & sanitizer, they said they were “too big”. Keep in mind they are the same size that I had with me coming in Cali. Anyways, Mom was still around watching us go through security, so they gave it to her. We had to ride this cool SciFi bus thingy to take us to the other side of the airport to get to our terminal. We get there and then Meezo realized that he forgot to pick up his laptop from the security check, so he takes his boarding pass and heads back, I stay with our bags at the terminal, after he’s gone, I realize that he has MY boarding, because I clearly have his. Awesome.
Luckily everything went smoothly on his end and he returned successfully with the laptop, moments later we board the plan and land at our 1st stop, Atlanta GA.

When we got off in Atlanta, I was going to head over to gate C22, because thats what it said on our boarding pass, but as we were getting off the plane, Meezo heard the airline assistant shout “transfer?” at people as they are walking out. So I thought “what the hey! I won’t lose anything by confirming” so I go up to the young lad and say “Minneapolis, gate C22 right?”, he replied “Nope, D5″…awesome.
So we wake almost half a mile until we finally reach D5, by that time it was around 9:23pm or so, and the plane leaves at 10:10pm, and we were hungry, and Meezo wanted a place where we could “sit”. The only one available was Phillips Seafood. Our waitress, Kara, was awesome. We asked her what the quickest thing we can get, and she recommended 2 dishes. By this time we had planed to eat, pay, and be done by 9:50, if we want to make it to the plan on time. We order the food, and I decided to call Mom to let her know that we made it this far. I love my Mom, but she enjoys to chit chat and stars conversations, at that point the food has arrived, and time is running out. I had to cut my conversation short and start chow down. Meezo gave me the expert advice of “don’t chew, just swallow”…yea, whatever dude. Needless to say, by 9:52pm, we had to bail on what ever is left of the food, we had paid in advanced so we didn’t have to wait to get a check or anything. We get to the terminal and its Empty..no one is there..not a soul. Apparently the boarding area isn’t in clear view where normal people would look, but we found it (Thank God). Got on the plan, got a head (I still feel it a little bit), but the flight went well. I had my Zune so I watched an anime movie through out the whole flight (I love you microsoft), then we finally landed in Minnesota.

First thing I do is ask where the rental car is, and they good man says “on the other side”…and the weather outside “10 degrees”. Beautiful.
We go to the baggage claim, get our bags, walk to the other side, and follow the signs to rental car area…we walk up the dimly lit Hertz window, and there is a sign that apologizes for the inconvenience, and instructs us to go take the Light Rail to the Lindbergh Terminal..are you serious?. So we trek through the parking lot, following the signs until we get to the Light Rail, about 10 minutes or so the LR arrives, and we get on.
When we arrive to the Lindbergh Terminal, its a freakin ghost town. We are the only two people, walking like we own the place, so we did what anyone in our position would do. Take pictures =)
Then we followed the signs and escalators until we got to the Hertz, the guy was really cool, since I have reserved online I just needed to give him the Confirmation #, and he even gave us a free upgrade, so we ended up with a Toyota Prius, sweet. He instructed us on how to start the car, and set us off.

We were in the car for almost 20 minutes, just figuring out how it works. We felt like cave men, the smallest button, and a blinking light would get us so excited, it was as if we never drove a car before. But we figured it out.
All the exit signs seemed to lead to each other, until a helpful parking attendant helped us out, he even gave us directions to the hotel, combined with the directions I had gotten online, we made it to the hotel with no errors. w00t.
And now we are safely in the hotel, and Meezo is frantically calling restaurants to see if anyone is open to deliver food, all I have are a bunch of chocolate bars, and some M&Ms, he’s going to have to realize that its 2:30am here, aaaand he just found a 24/7 place with 1 hour delivery…but it doesn’t tell him what it is they deliver. This is going to be fun =)

Unfortunately I will not be hosting this weeks Open Mic, I will be in Minnesota this weekend with my brother for his audition at McNally Smith University. I’ll do my best to keep you all updated on how it goes, I just hope that the weather is nice and kind to its visiting fluffy Arab brothers =).

Salaam.

Happy Valentine’s & Death to Cupid =)

The show last night was AMAZING!, SO many people showed up. Not only did Heather’s family take up a whole corner, but a few of my good friends came out. A couple from my PG days, and some I haven’t seen since my return.

I must say that Friday the 13th started off pretty damn bad.
Around 12am, as my brother and I were on our way back to Oxon Hill from another great night in at the Java Mammas, I get stopped by the police =(. I get a $90 ticket for “speeding”..yet when I was stopped I was going about 60 on a 55 high way…hmmm. We shall see about that.
Needless to say I was bummed, because I usually a good driver. I have become more cautious now.

Around 10:30am my good buddy Jusef calls me, he needs a ride to the metro to get to KatsuCon that day. I freshen up and go meet him in Greenbelt..he gets some Friday the 13th news, the metro apparently is having some issues and it won’t take them where they need to be. So I offered to drive them up to the hotel in Alex. I think by breaking their Friday 13th curse, it broke mine. Because after that everything went just as I planned for it to be =).

I went home, got what I needed set up, arranged my meet up with Lisa in Arundell Mills. We both were on time because we factored out the whole rush hour aspect of things. Had a lovely drive up with me talking most of the time telling her about the crazy adventures I had on the road to Cali with John John.
We made to the venue is good time, then Rowen & Kristi joined us at our booth, we ordered food, and chatted for a while, then Rowen & I left the ladies to help set up the stage with Rob.

After the stage was set up, the place started to get packed, Ali came in before I had to go up, I adjusted my set list to have Tuesday Lady on my 1st set list for him, because he couldn’t be there for the 2nd one, and also finding out that I had a slightly larger time slot than I thought allowed me to add “Cookies on Monday” for Lisa on my 2nd set. Ali brought in a “new” fan, he’s always bringing in new faces to my shows, he’s so awesome =).

Meezo also was able to make it on time.
The sets would start off with me playing by my self, then gradually more artiest would come up, first Meezo, then Rowen, Then Sharief, then Heather…and before you know it, I have ilyAIMY backing me up =). The sets went VERY well, ilyAIMY totally rocked the house.

After the show was over Meezo had to leave to pick up mom because she didn’t have the key and was staying with at a friend’s house. I drove Lisa back to her car in Arundell Mills, and we sat chatting in the car until almost 1am.

I got home and dropped like a log, woke up about 14 or 15 hours later =). Crazy.

So all in all it was success, the only bad thing was that we couldn’t actually broadcast because of the way the place was set up =(.
The good news is Meezo still had the webcam I gave him (which he doesn’t use), I made sure today that its working, and that’s what I will be using next Thursday to broadcast the Java Open Mic Insha Allah (god willing). Because Rob will be out of town.

Alright, so there you have it.
Hope your weekend goes well, I’ll see you all soon.
Salam.

The Owl night was awesome, I was glad to see so many people have written things for the topic, it was awesome. The winning song was actually dedicated to be by John & Kush =), it was very cool.
The new topic is “The Algebra of Life”, for some reason I feel like I want to do something different this time, like..rap!…heheh, I’m just so full of craziness. Another thing I want to do is some research, because I need to get some cool terms and definitions to make an elaborate lyrical piece, if I can =).

Well tomorrow is going to be a CRAZY day, and I can’t wait to get it started, its going to be awesome. It’ll be my first trip to the city since I’ve returned, and I can’t wait to see my city again. I kind of feel like The Spirit. The movie sucked major ass, but I loved the connection he had with his city, the way he would describe her, that was wonderful.

Alright, its time to try to get some sleep, but until then, I’m watching some Twilight Zone, o yea.

Salaam.