Random Ruminations of My Mind

So my boss came to my thursday morning and said “Rehan, we have to send you down to Boston this afternoon”… not exactly what I’d call reasonable advanced notice but what can you do, right?  its all a part of the job.  But, the worst part is that a friend of mine is getting married tomorrow and I won’t even be there for the baraat walking in ceremony… nevertheless, I’ll be there for the end i hope, depending on what time my flight gets back…

anyways, on to the topic at hand… the infamous, so-called, ‘random checks’.  For those that aren’t aware of these, every time you go to the airport on your way to the US, there is a slight possibility you will be subjected to a random check… this can be anything from luggage checks for certain chemicals to chemical tests on the body through puffs of air.  But here’s what gets me: the fact that i’m always subjected to these random checks, every single time!  Albeit, it is very possible that they are random with me, but highly improbable.  Its like, flipping a coin 10 times, and getting heads all 10 times: possible, but highly improbable.  Its not like I’m surprised that I get these random checks all the time.  It may not be out in the open, but racial profiling certainly has something to do with it and definitely does occur regardless of what people say to the contrary.

Anyways, that’s my rant for tonight as I sit here in a hotel out in the middle of nowhere.  Literally, this place is like 1 hour north of Boston, and yet it feels so remote from the rest of civilization.  The town is called Woonsocket.  Ha ha.  Go figure.

I wonder if that’s really true. But let’s just think about it for a second. Something that is free, usually has very little monetary value associated with it because of the fact that it is free. But, at the same time, it has the power to have a lot of sentimental value. Let’s take a gift as an example. You buy yourself something compared to someone buying something for you as a gift. Which would you cherish more? The latter I’d hope. Why? Probably because its not only the gift that comes your way, but the thought of buying that gift comes along for the ride. And of course its free.

As an aside, I went into a TD bank branch recently in order to close my account at RBC and open one up at TD. I read somewhere exactly how to get a free iPod nano in doing so. The way it works is, you have to close an account at some other bank, and open one up at TD. You also need to setup a Direct Deposit or 2 Pre-authorized payments for that account. This will only get you an iPod Shuffle however. To get the nano, you have to be approved for a TD Visa Gold credit card. Of course, this card comes with a heft annual fee, $99 to be exact. To have that fee waived, you have to make sure that the account you opened was a Select Service account. Funny thing is, this type of account itself has a monthly fee of $24.95. BUT, and there’s always a but, in order to waive this fee, all you need to do is keep a minimum balance of $5000. Do everything I described above and you’ll be the proud new owner of a 1GB iPOD Nano!!!

So it really is true, that the best things in life are FREE, in more ways than one

Then again, we’ve all heard the saying, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’.  A topic to be discussed at some other time in the near future.

You ever get this addiction to any one thing?… ok, i’m not talking about the kinda addiction that you smoke up, or drink, or any of that sort… more like… the addiction to collect something… for example, a long time ago, i was addicted to cards- sports cards to be exact… I wanted every single card out there no matter what… and i’d save up all my money only to blow it all on them… at the time of course, you don’t feel as though you are wasting or blowing your money… u think of it more as an investment… well, 15 years later, its probably the worst investment i ever made…

and now, my new addiction is collecting books… yeah you read write right… i seem to want to buy all these books lately… every month or so, i’m buying like 5 or 6 of them… and its not like i’m reading any of them either… i started this book called ‘angels & demons’ about 3 months ago, and still haven’t finished it… today, i bought 8 more… my bookshelf is so full right now, i think i might have to buy another one… i think i have an idea what the problem is tho… its this damn website that i keep going to called www.bookcloseouts.com… they have some really cheap books, cheap as in, 50-75% off the cover price… and most are new or really good condition… anyways, check out the website… just do a search for a book that you’ve been wanting to read and they just might have it…

Welcome to ‘Random Ruminations of My Mind’, version 2.0. I totally gave up on that shitty excuse for a blog called MSN Spaces. I may still use it to post pictures and what not, but its definitely not worth my time to update it as a blog. About the only thing that’s good about it, is the fact that you can share pictures, and also, every time you update your blog, people on your messenger list will know about it. But I am really liking this new blog called ‘wordpress’ which is what you are seeing here. So many things you can do to customize it to your needs. It does however require some knowledge of PHP, but nothing too difficult.

Anyways, along with this new blog, I’ve created a sister ‘photoblog’ which can be viewed at ‘www.vividrealism.com‘. You’ll see the latest photo from that site on the sidebar. At the moment I only have pictures that you probably already have seen if you visited my MSN Space. But rest assured, I will update that site more often. Reason being, it requires less management time on my side. I just upload the files I want to post and put it on cruise control. Every now and then, a new picture will show up.

So yeah, let me know what you guys think. Any and all suggestions/improvements are welcome. Thank you, come again!