Passion... That's The Secret

Who would have guessed when I woke up yesterday morning, that before my day was over I would be flat on my back connected to a heart-machine?
Certainly not me!

I usually go to bed around 1am or 2am on any given day, and even on the day's when I'm totally exhausted I still find myself climbing into bed closer to midnight.
I was up working on my laptop listening to the soft humming of Sabreen's breathing as she slept peacefully next to me on the sofa, MTV Classic's playing in the background while the missus battled demons and dragons in her subconscious in the comfort of the bedroom.
I had this burning sensation in my left shoulder which didn't bother me at first, as the nature of my job means I'm constantly bumping into things whilst on my construction sites.

An hour later and I realized that the burning sensation had now radiated downward toward my elbow.
Now I'm not one for rushing off to doctors or popping pills like jellybeans at a whim, but I have a sense of when something is wrong and requires urgent attention... and I sensed that something was wrong in my body and required urgent attention!

So I put the little one to bed, grabbed my baseball cap and a hoodie, and drove myself straight to Sunninghill Hospital. The time was 11:30pm and it took me 10 minutes to get there.

In that 10 minutes, I got to think about my life.
About the things I had achieved, and the legacy I would leave if I never made the journey back.
About the things I still hadn't ticked off my bucket list.
About the hopes and dreams I had for Sabreen and wondering if I would ever see her achieve them.
About what my late Dad would say if he had to sum up the life of a son he never got to know.

I thought these questions and their answers would make me sad and morose.
Surprisingly, I found myself smiling and content in the knowledge that I have lived a good life.
I was honestly pleased with what I had achieved, and while I knew that the years ahead of me were filled with promise and immense potential, I was satisfied with my scorecard at that very moment in time.

It's amazing and somewhat humbling to think that one's life can be summed up in it's entirety in a 10 minute drive.
An ECG and a host of blood tests later, the physician informed me that I was healthy as a teenager.
I'm guessing he doesn't quite know the state of the average teenagers health out there.
Four hours later and with no conclusive diagnosis, I was advised to monitor the pain and return in two days and sent home with a cocktail of medication to relax my muscles.

Most people say that there are experiences in life which make them stop and re-assess their priorities. Life-altering moments, so to speak.
I'd like to believe that when the 10-minute clip of "Life According To Fareed" was played to me, I stood up to rapturous applause and took a bow.
If the experience did anything, anything at all, it gave me a sense of urgency to hurry the heck up and achieve those goals I hadn't yet reached.
To chase those hopes and dreams I have for Sabreen and rejoice in watching her bloom, as I know with absolute certainty she will.

There is one thing I would like to make a concerted effort at changing though.
I'd like to be more complimentary to those who deserve it... spread the Thank You's and I Love You's around like confetti if I have to,provided they're warranted.
I do it often, more often than I did years ago when I was an even more sarcastic and acidic bastard than I am today. It made me realize that people are willing to engage more easily and openly with someone who recognizes and acknowledges them for who they are.

So in ending this post, I'd like to say a humble Thank You to all those who visit my blog and read my ramblings.
I'll keep writing if you keep visiting :)

Here's to year's of good health ahead, for me and you guys too!

Forex Trading

An awesome ad from CMS Brokers for their Forex Trading accounts.



I'm getting itchy feet again.
I only ever get itchy feet when I figure I've done the best I can and I'm ready for a new challenge; or when I've worn the same gym-socks for a week.
It scares the knickers off the missus, because unlike me she requires certainty and gaurantees and structure (and clean socks).

I tend to operate on a rather different level altogether.
Every business venture I've ever taken on was based on a calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless. Every business venture was also a pretty good success story as well, touch wood.

My current business is now 5 years old. Still a fledgling as far as business's go.
I've always said that I would love nothing more than trading forex full-time some day, instead of doing it as a hobby or simply to appease the temptation every so often.
I've been trading for over 10 years now, but in a rather limited capacity... almost like swimming in the kiddies pool while knowing full well that the Ocean is calling.

That calling is getting louder and louder... and I'm rather tempted to dive right in.
Very tempted actually.

Have you heard about Portfolio Life ?
I watched a documentary on it the other day and was gobsmacked to see an entire culture of people who have such an awesome approach to their careers and lives.
I liked the idea, but upon further reading I realised that I've already been leading a Portfolio Life. Well my version of it at least.

Watch this space...

The Kirby Travelling Saleslady

I got a call on Monday afternoon from Kirby, the vacuum company. They were offering a free carpet-cleaning demo, but quite frankly they had me at "Free".

They arranged to have someone sent over to my place at 8pm, and promptly on the hour I had a visitor waiting at my door.
Ok i'm not going to lie... she was cute. Cuter than I expected a Kirby saleswoman selling me a vacuum machine at 8pm to be. Her skimpy outfit certainly was not weather-appropriate, but i'm never one to judge. Or hardly ever.

She proceeded to go through the motions about how amazing the Kirby is; how it's 104 uses would improve our lives; how it's hefty price-tag is not an expense but an investment.... but all my mind was processing was how far South Africa had come as a nation. I would never have imagined that the day would come when an international company would willingly send over a cute white woman to vacuum an Indian family's carpets and curtains, after hours, for free!

Two hours into the demo, and I must admit that I was suitably impressed with the Kirby.
She asked where the bedroom was, but before I could respond that I did'nt think we knew each other well enough just yet, she continued with " I want to show you exactly what lurks in the bedroom."
I know exactly what lurks in the bedroom.
 Me!
I'm the King of my bedroom, and I love lurking!
It turns out she was talking about bed-bugs and dust-mites.

The Kirby proceeded to extract particles from by bed and carpets which scientists and anthropologists have not yet identified.
By midnight I had seen every conceivable use for the Kirby, and some I don't even think the manufacturers had ever intended. Did you know you could cut your hair with one of these machines? I kid you not!
It's even able to vacuum-seal packages, like clothes and wedding dresses.
I asked if we could use it to vacuum-seal samoosa's. It turns out you can, but its not recommended.

So there you have it.
The Kirby left me very impressed.
Tomorrow I have to break the news to the cleaning-lady that she's fired.

Back In Time

I watched a fascinating episode of Carte Blanche tonight which dealt with time-travel.
I'm no rocket-scientist but I was intrigued to learn that it is absolutely possible to go back in time! Theres something called Relative Physics and then theres Quantum Physics.
In a nutshell, while it may be possible to go back in time and change certain events, how those events would affect the present falls under the realm of "uncertainty".

The example the scientist gave was a person who goes back in time, far back enough to ensure that his grandparents never meet, hence his parents never meet, culminating in the person never being born.
Possible? Yes, absolutely. But it does not mean he will not continue to live in a parallel universe. Huh?

Ok so heres the thing. Yes you could prevent your grandparents meeting.
Yes you could prevent your parents meeting.
Yes if they don't meet it would mean you were never born.
However, since it is YOU that is doing all this prevention, it would mean that you have to be alive at that time. How else would you prevent all the other events from happening?
Since you have to be alive  at the time, and having come from the future, whilst preventing your grandparents and parents from meeting, it means that you would now exist in a parallel universe!

Cool huh.

Now heres another conundrum for everybody who ever thought they could go back in time to get the winning Lotto numbers, or the name of the horse that won the July Handicap.
Imagine having arrived in the past, and finding that valuable information you came looking for, and headed back to the future to make use of this information... Oh hang on, if you went back in the past to get those Lotto numbers and winning horses name, in order to make use of them you would have to go further back in the past to claim your prize, because if you went to the future you would have missed the events completely!

This has got to be the most confusing post i've ever written!

For anybody who understands any of the above, i'm offering a free trip back to the past.

Father's Day

My dad and his soccer team had just won their local league, and had decided to celebrate by going to a resort not too far from where we lived.
The plan was to have a braai  (barbecue) at Club Shalimar, and spend the rest of the day at the resorts rock-pools.

My dad was an avid swimmer, and as soon as the team arrived and had done unpacking, he headed for the pools. It was the early part of the morning, and hardly anybody else had arrive at the resort.

That was the last anybody saw him alive.
It turns out he encountered severe cramp as soon as he dived into the frigid water, and was unable to swim to the surface.
I was 3 years old at the time.

Father's Day for me has always been one filled with awe and fascination toward other families. I'd watch friends and cousins go out shopping and prepare all manner of surprises and hearty lunches for their dads, and it never really struck me that I was missing out on any of this.
Its not easy to miss something when you've never really had it at any point in time to begin with.

That was until today.
Being woken up by my 3 year old daughter Sabreen with kisses all over my face while singing "Happy Fathers Day" suddenly made me realise how special the day truly is.

To all those dad's celebrating fatherhood today, to those dads that cant be with us, and to my dad watching down on me, heres wishing you a truly Happy Father's Day.

I hope i've made you proud dad.

Love always.
Your son
Fareed

Where Time Stood Still

My client called me early this morning wanting to know if I was available for a viewing of his latest purchase.
For those that don't know, my company specialises in commercial & residential property maintenance and renovations. I work closely with clients who purchase repossessed or dilapidated property with a view to have me renovate or mordernise it, and then have it re-sold.

So it was that by 8am on a chilly Saturday morning, Richard and I were en-route to a suburb in Vanderbijlpark creatively named Section CW5. The suburb closely borders two other creatively named residential areas, CW4 and CW6.

I had visions of arriving at a military outpost or a secret and clandestine alien research zone, much like Roswell, Area 51 in the United States. Upon arrival, it seems I was'nt too far off the mark with my "clandestine alien research zone" analogy.
The entire suburb and its surroundings seems to have somehow gotten stuck in the late 70's, with just a scattering of evidence that it tried clawing its way into the early 80's. If you ever wondered where the Beehive hairstyle, Ford Sierra's and Ford Cortina's went to die, this would be the place! I kid you not.
I recall once watching a really bad horror movie where the lead character wore pink high heels, balloon pants that seemed to have been stapled together with tin-foil, a green sequinned top, and hair so teased it stopped being funny as soon as the director yelled "Action". Well folks, I met that lead character today! She was still wearing her movie wardrobe. She even had a fan base who dressed almost identical to her.

The cars in Section CW5 have never done battle with soap or auto-wax. "Pale" seems to be the most popular shade of colour for all makes of car in this place. At one point I thought I had died and gone to "Ugly 70's Car Hell". The odd thing though is that every one of these cars, if we could still call them that, had the latest in Racing car seats, 16V boot stickers and the words "Turbo" sprayed on every conceivable empty space on the faded bodywork.
I pulled up at the local Spar to buy some cooldrink and upon my exit, found my shiny and polished car sandwiched between a bubble-shaped 1970's cream/baby-puke coloured Mazda 323, and a hooker-pink stained Datsun 1600 that seemed to be held together entirely with duct-tape! Even the bumper had rolls of duct-tape holding it to the bodywork. Force of habit made me walk around my car to inspect it for any scratches, though subconsciously I was just checking to see that it had'nt caught any contagious car-diseases. I really would'nt want to be driving back to the Northern suburbs with any form of auto-herpes or leprosy on my bumper!

I gather Richard may have sensed my disdain toward my surroundings, and offered me a subtle smile as we drove toward the house he had recently purchased.
We pulled into a leaf-strewn driveway with a simple and unassuming dwelling surrounded by an unkempt garden. My impression of the area had not changed in the least bit since first arriving, and hope it this changing was fading fast; faster than the fade on those Fords.

"Oh helloooo Richard. Its so cold today I thought you may not come."
Mrs Maritz.
Somewhere between 80 and a mortician.
If Plascon ever wanted to introduce a range of facial paint called "Extreme White", Mrs Maritz would be the pin-up girl.
It turns out she's the neighbour to Richards empty house, and has lived at the same place since she was a little girl; 5 years old to be exact. She looked like Mary from that famous painting of "The Last Supper", standing next to Jesus. I'm convinced its actually her. Why she'd be hiding out in Vanderbijlpark, Section CW5, is beyond me.

Anyways, we got invited in for a hot cup of tea before I began my inspection of Richards place, and I was half-expecting to be offered biscuits from the original gifts left by the Three Wise Men.

Barely two sips into my Rooibos tea and Mrs Maritz engaged me in conversation.I think she may have sensed my trepidation at becoming too comfortable in the surroundings.
It may have been the combination of the soothing tea & crunchy home-made biscuits, or maybe it was her soft manner, possibly even her gentle demeanour masked behind her toothy smile, but this charming woman had me totally disarmed of preconceptions before I could see the bottom of my tea-cup!
We chatted for almost an hour and at one point I even called her "Ouma".
Her neighbour from two doors away stopped by for a visit and to return a weathered and faded romance novel. The fade no longer reminiscent of a society stuck in the past, but rather one holding on to a bygone era brimming with history and culture.
Mrs Maritz and her friend Peggy had me so enthralled in tales of their fascinating lives and memories of the suburb, that the shackles of my first impression soon began opening; the cold chains now resembling a treasured charm bracelet.
I experienced an amazing moment as we stood on her sunlit porch, where I was able to look beyond the superficial and actually saw the people. I saw humanity where once only contempt dwelled.

It was an extraordinary afternoon, and it afforded me a lesson in life so many never have the opportunity to learn.
It taught me to give people the opportunity to pleasantly surprise you, and given this opportunity, they usually do.

I'm truly blessed to do the things in life I love doing; to have a career which thrills me every single day; to meet the amazing people I come across; but mostly i'm truly blessed to have the burning desire to always want to learn. To never stop learning about people. To always want to learn from life. To have the patience to allow the lessons to sink in.

To Mrs Maritz and Peggy, I bow my head in shame and whisper a humble Thank You.
Shame for having passed a judgement before I knew better.
Thank You for leading me with gentleness and kindness toward a better understanding.

As for you Richard, you knew all along what I had only today discovered.
I'm grateful that you led me to the river, and waited patiently until I drank, and realised, and truly saw :)

I shall be visiting Vanderbijlpark, Section CW5 again soon.
Sooner than I first thought.

Waving Flag

I was on Page 2 of this note when I decided to delete the entire thing.
Nothing I was writing made much sense. My mind was in a blur.
It's akin to the feeling of having lost a pet or a loved one. I'm not eating right. I'm having restless sleeps. I feel moody and crabby all the time. If I were female i'd seriously contemplate a pregnancy test.

Why?
This the question I keep asking myself.
Why did Bafana lose?
Why did they play so hopelessly and terribly?
Why did Saurez have to betray the nation so?
Why did Forlan's mother have to do the horizontal samba with his father?
Why?

I guess i'll never know the answer to these questions.
In the meantime, I have K'Naans song to keep me company.
I'm not thrilled with Shakira's WakaWaka; i've said this before.
But whenever I here Waving Flag, I love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utl-uOdX12w&feature=player_embedded

In other news, I realised I don't have as many pics uploaded on this blog as I did on all my previous blogs.
So in a feeble attempt at addressing this shortcoming, I present to you one of my favourite pics of Princess Sabreen.
She turns 4 in July!
I think I started my very first blog just before she was born! How time flies when you're having fun..

In Pursuit Of Perfection

I've started the New Year with a single resolution, unlike last year where I began with five, and by the end of the first 2 weeks I had decided on about 20, and before the year was up i'd achieved none of them.
So this year my resolution is simple : Achieve Nothing!
Thats right.

Every other year i've raised the bar, aimed for the stars, set my goals way up high, and only managed to trip over my shoelaces before I even got off the starting block. This time around, im not raising the bar at all. Im not even going to lift the bar off the floor. Im going to leave the bar right there where it lays.
Im not aiming for any stars. Im pointing my arrow at my small toe.
Im not setting any goals. Im taking the ball, im turning around, im facing my own nets, and im planning to score an own goal.

You see, the way I figure, in approximately 15 years of having set New Years resolutions, i've managed to accomplish a total of maybe 4. I know theyre 4 because I remember them as being the only one's i'd ever accomplished.
In no particular order, they were : 1) Learn to sing the national anthem by the time you reach 30. I dont have to understand it, I just have to be able to sing it. 2) Take part in a marathon. I didnt have to be a runner. Waterboys are an integral part of marathons too. 3) Read and understand Macbeth. Im still not 100% sure why Romeo had to die, but hey, I didnt write the book, I just had to read and understand it. 4) Learn a foreign language. This last one was the trickiest, but im glad to say that within 2 years of marriage, i'd fully grasped a new language. A couple of words learnt when I forgot to take the garbage out the night before we had guests for dinner; a couple of words learnt the day I watched the FA Cup Final while the missus was cooking lunch for all my mates who came over for the day; a few choice phrases learnt when i'd forgotten her birthday. You'd be amazed how fast and easy a foreign language is when you just apply your mind to it and put in some effort.

Anyways, back to my resolution this year.Im aiming for the bare minimum. Im hoping to hit Ground Zero from the floor up. Im planning on staying on the starting block long after the gun has gone and the last spectator has left the stadium. See, the way I figure, if I start the year with absolutely no plans of achieving anything, and I actually do manage to achieve something, I'd be doing pretty good for myself.

So heres to 2008, a year filled with disappointment and futility!May the days and months ahead be all I hoped it wouldnt be!May this be the year when I aim for nothing, and get it!And to all those out there who plan to light up the skies and aim for the stars this year, I wish you fatty thighs and muscular ears!

If Mastercard Calls...

Mastercard called me the other day.
I remember it like it was yesterday. Come to think of it, it was yesterday.
I was quietly sitting on my porch, gently swaying to and fro on my swing, watching the sunset blanket the landscape in her golden glow of warmth. Ok, so I live in the northern suburbs, and if you know anything about these shoeboxes they call townhouses, you’d know porches are a luxury we make do without; and the only way I could get a half-decent swing in my front yard is if they removed my entire garden to make place for it; and then it dawns on me that the sunsets golden glow is actually a Coin Security van on fire after a botched cash-in-transit heist on the highway.

Anyways, back to my point about Mastercard calling me.
They mentioned something about wanting me to make an urgent payment. I vaguely remember them using the words “Overdue” and “Final notice”. Now once before, when I was much younger and a whole lot more naïve, and they were a lot more generous about who they gave credit cards out to, I recall a similar call. Back then, being 19 and thinking that I was in college and nobody was smarter than me, I politely told the lady on the other end of the line that the previous owner of the number she was calling had sadly died. Here’s a tip: Never mention death to anyone calling for money. It’s like the word that triggers their evil side. I was in my bedroom at the time, and acting all cool and telling her about Mr Kaloo’s sad death, when she suddenly started scolding me, then threatening me, and finally giving me advice on how its better to make a payment plan than to lie.

Damn she was good.

She had me hiding my face in shame, and all this over the phone! I felt so bad, I turned the lights off. Now that’s when you know you’re really embarrassed, when you find yourself hiding in the dark from someone you cant even see!

Anyways, back to the point of my story.I’m back from a fabulous holiday. I’ve done everything they said you should do on DSTV’s “The Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous”.
Now its time to pay the bills.

So if Mastercard calls, tell them “I knew him. What a great guy! But agh shame… didnt you hear…?”