USA Trip 2004

Going back home!

2005-01-23T01:23:00.000-08:00

Finally, I have my final flight from San Francisco to Miami to London to Muscat to Karachi in about 6 hours. I'm so excited to get back home! I went to Joel to his friend's (David Miller, Beebs and Mishey!) place today for dinner and it was just great! He was a great guy and the dinner was just terrific! I'll get some sleep before my flight. I thought I wouldn't sleep but I don't think I can go on much longer without a sleep. I never blogged about my visit to Tulane university with Uvais bhai, it was spectacular. I saw their robotics lab and all the stuff they've been doing over there. Double-melt with Alapino topping is just out of this world.

I guess this blog ends here. Back to my usual blog.

Blogs long due

2005-01-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

I'm at New Orleans since last week and I haven't blogged for quite a while yet. I've been in Starbucks for quite sometime now and I just couldn't resist blogging this! They are playing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Sanu aik pal chain na ayee! It feels so great and never realized the song is so relaxing. Here goes the next track, nopes... its an english song. I'm flying to Miami on 20th and I'll fly to San Francisco to catch my final plane to Pakistan on the 23rd.

8:56AM in Karachi

2005-01-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

Its 8:56AM and its the first day of school today! I'm still confirmed for Jan 26 and there is little hope I'll be able to make it before that. I've learned my lesson, never fly with an open ticket!

Trip to Philadelphia, Delaware, Atlantic City and NY

2005-01-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2005, 6:45AM, me and Sohail flew to Philadelphia airport at Hasan's. We parked the car at the Park N Fly place for four days and took the US Airways flight 1241 to Philly. The baggage claim was hell slow and it took a long time to get the baggage. Hasan and his younger brother Ali showed up at the baggage claim area. He looked so happy to see me! Truly 'REAL'. We roamed around Philly a little and then we were off to Atlantic city as it was a short 4 day trip. Hasan's elder sister Sadaf was drove the car all the way. Atlantic city is really awesome! We went inside the casinos and walked on the shore. Hasan was making video and we were taking pictures. We walked around like crazy around the city. It was time to head back to Delaware. We ate a lot of yummy food and went to watch a movie Flight of the Phoenix. We played a little PS2 and it was time for bed. We got up real early next morning and we went to New York, parked the car near NJ and we took the NJ-Transit train to NY. NY hasn't changed at all! Tall buildings everywhere! We went to Times Square and Ground Zero. After walking and walking for hours we went back to NJ-Transit to take the train back. Next day we went to the mall, did some shopping for clearance items. We watched three movies in the theater on the last day. Hasan wanted us to stay more but it was time to go! He skipped 2 days of work just because of us. It was cold out there and we hoped to catch some snow there but didn't find any. We flew in this morning at FLL and Hasan called in two hours ago to tell that it'd snow in Delware tonight! I missed the snow by a few hours!

Flight of the Phoenix

2005-01-01T21:13:00.000-08:00

We watched the movie called 'Flight of the Phoenix' at the 'Movies 10' movie theater tonight. We're on the way back and I'm using a Wifi near mcdonalds drivethru. Its 12:14am right now. The movie was awesome. Hasan is driving and we're talking crap... Ali Noor is in the air on my laptop.

AC power at the airport

2005-01-01T02:54:00.000-08:00

Wow! I can use AC power at FLL and wireless internet is free. I'll miss Wifi back in Pakistan!

At FLL airport

2005-01-01T02:05:00.000-08:00

I'm at Fort Lauderdale Airport right now. The best thing about this airport is that I don't have to use the paid T-mobile service to access internet here. Its 100% FREE! I'll fly at 6:15a.

Philly!

2004-12-31T22:53:00.000-08:00

I'm flying to Philly in about 4 hours. We'll go to NY and Atlantic City. If I'm lucky, I'll make it to Washington DC too.

In Miami

2004-12-28T06:01:00.000-08:00

Finally, I'm in Miami! Sleepy head.

Last day in California

2004-12-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

Katie picked me up at Ameen bhai's today at about 12:00p. She was in Jacob's car... I instantly knew that I was going to meet Jacob. He was kinda cool... his laptop was even more amazing. I was sold to the crisp picture quality of that tiny Sony Vaio. He had a Linksys wireless access point there so it was fun setting it up with him over there. Jacob uploaded a bunch of his pictures to his website from his wireless internet. It was time to eat meal and the vegetables never looked so good! The dinner was great. I am not sure why but I think I was a little bit more comfortable with Jacob around who has been to UAE and he had a fair idea how things work in the east. Joel dropped me off to the SF airport few minutes ago and I was beginning to freak out as I couldn't see any Wifi ads anywhere. Luckily, T-Mobile works here (no SBC!) and I'm so happy! American Airlines self-checkin was amazing. I printed out my boarding in no time at all. The security guys didn't give me a hard time and I was cleared in about 10-15 minutes. I'll have to wait again. Next time, I'm coming one hour earlier only. Lots of people around, no fun around here and I'm chewing spearmint. I'll blog again from Miami, of course if nothing really exciting happens before then. 55 more minutes for boarding. Bye bye California!

Back to Santa Clara

2004-12-26T22:27:00.000-08:00

SouthWest was a cool experience! I had enough laptop battery life for the flight so I was on the computer the whole time. Finally I'm at Santa Clara! Ameen bhai found me at the baggage claim area so I really didn't have the time to freak out! I'm off to Miami tomorrow so I need to make preparations.

From Burbank Airport

2004-12-26T18:08:00.000-08:00

Blogging this from the Burbank airport, LA. I'm flying down to San Jose to catch my plane to Miami on the 27th. I still don't have a confirmed Pakistan flight and I'm really worried if I'll miss a lot of classes. Well, since there is nothing I can do, I guess there is no point in worrying. Arrgh..

I have a T-Mobile's wifi service here at the airport and the Dell battery is so cool. I'm going to fly in about an hour. I need to explore the airport a little. I'll blog again.

Last Weekend

2004-12-23T16:36:00.000-08:00

Last weekend on 18th and 19th, we went to San Francisco downtown to Fisherman's Wharf and on Sunday we went to Redwood Forests for BBQ with Ameen bhai and his friends. Lots and lots of trees at redwood forests and the food was so cool. It took a while to get the coal to burn. I have loads and loads of pictures of that.

On 21st we left for Los Angeles on 101 freeway from San Jose. I slept during 3/4 part of the way. I had my laptop with me and Ameen bhai had internet service from sprint PCS. So I was able to connect within the car, the connection wasn't very fast though. We reached Irfan mama's place at about 12:50AM. Hamiz and Humna are new best friends! Next morning... Hamiz beats me several games of Budokai 3 at first and then I beat up 11 games straight with Gohan. Ate daal chawal in the noon, then we drove off to LAX to drop Irfan mama and Sidra to the airport. In the night we went down to Cold Stone ice-cream parlour and watched Harry Potter 3 in the night.

Usual...

2004-12-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

There's nothing new lately, just usual stuff. Going down to theaters for movies and learning lots of thing. I went to see 'The Incredibles' in the theater and I'm planning to see the Blade: The Trinity today. I have seen about 8 episodes of Star Trek (TNG and DS9) since last night. Joel taped them all on his Tivo.

Plane pictures are up

2004-12-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

Click here to see the pictures

Bob's Plane ride!

2004-12-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

Bob's plane ride is the best thing that has happened during my trip! He picked me up at exactly 1:00pm and we went to the Palo Alto airport. There he had his plane sitting Mooney 201, it was a four-seater. At first the propeller lock didn't come out he said we might have to delay the flight but later he got that out after lubrication. He checked every bolt in the plane, fuel and everything and we were all set. I got to sit in the front seat. Tilmin was at the back and Bob was on the main pilot seat. We had the headsets on. The plane had controls on both of the front seats so I could fly the plane if I wanted to (read on!). We flew from Palo Alto down to Half Moon Bay. We crossed SF Bay, the golden gate bridge, the bay bridge, the dumbarton bridge (check the spelling). It was so cool up there in the noon! You just cannot explain that in words. Luckily, I had my digital camera with me and I took tons of photos! I'll be uploading them soon with small video clips. On the way to Half Moon, he flew at an average altitute of 2000 feet and the ground speed was about 150mph. We could talk to each other through these cool headsets and Bob could use them to talk to the Palo Alto airport station. We landed by the Half Moon Bay, stalked the plane and then we went to eat Fish and Chips at a shop near Princeton. Bob bought us the lunch and he had Clam Chowder for himself. We had a lot of discussion about Pakistan and the living here. Bob really likes Musharraf, and he rightly does. An amazing thing happened on the way back to Palo Alto. We started flying and after 5 minutes, Bob says: 'Okay Faisal, you're incharge of the flight now!'. Wow! I flew the plane! I wanted to fly high so I took it to about 4200 feet (woohoo!!!) and I wanted to do a 360 degrees rotation but he said that plane might not be able to take that. Bob is a really cool guy! Superb! I flew all the way down to Palo Alto and then he took the controls for the landing. I had the most amazing time of life. It was much better than any of the Orlando rollercoasters I've been into! Thanks Bob! You'll get to see Bob in the pictures.

Bourne Supremacy!

2004-12-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

We watched Bourne Supremacy last night. Matt looked cool! I'm going on a biking trip now. I hope I remember how to bike really fast after all these years. We'll know soon enough. Katie says I need to have the helmet on. Oh darn!

Picking up the christmas tree

2004-12-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

I went down to Kifer street with at a place call Home Depot with Kelly, Tilmin and Katie. They bought two christmas trees. Not much excitement there though. I learned that night that Tilmin is a Trekkie too! Amazing... lots of people watch Star Trek here. By the way it seems that I've adapted to the cold down here! Hah! ;)

Kelly's Birthday Party!

2004-12-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

It was Kelly's birthday party tonight at Bocca Di Beppo in the Palo Alto downtown. I wore my black Aijazz's Sherwani Kurta as Baji said I should and it worked out pretty well. They all loved it! It was a superb night! Although everybody was quite old there (comparatively!)... Bob, Paul, Linda, Meggen, Cathy, Tilmin, Katie, Julie and the outrageous Torri! Torri came in late but she was so cool! I have a pictures of the birthday party which I'll upload soon. The pizza was cool, the beans and the bread were awesome! Meggen had baked a chocolate cake specially for Kelly and it was delicious! I had a really enjoyable time there! Torri prepared a TODO for me and gave it to Kelly (thanks Torri) and she kept bragging about her new titanium silver BMW she bought recently! I think the model was 325i. The best part came in the end when Bob offered me a ride on his personal jet plane this Saturday. I'm really looking forward to this ride! Gosh I'm excited! I wanted to do sky-diving but I don't think thats quite possible on that plane, I guess I need to do it with the professional people. I'll definitely be blogging about that plane ride. I really hope the weather is good on Saturday. I brought along some of the cake home to eat at a later time. Its a big day tomorrow! By the way, I slept about 11 hours today and I was feeling great!

I got a Laptop!

2004-12-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

Hey! I finally got a Laptop today. It'd be really cool if I had it on may here. I'm really missing my cell phone out here! It'd have been really great if I had a cell here. Anyway, here's the laptop: Dell Latitute D600. Its a 1.4Ghz Centrino.

First day!

2004-12-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

First day is cool! I ate an egg (I'll be cooking it tomorrow myself!), bread and had some really tacky grapefruit juice. I'm really dizzy after the flight and I still feel I'm in the airplane. I'm off with Katie to places.

The House I'm staying in

Cars are really cool out here. You get to see a lot of cool cars on the road. I've been in several cars now, here:

1. Civic Hybrid 2005

2. Volvo S60 - This is a really cool car. It talks! It even tells that you might hit an object when you're reversing the car! Pretty amazing: "Warning, 2 feet distance". I'm impressed! ;)

3. Toyota Camry

4. Honda Element

I had two dinners today. My cousin came by in the night to take me out to Shawarma. We are planning Lake Tahoe this weekend. I hope it'll be good! Cause 'podina' and 'hamtani' make a pretty good team! (that is encoded... only a few people would get that! Don't strain yourself! Hehe!)

Okay, I'm hungry right now. I need to get some food. I'll blog again.

Airport to home

2004-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is due.

Long way to go!

2004-12-07T06:16:00.000-08:00

All set for Los Angeles now! Its a long way to go and I'm in a Boeing 777. Sitting next to a really cool and big guy named Oberin Kevin. He lives in LA and he is a rock-bands manager there. He manages about 4-6 bands back in LA! It was a freaking long flight about 11 hrs and it wasn't very exciting. The food was great on the plane and thats basically it. There was no footrest! The movies were repeating so the were no good... I was forced to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. It was a long and tiring flight. Finally we reached LA airport at 2:30pm... immigration was really itchy but I got through just in time to catch my plane to SanFrancisco at 4:30pm. That flight was pretty straightforward, just a single hour flight in a small AA plane. I caught Joel just outside the baggage claim and he recognized me when I was going down the escalator. Pretty cool!

Fly baby Fly!

2004-12-06T04:38:00.000-08:00

I'm in an AirBus 330 now which flies from Abu Dhabi to London Heathrow. Gosh! This is a really cool plane it has automatic foot rest adjustment, seat adjustment and so much more. Look who's next to me, this guy is the Paktel head in Pakistan going to Miami for a one week vacation. Had a super interesting chat with him! Lucky for me, he was also an NED graduate and he was a fan of Dr. Shahid Hafeez Mirza. He is travelling with his wife and a very cute three years old daughter. We are talking about about NED, TDMA, CDMA, WiFi and mobile services being offered in USA and back there in Karachi etcetera. Its a really long flight and I'm glad I have someone I can really talk to. Okay, we're at the heathrow airport now. I ran into the same guy about three times! Hungry me.. looks for some internet to eat... aha! BT is offering internet at a pound/15 minutes (now thats expensive!). The machine is totally bogus it wouldn't let me connect to gmail.com and I'm unable to check email so I'm cancelling my session 6 minutes earlier. By the way, I got some change after I bought some kit kats in the US dollars. I'm about to leave the airport and the orange juice looks great over that shop... yup! its delicious! Having seen lots of branded shops and wine bottles, it was time to leave for Los Angeles! Gosh I'm excited! Oh darn, there are no similar faces in the waiting lounge. :(

Abu Dhabi airport

2004-12-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

Enter the Abu Dhabi airport, WHOA!! The place looks so awesome! You spend one hour there and you'll realize that the phrase 'never judge a book by its cover' is totally correct! The airport is rather small. I saw people from all over the world there. I don't think I've seen this kind of variety of nationals even at Heathrow. I ate a lot of chocolates there. I bought a phone card and called Farooq bhai, I tried to make him guess who I was... after about 10 minutes, he was able to guess that! But I had to give so many clues! Anybody could've guessed that. I made a new friend named Mr. Rizwan, who was travelling to UK. He lived in the UK as well and did property and foreign exchange business there. I lost him after some time and I was looking around when I ran into this interesting fellow Mr. Bruno at the chocolates shop. He was on his way from Abu Dhabi to Goa for a one month vacation from the job and he invited me to visit Goa sometime. I took a picture with him, my digital camera is broken so it'll be a while till I get the print and have it scanned. I still have it in my camera! I really hope it came out right because the guy who took it was probably using the camera for the first time. It seemed that the lens was pointing towards the ground. I'm not taking Abu Dhabi ever again! Its a pretty neat airport but they don't have an internet service! I ran into that Rizwan guy again and we sat down for a meal together at the Oasis and he gave me a couple of panadol tablets incase I had a headache during my journey. After a long stay there, we left for London at 3:30am local time.

In the beginning

2004-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

It all started on the GF 731 which was an AirBus 320 and flew from Karachi to Abu Dhabi. I sat besides an arabic guy who probably didn't know any other language than Arabic so I didn't talk to him. The other guy on the left was a pretty interesting guy, Mr. Haider. He was reading this Urdu novel through the entire flight. He was going to Miami and he had his own car rental business there. He had a stay at Bahrain and he was so absorbed in his novel, so we didn't have much of a conversation. There was an extremely cute kid sitting in the front seat and his name was Ali Rehman. He and his parents were off to Dennis.