Over the past few weeks, I reconnected with people I have not seen in many decades from EGC. I had a chat with Patrizia Amante (Grand Kayman), Karim Abdel Hadi (Alexandria), Gianpiero Gelato (Italy), Samar Mamoun (Germany), Nayera Mokhless (Kuwait), Zeinab (Yeldez) Murad (Alexandria), and Mohamed Tawfik Elgayar (New York).

This is the part that impressed me when I was chatting with Gianpiero:

Khalid: Do you still speak Arabic, or forgot it?

Over the last week the weather has been pleasant, with above zero temperature in midday, but still goes below zero over night.

Today it is March 8th, 2010, and the temperature outside is 9 degrees Celsius above zero in Kitchener/Waterloo.

What is better is that the next 3 days we are expecting double digit temperatures with tomorrow a high of 11C, and 10C on the 2 days after that.

Sure, it will go back to seasonal temperatures eventually, around 1 or 2 above zero midday. And perhaps we will get a snow storm or two.

This is the weather in Ontario, Canada ...

"Work smarter, not harder" is something that sounds good, but in reality it is often a hollow sentence with no substance in it. In the corporate world, when a manager informs his team of staff cuts, while the workload is the same or more, "smarter" does not mean anything other than "do more with less". If this "working smarter" was tangible and doable, then why was it not employed before the staff cuts? Huh?

Here is a Dilbert comic lampooning this misused non-wisdom ...

Massimo Marcone is a food science professor at the nearby University of Guelph. A few years ago, he released a book titled: In Bad Taste?: The Adventures And Science Behind Food Delicacies which lists many foods around the world that are considered repulsive. That book is now renamed to "In Bad Taste? A Quest for the World's Most Exotic Foods".

The Biblical Archeology Review has an article on how the alphabet was born from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The article focuses on the Serabit El Khadem site in Sinai, and the inscriptions found in the temple of Hathor there.

More signs of spring ...

Today, I saw a small flock of starlings.

Definite sign of spring today ...

It is only March 2nd, with lots of snow on the ground, below zero temperatures are still around, and some more snow yet to fall ...

But signs of springs are already here ...

When I woke up, I heard a male American Goldfinch singing at the top of the tall evergreen in the backyard.

I ran into a humorous page on Facebook on Abdel Karim Mardini that his ex-colleagues at Open Craft setup as a practical joke. It is so funny, I can't convey the full meaning of all the Arabic jokes, but the gist of it is that it portrays Abdel Karim as a reformer, spiritual leader, ...etc.

Here is a Drupal gem:

تلخيص الدروبال ثيم، لتخليص آكلي البرسيم

واحد بلدياتي بعت لامه علبة كبريت
قالتله مش شغالة
قالها ازاي انا مجربهم واحد واحد

واحد بلدياتي راح يخطب
ابو العروسه قاله يا ابني البنت لسة صغيرة في المدرسة
قالوا خلاص اجي بالليل تكون جت يا عمي

جماعة بلدياتي قاعدين ف خيمة وعاوزين يولعوا عشان يطبخوا
بعتوا واحد يجيب كبريت
خرج من باب الخيمة ودخل من الباب اللي ورا
قالهم عندكوا كبريت
قالولوا اقعد بعتنا نجيب

بلدياتي بيعاكس واحدة في التليفون
قالتله شكلك صعيدي
قالها ينعل ابو اظهار الرقم ديه

صعيدي سال اجنبي
انت مرتبك كام
قاله 1000 دولار بدل معيشة
1000 دولار بدل سفر< /FONT>
1000 دولار بدل تغذية
1000 دولار بدل .......

واحد صعيدي بقالو عشر سنين يدعي "يا رب اجيب ولد يا رب اجيب ولد" فنزل له ملاك وقاله "ابوس ايدك اتجوز الاول"

واحد صعيدي شاف امه بتتحرق والنار طالعة منها فقال لها "منورة يا حاجة"