Humanity above religion

Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian refugees who are all muslims back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

"And He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

- The book of revelation 21:4

Adieu!

Good bye my dear X-Cali, we had a good but relatively short run together. However, we did share some really good times...and some bad times. I will definitely cherish all those moments and surely hope that you will be in good hands in future. 

"Live long and prosper!" 

Lesson I learned from my father

Scene from the episode "Más" of season 3 of TV series Breaking Bad.

Walter White: I have made a series of very bad decisions, I cannot make another one.
Gus Fring: Why did you make these decisions?
Walter White: For the good of my family.
Gus Fring: Then they weren't bad decisions. What does a man do, Walter? A man provides for his family.
Walter White: This cost me my family!
Gus Fring: When you have children, you'll always have family. They'll always be your priority, your responsibility. And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he's not appreciated, or respected or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he is a man.

Through heart

"Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

- From Le petit prince

147!

Yes, it has been 4 months since I last wrote here, not that I forgot about it but it was just complicated given the series of events that happened and what not.

I will now exit my self imposed exile and try to reflect on that. A couple of days after my post on Vasaloppet, I had an unfortunate accident on the XC track which left me grounded for 2 weeks at home and left a scar on my face. Then I saw my little princess to go through the toughest period of sickness ever. It took me some substantial time to realize what had actually happened but it did have a major impact on my mindset.

If only I could turn back time...

I sought comfort in other aspects of life but they only thing which helped me was my immediate family and in particular my daughter. I cannot say that I have fully recovered from that hit (as the scar is still physically there and most probably will never go away fully) but the only escape or rather defense was to attack. I got very much inspiration from the following quote which I read somewhere:

"Tant que je respire, j'attaque!" - "As long as I breath, I attack!"

So I got myself to another quite dangerous passion of mine, mountain biking and I will take part in my bike race ever really soon (I have to write more about my relation to cycling later on and some of my escapades back in the days). I just want to take part and enjoy the atmosphere, so no competition really... not to be a winner but feel like one.

I have been thinking very much about my blog and I deeply regret not 'pouring out' here during all the hard times but I didn't mostly due to fear and a good deal of laziness as always; it's much easier to write posts in my brain as they come up rather than writing them down here. I was afraid and broken and for some inexplicable masochistic way, I wanted to stay that way: I just can not figure why.

I witnessed a close friend of mine one lose a dear one and that also gave me shock and added more emptiness to the way that I see the world and our relations with people around us: family, friends, coworkers etc...they all will 'go' at one point and so will I. At the very end, I just realized the most meaningful thing in this life is my child who gives me the utter joy in life, without expectations, without prejudice and will always always forgive my faults and loves me exactly the way I am, as crazy and as distorted as I may be.

Figuring out the streets according to Roger

Roger: Here's a joke boy. One day this man walks out of his house to go to work. He sees this snail on his porch. So picks it up and chucks it over his roof, into the back yard. Snail bounces off a rock, cracks its shell all to shit, and lands in the grass. Snail lies there dying. But it doesn't die. It eats some grass. Slowly heals. Grows a new shell. After awhile, it can crawl again. One day the snail up and heads back to the front of the house. Finally, after a year, the little guy crawls back on the porch. Right then, the man walks out to go to work and sees this snail again. So he says to it, 'What the f---'s your problem?'

I don't wanna die without any scars

He also said: "How much can you know about yourself if you have never been into a fight?"

From the book "Movies R Fun" by Josh Cooley.

Oh...so mightily!

First snow has landed today and I can't be happier about it. So happy that I don't know what got into me and I took my bike to work today, I can't remember when was the last time (if there has ever been a time at all!) that I rode my bike in the snow. Of course most of the trip to and from work will be done by train but still...

So glad that I just bought my cross country gear and I am almost good to go, looking very much forward to substatial workouts in the tracks and hopefully some consequent weight loss. That depends wholly if my prayer below is accepted by whoever is in charge of these issues:

"May the clouds puke mightily!"

By the way, this is how the city looks like today at 10:41 AM.

On a somewhat irrelavant and or perhaps quite relavant note, I said no to another trip to Courchevel with the guys althought it was quite 'painful' for me to say no them and also the Courchevel II post is still in draft (the latter is very unlikely to be materialized as it stands now). I did so in the hope of settling for new place which could be organized via other friends but that seems a bit far fetched now so...we'll see what happens, fingers crossed! 

Battle for Haditha

This is very strong and disturbing film made by Nick Broomfield, a documentary maker with outstanding film record.  The plot, as mentioned early in the movie is about:

"On 19th of November 2005 an IED bomb planted in the roadside in Haditha, Iraq killed 1 marine and injured 2 others.

In the following hours marines killed 24 Iraqi men, women and children."

The movie has been shot in the style of documentary and it took me quite some time to realize that it is not actually a documentary. The drama is so strong that it made me emotional at times during the movie. I firstly aimed all my hatred to the marines and I was hoping that they all would vanish despite knowing the outcome of the story. But then I noticed that both sides were crying (or rather bleeding) heavily after all the dust had settled. The audience inevitably aims his emotions toward the leaders of the both sides who manipulate the minds of their followers and fire up the war with disregard to its casualties or consequences.

Once again, it was confirmed for me that "The first casualty of war is innocence."

A very fine piece of movie and yet another great work by Broomfield nonetheless.

Once upon a time in America

Noodles: You dancing?
Deborah Gelly: You asking?
Noodles: I'm asking.
Deborah Gelly: I'm dancing.

Happiness

"La felicidad solo es real cuando es compartida."

My indignation

"Got my indignation but I'm pure in my thoughts...I'm alive..."

- Eddie Vedder from Guaranteed

Change

"The significance of the moth is change. Caterpillar into chrysalis or pupa. From thence into beauty..."

- Dr. Haniball Lecter

Forgedaboudit

1. According to Donnie Brasco (played by Johnny Depp): "Foreget about it" is like, if you agree with some one, you know, like "Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass, forget about it." But then, if you disagree, like "A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it!" you know? But then, it's also like if something's the greatest thing in the world, like minga those peppers, "forget about it." But it's also like saying "Go to hell!" too. Like you know, "Hey Paulie, you got a one inch pecker!" and Pauile says "Forget about it!" And then, sometimes it just means forget about it.

2. New York term for "No comment" or "I would rather not say"

Vinnie: So Tony, how much money you made at the race track yesterday?

Tony: Forget about it!

3. A response to another person's statement indicating disbelief.

Joe: Tony Montana took 23 gunshots to the body before they took him.

Mickey: Forget about it!

Source: urbandictionary.com

Like Jesus said

"My God
 My God

Why have you forsaken me?"

- Matthew 27:46

Solitary confinement?

"Is that you John Wayne?

 Is this me?"

I am on the verge hitting the pinnacle of my isolation from the world. This 'leave' as much as being vital and necessary to some regards, it does take its toll on you when it comes to human contact and socializing. Being in a new city in another country does not necessary loosen things up but I guess things would have been more or less the same had we stayed home.

What can I do?

What should I do?

Will I miss it later?

I don't know but the loneliness and the silence is getting hard to bear, I guess 'det är bara bita ihop' and move on...somehow...

AMS

I love Amsterdam.

There is a sense of laid-back, liberty and above all, I-don't-give-a-#€%k about it that makes it very appealing. This is topped by its unique diversity, a perfect place for a reunion for a bunch of guys longing for good old times and missing their social interaction...just as we did last week and needless to say, it turned into a blast. 

"Now there is grey inside and outside..."

- Mr. P

A decade!

Today marks the tenth year of me leaving "home" for a new home, not that there's anything significant about it. Man, what a ride has it been even though the pace has been remarkably lower in the past couple of years. I suppose it is fair to say that the highlight of the last 'decade' (I like use this word to make it look more grand) top 5 noteworthy happenings, without particular order, can be defined as:

1. First child

2. Marriage

3. Graduation

4. Travels

5. Aging or rather noticing the aging!

Better not to get entangled with nostalgic feelings and in the past, andiamo avanti all the way.

Closing:

"To be yourself is all that you can be..."

- Chris Cornell 

From The Hurt Locker

Colonel Reed: You the guy in the flaming car, Sergeant James?

Staff Sergeant William James: Afternoon, sir. Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: Well, that's just hot shit. You're a wild man, you know that?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: He's a wild man. You know that? I want to shake your hand.

Staff Sergeant William James: Thank you, sir.

Colonel Reed: Yeah, how many bombs have you disarmed?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, I'm not quite sure.

Colonel Reed: Sergeant?

Staff Sergeant William James: Yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: I asked you a question.

Staff Sergeant William James: Eight hundred seventy-three, sir.

Colonel Reed: Eight hundred! And seventy-three. Eight hundred! And seventy-three. That's just hot shit. Eight hundred and seventy-three.

Staff Sergeant William James: Counting today, sir, yes.

Colonel Reed: That's gotta be record. What's the best way to...go about disarming one of these things?

Staff Sergeant William James: The way you don't die, sir.

Colonel Reed: That's a good one. That's spoken like a wild man. That's good.


Source: imdb.com

Courchevel

The love of the mountains and the thirst for feeling the raw and unfiltered speed were sufficiently quenched by one week of staying at propbably the largest ski resort in the world. The picture below does the justice to the beauty and the greatness of the 'matter' at hand more a thousand words.

Photo courtesy of AB.

One of the many subjects that the company of ours touched during this trip was the reason why we are so passionate about mountains. Answer (according to me): Because they remind us how minuscule we are in terms of being a 'being' and that, somehow, not only makes us happy in a strange sort of way but also creates a sense of passion and respect. The same goes with the stars and heavenly bodies or bodies of water in the nature. It's just that different people choose different paths; some choose the mountains, some choose the sky and some choose the sea. This long discussion is better left unfinished here and in conclusion, on a sort of irrelevant note, I wrap up by a quote by non-other than his holiness(?) The North Face which was reminded to us by Mr.P himself:

"Never stop exploring!"