Anyone up for some dessert?

Hey everybody!

You're all invited for some fresh apple strudel that yours truly made himself. It will be served hot with a side of vanilla ice cream.
:)

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with how my first apple tart worked out. Anyways, let's get to more pressing issues like New Year's. I haven't heard from Marcel at all and we need to decide what to do. Janine and I are thinking about going out this year, is that a valid option for you guys? What's your budget like for a nice party?

If we want to reserve anywhere, we're getting to the time where everything nice and affordable will be booked, so we need to move fast on this!

Email me or call me and let me know.
Ciao,
Karim

Busy days and short nights

What can I say, midterm season has been going on, as well as a bunch of dues, since I had the "intelligence" of putting all my dues in mid-semester rather than later. What this means is that crunch time is right now, not in mid to end november.

Anyways, let's talk about interesting stuff: X-mas plans!
What are you guys up to? Last year we had a great time partying at Janine's place, although this year it might be quite different. We might go out for dinner and a party, or do something smaller at my place, or something different altogether.

I certainly hope Bourgui, Natalie, Marcel, Janine and I will be all together, and if some of you guys are jealous or just want in, you know you're always welcome here :)

Oh, I also received a message from Stuart Armstrong and he probably will be in Quebec around that timeframe, so he might be with us too.

That's it for today!
Ciao,
Karim

Dinner and a board game - or how to have a great evening

Yesterday evening, we were invited by Janine's mom to have dinner at their place. As usual, the food was amazing and the company even better. There was fattoush - a lebanese salad, beef shawarma, falafel, home-made pizza, and more. Let's just say that good times were had by all and no one left the table without feeling like they were going to burst.

After a quick respite, desert was served, including some kind of apple pastry that was delicious (wrapped in thin crunchy layers of pastry), a chocolate cake and a coffee cake. Again, everything was home-made by my future mother in law, and everything was delicious. There also was a nice platter of mixed fruits, as well as Turkish coffee to help ease the digestion.

After all that eating, we just had to relax and end the evening on a board game. This time, Settlers of Catan were enjoyed by all, and although we hadn't completed the game yet, it was the team of Janine and yours truly who was ahead when we adjourned.

My collection of board games have expanded to include a few classics, such as Carcassonne and Alhambra and more. We alternate between them, and although they are all enjoyed by everyone, Settlers of Catan remains the most desired game of them all. Since I have introduced everyone to gaming with it and it's the one that has the most interactions between players, it has earned a special place in our heart.

I'll leave the list of games as well as their strengths and weaknesses to another time, so I don't gobble all my content in one humongous post.

That's it for today's update, I have to get back to work now.
Have a happy Canadian Thanksgiving (this Monday)!
Karim

What's new today?

I had a presentation yesterday with a strong team of individuals. As always in group work, especially when working with opinionated people, it makes for interesting times in meetings. The good thing is that we're able to find a good place to be and I've been able to smooth things out when it looks like some people are getting upset.
End result: we got a 90% on our presentation, which feels quite nice :)
The next couple of weeks are very busy, and I really shouldn't be posting here right now :p
At least I type fast hehehe
That's it for today!
Ciao,
Karim

Getting started early on October

Today was fun. I woke up late-ish (around 9AM), took my sweet time, went to a Magic tournament (new big set prerelease tournament actually), arrived 45 minutes late, built a deck in 5 minutes flat (with a friend quickly helping me sort cards), won all 4 rounds and walked out with 10 boosters of prize, a big smile on my face for a great day of fun, and some time to see Janine.

After spending some quality time w/ Janine, I am pleased to say that this was one of the most relaxed and fun days I have spent in quite some time. I missed playing and competiting at Magic and I needed to let go my projects and school stuff for some time. I accomplished all of that quite well and will have a quite busy couple of days catching up :)

Anyways, I just felt in the mood for posting so I thought I might as well do so and give some more news!

Love,
Karim

So what's new in September?

Hello everybody!

Kash here speaking. It's been a while since I actually posted anything with content, so let's go through a quick update of what's going on in Montreal.
1- beautiful weather in August and September! Who would have thought? Certainly not me. I'm sweating my ass off and loving every smelly moment. (ahum) Well, let's just say that winters are long and cold and I'm definitely enjoying the brief respite from the cold.

2- school's in again! Actually, between the end of the summer session and the beginning of orientation and craziness that this fall was, I had very little time for a breather. I didn't even get to see my peeps since Marcel was working hard on his thesis and Bourgui on his black belt. At least they both are doing amazing things and I got to sit around and sleep in for a week-end (Waking up at 10 AM? Woohooo!)

3- I'm doing lots of cases in my classes. As in reading quite a few pages, analyzing them and trying to get a reasonable story and recommendations out of it. It's a very intense process and I think this is what makes the MBA worthwhile. I'm also taking an entrepreneurship class and I think I could be a good one. All I need at this point is a good opportunity on which I am qualified to act (i.e. probably something to do w/ computers) :) If not, I think I can be a strong management type guy that will actually understand the techies and might even share a few common things with them

Yeah, the MBA also teaches you to do lists. How pathetic that I can't find a better way to express myself :)
Nono would probably make all of this sound exciting and mysterious.

Oh, how could I forget? The wedding date has being narrowed down to the 18th of July in the Casino du Liban in Jounieh, Lebanon. We're waiting to see on developments in Lebanon's stability before confirming anything, but if you're reading this blog, there's a good change (100% I'd say) that you'll be gettting an invite around X-mas time, so plan your summers around this if you want to come!

As I already said, I unfortunately won't be able to provide lodging for anyone, but we an arrange for cheap accomodation nearby, especially if many people think they'll show.

All of this is still a little premature at the moment since Lebanon is not very calm and reassuring right now, but I still hope that things will be good by the summer.

That's it for my brief update, see you next month at the latest!
Love,
Karim

ZZZZzzz

... hnnnnnnn?
Whaat?

ZZZzzzzzzzzz

Summer's Zooming By

Hail oh adoring multitude who are suspended to my virtual lips (i.e. keyboard)!

Summer's almost over, at least as far as the MBA is concerned. A couple more weeks and I'll be done w/ the stupid classes and start getting ready for September and the real challenge. Although I must say that summer classes are necessary for me to graduate in May 2008 (if all goes well), the experience has been lesser than regular classes. The fact is the summer is split into to mini-summer sessions with a duration of 6 weeks (+ 1 exam week). This means that instead of going to each class once a week for three hours, you go twice a week.

I have taken two classes this summer. First professor's a part-timer, doesn't know the material enough to make it interesting, and gave us insane amount of work (two classes per week with a rather large due every class makes an interesting summer). He also tests on the content of the book, requiring not only reading of every chapter but also memorization of many small details that are in general irrelevant... Needless to say, that class is my least favorite so far in the program.

The other class though is the total opposite of the first one. The teacher knows his material so well he refers you to the correct pages to look at off the top of his head. He also eliminated all work, keeping only exams for this class (midterm and final). Of course, he strongly suggests doing a bunch of exercises as well as reading the material closely, but there are no formal assignments. Since this class is actually very interesting, I feel like I'm missing out on the additional content (like assignments and more readings) that he would prescribe in a regular semester.

Now that I think about it, I'm complaining about too much work in one class and not enough in the other... Either way, the coming end of the classes also reminds me of how little time is left in the Montreal summer season too, since September hails the coming of autumn in these parts. Janine and I haven't really had the chance to go out much lately, so I'm not looking forward to September...

Let's abrogate this painful story and just say that I miss you all and see you soon (in this blog, on your blogs and IRL one day).
-K

Post for the month of July

I wouldn't want to make the blog name a big lie, and I've been pretty skimpy on news like Wendy never fails to remind me :)

Here are some of the promised pictures I brought with me from Lebanon. First, I think this picture goes back all the way to the 5ieme in 1992, although it could also have been during the 4ieme. Bourgui is already tall and sexy, although not quite as much as his modern handsome self. Professor Dubuis (I think) is on the right, and many other familiar faces, although some have gone over the years. On the personal level, this was the beginning of the ugly years, with way too much hair on my head, not enough gel, ugly glasses and the beginning of facial hair.

The second one is from the other extreme of high school, the Terminal year, with many more familiar faces to all of you who read this blog. Ah the joy of having about 3 girls in class and the rest of them being boys... Although Bourgui was taken care of, Damien and I were busy getting record rejections (I won handily, but that's just due to my unabashed willingness to do silly things, or at least back in 1996 it was.

Anyways, I got a couple more pics like this for a future post. And maybe some more news by the end of August :p
I think that Kash Monthly is about correct these days, with not enough extraordinary things happening to be worth taking note of, and too many things pulling attention in other places, such as facebook.com (if you're not on there, you should be) and LinkedIn (which I have but don't really use yet).

I hope you are all OK, and I miss you all like hell.
Love,
Karim

About the wedding

Hi everyone!
Here's some news about the planned wedding in Lebanon: as some of you have commented, the last couple of trips to Lebanon have been all but peaceful. We are considering whether we want to take the chance and try and get married in Lebanon, or if we can and want to do it in Canada instead. I don't like the Canada option at all, as the family's in Lebanon. We are thus in a waiting mode, until the end of the summer. Hopefully we'll know better then about the situation in Lebanon and whether it is stabilizing or not.

Even if the situation is better in September, we don't have any idea if it will still be calm the next summer.

Stay posted for more information on this topic and others soon.

Love,
Karim

Back safely from Lebanon

Hi everyone,

I just wanted you to know that I am safe and sound in Montreal, and Janine as well. More details to follow soon, as well as some cool pics that I scanned there.

Love,
Karim

Going to Lebanon tomorrow

Hello everyone! I have made my title officially a lie by skipping the month of April in my posts. Oh well, at least I did good in my classes, am now the president of the Concordia Commerce Graduate Student's Association (CGSA), got selected for a very interesting case competition class and am going to Lebanon tomorrow (the 8th of May) for 3 weeks to plan for the wedding in 2008. We're thinking mid-end of July 2008, probably the 19th (to be confirmed). So in Lebanon, we're going to tour churches and hotels and restaurants to plan the whole thing. I was also lucky to see Bourgui a few times recently, although I wish that he and Nat had received more joyous news...
Anyways, now I'm sure May will have at least one post, and hopefully pictures and news of the trip end of May/beginning of June when I return to Montreal. We have taken travel insurance again, and this time we're hoping not to have to use it.
Oh, and today's the first real hot day in Montreal with the temperature flirting with 20C! Lebanon and the 30C weather is going to be quite a shock.

Well, that post was pretty much all that happened to me when you remove the details and keep just the essential of the last month and a half. The sleepless nights and crazy endless days of slaving away on papers, exams and cases are over and I am looking forward to Summer II (end of June) when I can resume the frantic lifestyle of an MBA student.

Have a great Spring y'all!
Love,
Karim

Blah blah Exams Blah Blah Tired

By now you must be used to the eternal I'm busy post, but what can I say, it's true and it's the end of the semester madness that makes it worthwhile to go ahead and say "I succeeded, I did well on my exams/papers, I can enjoy some TV and go shop now"
In other news, I'm applying to be President of the Concordia Commerce Graduate Student Association, with a great team of people. This of course adds more to the load, but we're up to the challenge and we are very motivated to win this thing!
I'll keep you posted, and mid-April should have a few days to catch up on the blogs of my friends to see what you guys are up to.

Ciao,
Karim

En Mars, ne te decouvre pas d'un fil?

So, not much to say except that I'm very busy these days, that I missed Marcel and Bourgui's meeting this week-end again, and that I hate the daylight savings changes that seem to have no intensive purpose but to annoy us. I've read scientific evidence that the alleged savings in energy are actually negligible or even negative, and thus we change hours twice a year to please a bunch of politician idiots. Some people say that it works, but I'd like to see the stats.
That's it for the rant of the month!
Love,
Karim

Janine and I last summer during Salah's wedding

Leila fixed the luminosity on the picture as it was slightly overexposed. Otherwise, it's Janine and I in our undimmed glory

Busy month(s) ahead

March is about to begin and it's going to be a crazy month. Break is over, got time to relax a little and to make sure that going back to school would be insanely busy (by taking the time to relax, how ironic). This week is extremely bad, with one exam, one ten-page paper, much reading and the second of three week-ends doing the live case analysis. I can't divulge anything about the case, but I can say that I'm heading to Burlington, Vermont on Friday for two days and when I come back, probably totally fried, I'll still have a shit load of work. At least, I work extremely well under pressure, I just need to have enough sleep :)

Anyways, just thought I'd give a heads up in case I end up not posting in the near (or not so near) future, it's just the second half of the semester, and with 5 graduate level classes, it's not a walk in the park.

Take care y'all!
Ciao,
Karim

P.S: I set up my domain, saliba.ca, on google apps. What an awesome set of tools that is, not because of how powerful and simple the package is, but because it's all these things and it's free!!! Some people think of google as a big brother in the making, but they innovate and do all kinds of cool things to make people more productive, I really don't mind that they're making a huge profit, quite the contrary.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It's snowing like crazy tonight, like it has all day, and I for one am loving it. I didn't use to be this way, but the whiteness, the silence, the slowness of city activity, it's just amazing. The snow today was unlike any I have ever seen before, like a hundred thousand diamonds had fallen from the sky and blanketed Montreal in a lovely white veil.
Happy Valentines to everyone, especially those of you who aren't spending it with loved ones. Janine and I celebrate Thursday night so we can have more time, as tonight was busy for me, and tomorrow all day as well.

Love you all,
Karim

The full story of our escape out of Lebanon last summer

I realize I never posted the story of when we escape out of Lebanon last July. I don't remember all the details anymore but it'll be fun to try to give you guys the info.

OK, so let's start at the beginning:

Janine and I decide to take a couple of weeks (I was still working at alogient then) to go down to Lebanon to visit our families in Lebanon and attend our (shared) cousin Salah's wedding (yes, Janine is related to me. No not by blood. Maybe I'll explain that someday). We also decided to stop in Prague for a couple of days, as none of us had visited the city and it looked exciting. It helped that the cheapest tickets to get to Lebanon were actually through Prague :)

We left from Montreal on July 1st 2006 and arrived at Prague at 6AM local time, or midnight on the night between Saturday and Sunday for us (Montreal time). We took a cab (already planned ahead of time w/ the hotel) that drove us straight to our beds. We were really tired and the hotel staff was nice enough to give us our rooms very early :) After a couple of hours (a bit less maybe) of sleep, we headed out into the the town.

If you've never been to Prague, well, you should go. It was awesome, and the prices outside the tourist areas are actually unbelievably low. I'll elaborate more on the Prague visit another time, inshallah (the Arabic word that means you shouldn't expect it realistically in your lifetime, but if God wills it, then maybe).

To make a long story short, we arrived in Prague Sunday morning at 6AM local time and left Monday evening at around 6PM, for about 36 hours of fun in the amazing city.

We then arrived in Beirut on Tuesday the 4th in the morning and spent a couple of days resting, visiting family, eating (a lot of that happening :P ). The wedding was Friday night, on the 7th of July (7th month) in 2007. 7/7/07 in short :)
It was a good time and Janine "caught" the bouquet (another story for the wedding night which was a blast), so we're doomed to get married soon (more news here too)(tell me when I get annoying with the parenthesis, cause I'm having way too much fun foreshadowing stuff and messing with your minds right now).

After the wedding, we visited more family and ate a lot more too (ah, Lebanese gatherings are just amazing), until the 12th hit. That's when the awesome (since this is a public blog, I'd like to (Cough cover my ass cough) make sure that idiots who don't see irony when it bites them in the ass should know that nothing that happened last summer between Hezbollah, Lebanon and Israel was in any way amazing) events in Lebanon started unfolding with the news that Hezbollah had kidnapped Israeli soldiers and killed others.

We sat all Wednesday waiting for something to happen. And for a while, nothing did. I couldn't believe it when I woke up Thursday the 13th and nothing had happened in the night, except for minor events in the South. We had plans to do touristic visits in Lebanon, including going to a vineyard in south-western Lebanon and were still debating whether we should go or not. My parents weren't sure, but my uncle and father ended up advising us to not go far from the area where we lived, so we decided, with Peter, Leila's girlfriend, and a few other friends of ours, to head to Jeita grotto, one of the most amazing grottoes in the world by the diversity of its rock formations.

After the amazing visit, we headed to the chalet in the mountain, at Satellity. There, we saw the news about how the airport had been bombarded. Since we were supposed to be leaving the following Sunday (not quite sure about that anymore, but it sounds right) by plane, it looked like our travel plans were bleak. After that, it just got worse every day. First, the main road to Syria (towards the East from Jounieh where we live and Beirut) was bombarded soon afterwards. Second, the scale of the bombardment also got a lot worse. The image at the top should show you what I mean by "a lot worse".

Anyways, Janine and I had full travel insurance coverage for the first time ever (how lucky!), with the Desjardins company (who were unbelievable by the way, they didn't make a fuss and paid every thing that I had expensed. I recommend them highly just for that, although everything else about them was good too). The travel insurance was about to expire one day after we were supposed to return (it would expire Monday the 17th), so we talked with my parents on Friday and they said that taking an alternate road to Damascus, Syria (from the North, a 4 hour detour or more) and flying from there would be good. I had work to return to, and didn't want to miss too much of it and get stuck in Lebanon indefinitely. We also didn't know how bad the conflict was going to get. Finally, Janine was having a hard time sleeping, as she heard the Israeli planes and the distant (or not so distant sometimes) bombings.

A few calls later on Friday evening, we were mostly booked through the Desjardins contact, and scheduled to leave Saturday. My father would drive us in the Toyota Previa (family car, like a Renault Espace). The passengers would be Janine and myself, as well as my aunt Dima and her two kids. Dima's husband's family live in Damascus, and Dima was also very unhappy about being in Lebanon with her children with a war going on.

Unfortunately, when we woke up early Saturday morning, we heard that all the roads going north into Syria were being bombarded by the Israelis. My father, my uncle and my cousin Salah all took long looks at large maps and decided that we could use other roads through the East to get to Syria (basically taking roads parallel to the ones already bombarded by the Israelis in the first few days of the war).

To make a long story a bit shorter, my father was able to drive us to the border and to go back home safely. It's important to note that the roads we took were being bombarded as well, and that we had to change itinerary three times due to the road being destroyed and people dying on it between 1hour to 15 minutes before we went. The final segment to the border was particularly stressful to all, as the final road had just been bombarded with casualties (2 taxis and another vehicle destroyed, with passengers on board) just 15 minutes before our arrival. We had to take a very small road, with no traffic on it, with a huge white family car screaming "SHOOT ME", while the aviation was flying above us.

The we got cabs from the border into Syria, and again left just before that border post was bombarded. We prayed hard for my dad who was now driving alone.

After a lot of stress and a lot of running around, including some craziness in Damascus to pay for our tickets and the such, we were able to get to Canada safely. Maybe some day I'll elaborate some more on this, but I think it is sufficient to say that had I really known the risk involved, we would have never embarked on this crazy drive. The insurance people actually issued a "no travel" advisory on Saturday morning, but we didn't call them again until we got to Syria so we could confirm our reservations (which were cancelled because no one was getting there anymore, but I really want to get to bed now and won't go into all the painful details) :)

I hope you enjoyed this account, it was long in coming.
Now that I wrote so many lines, I expect I won't post for a while :p Unless I do. Hmmm. Let's keep the suspense now, shall we?

Love, Karim

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

At least I'm only one month away from last time, but I admit it's not what I had in mind when I was talking about updating more often :)
Anyways, today's the super bowl and I probably won't be watching it... Bourgui called me Friday night and told me that Marcel, Nataly and himself were going to be at his place watching the game and said I should come. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of a international live case competition, which lasted from Friday morning till Saturday evening.
I guess I could drive today, but I have work due for tomorrow evening (10 page case analysis) and I will need to be working on it tomorrow all day, and need my rest today. I'm still trying to find some wiggle in my agenda to do the 2time 2hour drive back and forth from Ottawa. I'm just not as enthousiastic about driving as Bourgui is... I don't like having to go and come back the same day.

Anyways, in other news, classes are going good so far, I was still finding a few hours per week to play World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, but I have had to stop brutally and concentrate on the MBA, which is a good thing.

Anyways, I'm off to read the blogs of the potes and see what's up with them. Hopefully I'll update before March :)

Love,
Karim

Happy New Year!!! (and other assorted holidays)

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to comment on two momentous events that happened recently:

1- Marcel and Bourgui came to my place on the 30th of December 2006. They left on the 1st day of 2007, well fed and happy. As for me, I was ecstatic. Good times were had by all, and we missed all of you who weren't there when we weren't too busy staring at the family of my fiancée (looking at member of both sexes I should add) or reminiscing about old times.

2- Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30th, 2006. He deserved to be punished for all the suffering he inflicted. Unfortunately, the wrong person was killed on that fateful Saturday... The person who died was a martyr that represented the whole Sunni group in Irak and the Arab world, and was executed by his Shi'a victors while they were mocking him and gloating by chanting the name of their religious leader, the day before the biggest annual Muslim holiday. The person that should have been executed is the tyrant that ruled Irak with an iron fist, killing his enemies indiscriminately and sending hundreds of thousands of Irakis to their deaths in pointless wars, while squandering the wealth of a strong nation. That mostAmericans can't see the difference is just one more reason why they keep losing good men in the Arab world.

I should be updating more often, as I realize that it doesn't have to be a long post every time...
Love,
Karim