The Strategic Reserves

I and my ex-friend(!) Cyrus went to Rudbar, a small nice town nearly 65 Km away from Rasht, the capital of Gilan province in Iran, by bicycle, some 25 years ago. Considering I lived in Tehran my whole life before immigration, that was one of my best trips I have ever taken so far in my life. Almost 365 Km (227 miles) by bicycle, of course not in one day(!) and one way only.

How we did that is we first paddled to Qazvin a major city on our way and stayed a night over there and then the next day headed to Rudbar. I eliminate the detail here to make my point. but on the way back we decided to rent a car, and drive up the valley because we simply didn't think we could bike up! Rudbar is located on the bottom of a valley which Sefid-Rud (White River) is passing through. Going back to Tehran required us to peddle up the valley and we didn't see it in ourselves in those days to be able to do that! We hired a guy, after talking to the locals to just get us up the road. Cyrus asked me how would pay the guy and I referred to the strategic reserves! I had enough cash to not only pay the fella but also get us to home.

You can get the best olive in the world in Rudbar. This is a typical olive store in that town. I hope I can go there one day soon again

Now more than 25 years after those years which the country was still stable and habitable I am using my strategic reserves here! The difference is these reserves are being used while I don't know when they could be replaced unlike those years that I was employed! These strategic reserves of mine are divided to low reserves and high reserves and I have been using them both in the past two weeks since I came back from my unsuccessful training.

My strategic reserves while are good and help me to stay floated are quite similar to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserves! Considering the amount of consumption per day, those reserves only, as far as I know last for 35 days only, no surprise though, considering how much is consumed on daily bases!

But the story of how these reserves of the US is quite interesting which I may say later alongside the story of my trip to Rudbar.

(Photo, top: John Pinkerton the Scottish cartographer made this map of northern part of Persia [Iran's name at the time] in 1818. The town of Rudbar can easily be seen in this map of 201 years ago! In the map Rudbar is spelled Roudbar which is fine!)

The First Rejection

It's been almost two weeks since I came back to Calgary after being kicked out of the training center. I started job searching immediately. The market doesn't seem to be very good. Though I have applied for a number of positions. I received the first response today, which was actually sent to me, to my e-mail last night: Not considered anymore!

I guess one mistake I have made in my resume is mentioning a recent work in the old country. That was the only way I could explain my 4 months absent from work. I don't know if that has a negative impact. It might. The Brave called me yesterday and blamed my failure on my background! Such a bullshit! There were two Iranians, one Iraqi and a number of Arabs in the training center and they all graduated and have already started their career! My failure has nothing to do with my previous nationality or what The Brave thinks it is, the religion! I failed because I simply could not handle that much of stress, lack of sleep, hours and hours of studying and crappy food! All those people handled the mentioned and are successful now. All I can do at this stage is keep applying and studying. I was able to convince a reputable organization to grant me access to the course that I had started in late 2017 and never was able to finish it. They gave me 90 days! So I'd better use it and get the damn certificate. It's something in the resume and I learn a few things. 

Bull and Goat

Persian culture is full of poems. There are quite of number of poets that all have fantastic and unique poems, not seen in any other culture.. To name a few: Ferdowsi, Saadi, Khayyam, Hafez, Molavi, Roodaki. Khayyam was just praised by Google last month when it was his 971st birthday. He was born in Neyshabur, a city in current Iran. 

But why am I mentioning this here where people don't even know what a poem is or never have heard one in their entire life!? They all are busy with their iPhone and all inclusive vacation to Mexi-shit-co and all other drug source countries! I'm naming these a poem which works well here in my situation that A. F. seems to be upset about. The poet is unknown for this one and now it has been used as a proverb. It goes:

کار هر بز نیست خرمن کوفتن

گاو نر می‌خواهد و مرد کهن

It literally means that if you want to harvest your crop, you need big strong bulls. A small tiny goat is not going to get the job done. Obviously this story refers goes back to the time that agricultural machinery did not exist although still in many parts of the world animals are used for this type of work.

Saadi's tomb in Shiraz, Iran. Painting by French architect Pascal Coste. He also traveled to Isfahan.

This proverb applies to me and my recent job application where I was booted out of the training center after 4 months! Not to mentioned the more-than-a-year waiting just to get to the training!

The training was mostly mentally demanding. Some physical too. I however was so close but a mistake at the last minute made me fall!

There's no point to talk about it any more and I'm old enough to go back in 2 years or try any similar job. Just something in addition to that is the concept of If I can do it, you can do it, said to me before I go there, by A. F., does not always work!

(Photo: The picture that Google have recently used to celebrate Khayyam's birthday)

Doodh Patti

The Chef has become careful since he had a heart attack but because he's such a ignorant fool, he doesn't know what he should eat or not! I have told him several times, especially before the heart attack, that the amount of Red Meat, Sugar and Processed Oil that he consumes is too much but he only listens after he got into trouble and not even completely!

We got together for a cooking day and we made Kash-o-Bademjoon which is a traditional Iranian food made with Eggplant (Aubergine, as they call it in the UK and Europe), Onion, Garlic and Kashk (a Milk product with high fat content) and he was going to eat that until I told him Kashk is a source of animal fat which is very bad for him. 

The tea eventually looks like this. You can see the layer of fat and a piece of cardamom floating on the top 

Then we decided to have some tea at a break between cocking different foods. He introduced Doodh Patti to me which is a traditional tea common in Indian sub-continent. This tea basically could kill someone like The Chef easily! Doodh Patti which is the name known in Pakistan is a type of hot beverage that Tea is boiled in a mixture of Milk, Sugar and Cardamon. It's very tasty but as you see the ingredients, it's not healthy particularly in Pakistan where I'm sure they use lots of Sugar and high fat content Milk. For us The Chef used 3.25% Organic Dairyland Milk which is awesome if you don't have any health issue and added Brown Sugar as low as possible but still was not good for him or even me! When you have a cup, you can't stop! You want to have more and more. So I guess we ended up having 4 cups that day but I asked The Chef to add half water instead of Milk. I believe we still need to be alive for a few more years! 

Being from the South of Iran, the port city of Bandar-e-Abbas and living in Pakistan and India, The Chef has many food habits of that part of the word: Lots of Sugar, lots of Animal Fat, Rice, Flat Bread and lots of Spices. It's now painfully difficult for him to give up on those food after almost 50 years! 

(Photo, top: This is how the traditional Pakistani tea is made. One I first saw that I wondered why a kettle is not used and then The Chef told me that everyone makes it like this in Pakistan! We used Lipton tea for this and I have already written about the type of Milk that we used)

The Ruski

One of the classmates in the training center was a Russian girl. I was sitting next to her the very first day that we started our orientation. I shock hands with her and of course I immediately realized her background when I saw her name. She was a kind of girl who never backs up. A bartender with 8 years of experience who a little more than a year before had decided to give the training a try and I'm sure that she would finish soon and graduate. I had a few exchange or words with her because she was making too much noise and was talking too much crap but then we became friends despite our age differences. I was joking with her and I told her that she was my favorite lady! 

Last week I received a message from her saying that she was missing me! By the way she was not bad looking but she was not beautiful either. She was very sexy though! A girl could be very sexy but not pretty or beautiful. She had a very smooth skin and beautiful dark hair that she always wore it ponytail and great body. She has one of the finest asses that I have ever seen. She once said that the bar she used to work for would not close until she would perform the last dance and I can understand why! 

Anyways she send me a message a few nights ago saying she was missing me! I don't understand why a sexy young girl who is about to get a good job soon and is married, according to her, would miss someone like me who is much older than her, had been recently booted out of the training center, has no job and is at least 4000 Km away from her! 

I suspect that was probably one of the guys using her telephone. My response as usual was very polite and friendly. I would love to have a girlfriend like that but I know it's impossible for someone in my position. Someone who is not experienced with women and is very careful. I can't imagine myself being under the control of her but at the same time I know that would be a good life because she's not a kind of girl whom things should be taught to her. 

Russia has always been on the top of the list of the countries that I wanted to visit but it has not happened. I and The Pika were joking about that years ago! I still hope I can go there one day. 

(Photo: The USSR was divided to 15 countries with Russia the largest indicated by number 11)

The Beautiful Dale Hodges Park

I'm back to Calgary and I haven't done much so far. All I've done is I was able reactivate the course I was doing and I will have three month for that. I will finish it and I will get the certificate. Then I found out that the supervisor from the last job had quit and even he didn't know what was going on over there. I will have to give them a call to see perhaps they take me back. It's better than being unemployed and spending the savings. And then I applied for a job and contacted K1 through e-mail to see if he could help. He has been working for the same company for the past 8 years.

Then just two days ago when I was checking on The Brave's property while he was on a trip I decided to have a walk around Dale Hodges Park. I truly was amazing by the beauty and the variety of the wildlife and vegetation in the area. 

Fortunately it was a cloudy day and weekday. So the park was not busy and I spent 01:30 walking around and taking photos. I could have taken more and better photos, had I not been lazy and tired and the sky was clear but it still was not bad. I saw at least 5 different types of bird that I'm only able to name one of them. The park used to be a gravel pit and now is, of course, a beautiful park. Thanks Mr. Hodges. For a number of photos from the park refer to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/49680327@N05/

(Photo: This duck, if I'm not wrong, was surfing on the water so smoothly that it reminded me of alligators of Louisiana. Not that I've been there! But I would like to go)