december moon

for sale!

gone shoppin

Allen premium outlet, North Texas.

happy thanksgiving

After more than two weeks, it was finally sunny today. A very nice Autumn day.

pmal

Just a little holiday joke.

shopping season

All you chic girls and guys, it's shopping season again. Remember, there are at least four shopping seasons per year in this country and this one is one of the four most important ones. You cannot afford to miss it!

Persian Gulf

Opposing National geographic's recently published map, which puts the fake 'Arabian Gulf' phrase in parenthesis next to the authentic name 'Persian Gulf'.
Photo courtesy of Pars Times and NASA.

arabian gulf does not exist.
arabian gulf does not exist.
arabian gulf does not exist.

golf

It has been cloudy here for more than two weeks now and often rainy and chilling. I like mildly cold weather but not many locals share this taste with me. Especially not the fans of our neighboring golf club. This photo was taken in a nice and sunny September afternoon.

fall back

Don Alfonso

Don Alfonso was Dora's father. Dora is my close friend Ahmad's Columbian girl friend. Both Maryam and I like Dora and her sweet parents very much. On Monday, he died of a heart disease that they knew about for some time. The couple were green card holders. Normally they spent most of their time in Columbia and traveled to the US only for a month or two every year but this time the INS officer in the airport warned them that if they do not stay long enough they might loose their status. So, this time they stayed a few months. He and Dora's lovely Mom were going to finally go back to Columbia in a couple of weeks and were very excited about it. Don Alfonso was going to have his heart operated the first thing after they get there. Too late, unfortunately.

We got to know them during their visits in the past couple of years and spent some quality time with them. The man was a lot of fun to be with. He is gone know and we all miss him. Tonight was the visitaion ceremony. He looked so calm in his coffin.

Adios Don Alfonso.

persian night

Our Persian Cultural Society held a Persian Night celebration tonight. There were lots of poetry, music, and games. Many of the Iranian families that live in the DFW area (the Dallas & Fort Worth metroplex) showed up. It was a very humble party, as you can tell from the pictures (just look at the chairs below), but it was a big success for our organization. Things went reasonably as they were planed. Did I mention that I designed the 24 pages bilingual booklet of the program and chose the poems that were to be read during the event? Maryam (my wife) designed the flower baskets used to decorate the stage and recited a Hafiz poem.


This is after the show, when all the audience had already left.

fall in dallas

Since an undeclared contest for posting fall scenes is going on in the photoblogsphere, I decided to let you'all know that Dallas too has a fall season. Well, sort of :-)

staircase

gone

The man to love and hate.

He is history now.

seagull

reflection

This is a 2" exposure, only for the first few milliseconds of which the light was on. Since my resources are very primitive, I had to ask someone to turn off the light very quickly after I clicked. We tried it several times but accidentally, the first one turned out to be the best. This is the original color photo and has not been toned or anything, only noise filtered and cropped.

through glass

----

playing with the globe

Portrait IV

inside

In the elevator

Absurd

Why is democracy sometimes so impotent?

[update 1:01 am] Maybe it is not democracy that is impotent. Maybe it is just the old trick of scaring people to get their vote that comes handy once and again. Lets just hope that America and the world can stand another four years of the coalition of religious fundamentalists and corporate special interests in the White House. Lets stay positive.

[update 11/03/04, 21:10] here is a photo that goes with the day's mood:

from wideangle.ca

Vote

Please vote today. And not for W please.

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