The recession is over!

Well at least my personal recession is. That's because I got a job. A better paying job mind you. No more working at my uncle's pharmacy now I get to work at a real life honest to goodness software house. I got the job through personal contacts. job boards and recruiters were pure bunk in this case. plus reading up on trends in the market was also pure bunk because everyone knows about it so everyone is going to capitalize on it leaving you in the lurch.

Now I get to polish my career finally getting a chance to break into the US market. It's the same as moving up from the minor leagues to the major leagues. very exciting i start Monday wish me luck. oh and my linkedin page will be updated accordingly. hey what's a blog if you can't shamelessly promote yourself? on that note i am working on a secret project more word on that as soon as details are available.

UPDATE: You see...i did what i said and i said what i did:

I even added a nifty snapshot of myself. this way there is a face for my profile and viewers will realize that i am an actual person and not just a random profile. i think that's why linkedin has that option in the first place. so this was my first week at my new job. pretty cool really nice people. i am only training right now and hope to be able to provide tech support soon. i could share some juicy office gossip but that would be a breach of trust. you wouldn't want me to breach my employer's trust now would you?...would you?!

UPDATE 2: Whatever I did it seems to be working because not only was I confirmed after my three month probationary period I was also promoted. I am no longer taking calls (something I didn't like very much) I know get to use my education and raw talent to do something I really enjoy. My updated profile tells all:

Click Me!

This is so unlike the time when I worked at company (which shall remain un-named [but they know who they are and should be ashamed of the way they treated me] because I do not want to embarrass them) and got no confirmation after the three month period but they kept egging me on for two more months hoping I would quit. At last they asked for my resignation which I gladly gave.

But that's in the past I am stronger because of that and emotionally I am in a better place. So yeah this is great I even got a bigger desk, which is awesome. Of course this is not my doing all thanks goes to God. We are taught to be thankful for every bit of blessing and favor we receive. And Allah will reward our gratefulness with more of what we showed gratitude for. So yeah very grateful that I landed on my feet after my father's untimely death. Not only that I moved up the economic ladder. From lowly stock boy at my uncle's pharmacy to technical writer for PMS software. And all within a short span of time. which makes this doubly awesome.

Eid Greetings

I want to take this opportunity to extend my heartiest good wishes to all my readers on a successful end to the blessed month of Ramadan. If you fasted your joy is doubled not only do you have the pleasure of meeting your brothers in sister with good cheer you also have the pleasure of resuming your normal eating habits. Hopefully you won’t overdo it and make yourself sick!

Like always Eid was unique this year. Each year the date goes back by about 10 days. That way there is no fixed season for the holiday as we follow the lunar calendar. Before Ramadan had started we were already calculating when the festival would be. Crunching the numbers we all came to the same conclusion it would fall on or around September 11.

With the mosque controversy, Gainesville and a general air of Islamophobia we did not want to give the haters another excuse to mock and ridicule us. We could only hope our community leaders could guide us to an amicable solution. One of the biggest problem we face as a people is the moon sighting. Typically the Arab brothers call it a day early while the Desi brothers call it a day late. Meaning the Arabs start fasting a day earlier while the Desis start fasting a day later.

This is just one of the silly things we do which is a cause of disunity. Naturally since there are two different starting points we get two different ending points to the month of Ramadan or Eid. Therefore our communities celebrate the festival on two different days and never as one. That changed this year. Everyone realized we couldn’t be seen celebrating for whatever reason on 9/11. It was a day of mourning and should be respected as such.

One ending point was September 10 while the other was September 11. Both ending points were valid and from a religious standpoint both were permissible. People would have been well within their rights to celebrate on 9/11, but we didn’t. In an unprecedented move the second date was dropped and the entire community celebrated on September 10. For once we were united as a people.

So that’s the story in a larger context. But what about me personally? Well that’s a different story. My family and I began anticipating the end of Ramadan during the last 10 days of the holy month. My mom called me at work telling me about how she bought a new pair of shalwar kameez for me. Plus the munchkins (my two little nephews) were hand crafting Eid cards for me. She was about to FedEx it to me when I asked her to include a DVD of my engagement. I left the movie behind and have been regretting the decision ever since. My mom said she would be sure to include it and send it over, I should have it within a week.

Lo’ and behold I did receive said package. I couldn’t wait to get home that day and open it up. The first thing that caught my eyes were the cute little cards my nephews had made. Scanned and reproduced here for your viewing pleasure:

The first one is by the youngest Bilal while the second one is by the oldest Hammad. I love being a maternal uncle (mamoo) to them. Gets me ready for when I have kids of my own. The outfit my mom had picked out for me was in good taste and suited my youthful yet refined taste. But my favorest gift of all was the DVD, I popped it in my laptop with eager anticipation. I dimmed the lights and my LCD came to life with the sounds and colors of two years ago. When MW and I promised to marry each other one day. I tell you my heart ached after watching that I looked around my empty apartment and didn’t see anyone, let alone the love of my life.

I mustered on through the week and before you knew it, the end was upon us. Prayer service was at a local mosque we all congregated in a multi storey prayer hall. Black, white, old, young it didn’t matter we were all there to glorify our lord. Afterwards we all embraced each other congratulating each other on a job well done. I returned home and got a call from MW. That was real special we talked for a long time. I gathered the nerve to say “I love you” our last exchange had her professing her love to me with me replying “um..okay” sheesh talk about awkward!

It was a Friday so I went for mid-day prayers which had me meeting more friends and more hugging. The rest of the day was spent relaxing at home. Kinda bland but hey what are you going to do? The next day my uncle invited me over for dinner. Which was nice. And that was that. A very modest celebration if I do say so myself, something very typical of Muslim celebrations. Hopefully next year MW and I can celebrate together in our own home. That would be a dream come true for both of us.

Status Report...

This is your faithful ensign reporting. I know I haven't checked in for awhile but I can explain I had other things to do and didn't feel like making a report. I know I have failed you, oh gentle reader but I assure you I will have more to report in the coming days.

One of the things I wanted to talk about was the end of Ramadan and the Eid Festival. I've been meaning to blog about that for some time and I have some really cute content to go along with it. So yeah that'll be coming up soon.

Right now I just wanted to let you know about how my project is going. Like I've mentioned before I am working on a video game based on the fictional universe I created in my stories. I'll let you play a couple of levels for free online once I've made them. This would be my second attempt at digital entertainment. The first time was for my final year project which was required for getting a degree.


WARNING GEEK SPEAK AHEAD
I used a scripting language that freed me from dealing directly with machine language. Some guys like to get their hands dirty and work at the bit level. They usually opt for Direct X because it let's them better manipulate bit data. But that becomes complex real fast. My thinking is that I want my ideas on screen ASAP.


So when I decided to program my own game I figured I should stick with a scripting language. The one I used on my project was called Jamagic. This was five years ago and since then the language has been discontinued and is no longer supported by the vendor. That's another hazard about the IT field skills you acquired only a few years ago are subject to become obsolete simply at the whim of the market. An entity dedicated to consumerism and promoting a throw away culture. How can anyone appreciate the hardwork and craft of engineers in an environment like this? But I digress.

So what's a geek to do? I considered the Java language. A computer language that I am enamored with. What's more it has the graphic capability to produce some really first rate video games. However it can get really complex really fast. Game programming books for Java are no less than 1,000 pages! You have to remember that this is just a weekend project something to let me feel my oats and keep in touch with programming. (professionaly I am shooting for a CAPM cert, but that's another post).

So staying within the Java language I heard about the great work going on at Carnegie Mellon. They came up with a scripting language that allows for animation. The logical application of which would be digital movies and games. What's more the IDE is free. I was hooked and took to it eagerly. After exhausting online tutorials I still wasn't clear on a lot of issues that were required to be known before I could develop an actual game. So I got myself a book on the topic. I bought it off of amazon and it came two weeks later. (yes I opted for the cheapest shipping they had, hey we all got save money some how)

In the coming weeks I hope to do some realy neat things with it. I'll let you know what wizardy I've been up to...so stay tuned. Ensign out!

My Tribe!

It's so hard to find people who actually appreciate religion these days. It seems everywhere you look traditional values are being attacked. It's sad to see the natural order of things being usurped for feeding man's petty lust. That's why it's always refreshing to find like minded individuals. But in this case I think the demographics are spot on. Enjoy these stories from a sub-genre that is dear to my heart...