Recovery of a Stolen Mobile Phone

I have not been very lucky with my cell phones. Admittedly my first Siemens one lasted years. It was a typical die hard one that was much abused by my youngest daughter. It survived being thrown in the air by a toddler several times a day from where it would crash land on the floor, split into three separate parts (the front ,the back and the battery pack) which would fly off in three different directions. But press the three of them back together and it would start working again, that is until the day I placed it on the breakfast table beside my plate and accidentally spilled a full glass of water on it.

That was the end of that faithful companion.

The next one was a Motorola razor (which looked better than it performed). I did not even need to place it on the breakfast table. My youngest who was about three at the time took it to the bathroom , rubbed a generous amount of soap on it, rinsed it under the tap then brought it back to me all wet and dripping. What ever functionality was left in it was taken care of by the Motorola repair people who completely killed it while trying to fix it.

Third was a basic Nokia one. No frills, no special features, just a plain simple mobile phone. It was useful, economical and reliable just like a cell phone should be. Alas, I left it in the back seat of my car one day and when I came back the back window was smashed and the mobile was gone. Ironically that broken window cost us more to replace than what that stolen mobile would probably have fetched in the market.

The latest that happened in a series of unfortunate events involving my cell phones is that my newest one also disappeared.

It was a Sony Ericsson Z610i.

Not only was it expensive but I had also grown considerably attached to it.

Well now that it was gone there was nothing that I could do about it except lament.

But was it really gone?

The day following the theft, as I was coming down for breakfast early in the morning I thought I heard the six o clock morning alarm sound on my cell phone. Not believing what I had heard, I called other family members to the spot. (The mobile had been promptly turned off once it had been picked but the morning alarm had not been deactivated)

What followed was hilarious. Every body standing completely motion less waiting for the alarm to ring and every time it did a pandemonium would erupt as every one tried to figure out where the sound was coming from. We finally tracked it down to a vent in the garage roof where it was neatly wrapped up in plastic bag all ready to be collected at a later, more convenient time.

The hiding place delivered a lot more than just the missing mobile. We did have some workmen in the house repairing stuff on the day the mobile was stolen but since only a few pew people knew that vent in the roof was removable plus the fact that it disappeared from inside the house and was discovered within its premises, narrows down the list of suspects considerably. Infect I am pretty sure I know who the culprit is. But since we did not catch the thief red handed I prefer to keep my mouth shut and my eyes wide open in future.

For now I am just happy that I have got my cell phone back.

I love you Z610i and I love the sound of your alarm ;-)

Nature’s Wonderful Spectacle

Yesterday it rained while the sun was shinning.

It looked fantastic.

Just plain fantastic.

Sure music heals but sometimes ....it hurts too

Now we all know about protest group and the things they do to get attention. Don’t get me wrong, I have all the respect for them (well for some of them any way) but I heard of the doings of one that induced laughter more than admiration.
It so happened that while vacationing in England last summer we decided to take a guided tour to see the changing of the guard’s ceremony.

The royal guards traditionally start their daily parade from St James palace and end it at Buckingham palace.

As we waited for the guards to come out, our tour guide proceeded to tell us a about a protest group demonstration that had taken place in front of St. James palace a while ago (unfortunately I neither recall the name of the group nor what they were protesting about). One of the members of the group decided he would be better heard (or seen) if he could lodge his protest from inside St. James palace. As the band that precedes the guards was playing in front of the palace, this guy made a dash to enter the building. He somehow got past the mounted security officials (as well as the unmounted ones) and started dodging between the band players to get inside the building. Now we all know that the guards along with band members are an extremely disciplined lot.
No matter what, these guys don’t leave their positions what ever the temptation may be.
Apparently that protesting guy thought so too.
Poor guy thought he had made it to the palace as he ran zig zag between the band members playing on their respective instruments. Alas, just as he passed the guy with the cymbals, the musician suddenly widened his arc and hit the guy “bang” on his head with the cymbal.

That was the end of the protestor’s efforts as he fell to the ground unconscious.
Whereas the band and the guards, true to their creed, undaunted and unmoved by what had taken place, delicately stepped over him and continued with their parade to Buckingham palace.

The police came and arrested the protestor afterwards.
So moral of the story according to our tour guide was:

Stay away from the guy with the cymbals.

The fogs of Lahore

I vowed to myself that I would not regret my decision to move from Karachi to Lahore.
I never did.

But that did not mean that I wouldn’t miss Karachi. Karachi after all is a bustling cosmopolitan city. Compared to it, Lahore has a somewhat sedentary attitude. It is true that Karachi has a lot to offer, a lot more than Lahore.

But then Lahore is not without its surprises.

Ok so may be Lahore has not got awesome shopping malls ( yet ) like Karachi but there is the Shahi Qila , Shalamar gardens and several hundred years of history.
Since we moved here two years ago there have been several surprise offerings from Lahore in addition to fascinating historic locations.

One of these surprises is the fog of Lahore. Being a Karachite for more than 15 years, fog was something I had never seen before in my life. And we (the family and myself) just didn’t get to see it, we almost got lost in it, not once but twice.
Thankfully we managed to make it home safely both times but I will never forget the experience.

Since then I have seen all kinds of fogs.

Mist that stays close to the ground and slowly creeps forward (like it does in one of those C grade horror movies’ cemetery scenes. The only thing missing were the ghouls that walk on top of it).
Then there is the haze that completely envelops every thing, reducing visibility to zero. It is the zero visibility that is most inconvenient; you can not see anything beyond two feet.

Amazing, that is how I would describe it, not at all frightening, eerie perhaps but never scary.
Now the fog season is gone.

Summer is on its way but I have some photos to remind me what it was like.
And how it will be again next year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Three cheers for me

I once wrote in by blog about the joys of doing something for the first time.

Well… there has been another first time to for me.

I FINALLY MANAGED TO DO ONE HUNDRED LENGTHS IN THE SWIMMING POOL.

Ok, I admit that the pool isn’t huge, but it isn’t tiny either and I know for those of you who are enthusiastic swimmers this is no big achievement. Countless have managed a hundred lengths probably hundreds of time in their life. But like I mentioned in my old blog, it is not the event or the act itself which excites me so much. It is the fact that I managed to do it for the first time in my life. Next time I do it I will probably be as casual about it as the human fish swimming along side me in the pool who completes a century every single day.

But until then let me bask in the glory of self accomplishment

Bubble Trouble

Up till two months ago my son was a fairly regular visitor to the community pool managing a decent number of laps in an hour or so. If he ever swam too vigorously and became out of breath he would counter that problem by blowing bubbles under water: A technique to control breathing that was taught to him by his old swimming coach.
One day, after a few energetic lengths he decided to apply this technique before resuming his strokes. Not far from him, lounging in one of the shallow corners of the pool, a middle aged gentleman was resting with his back to the wall and arms spread eagle like on the support pipe running along the sides of the pool. As my son proceeded to release the air from his mouth he glanced sideways, towards the submerged lower half of the man and saw similar bubbles coming out of his ....... ahem ........ swimming trunks. Apparently the man was also getting rid of some air but very obviously from the wrong end.
Totally taken aback by this unseemly act and shocked at the man’s disrespect for propriety in a public place, my son did the only thing he could. He swam as hard as he could and ended up at the far side of the pool at a speed that may have matched Phelps’ performance at Beijing. For the next twenty minutes or so my son played the self invented game of “let’s put as much distance between myself and that infernal bubble machine”, by swimming to the other side of the pool every time he saw that man heading towards his end.
Well, to cut the long story short, that was the last time my boy visited the community pool. And since summer is coming to an end, it is hardly likely that he will go back there again this year. I am hoping that by next summer the memory of the bubble blowing rear end of that idiot would have faded enough for me to persuade him to resume his aquatic activities once again.
But honestly,
The things people do when they think no one is watching.