I’m usually a very stubborn person when it comes to going to a Doctor, and usually I try to let the sickness run its course and I will be fine. Today in the morning I woke up feeling drained, and when I was driving I suddenly felt my head start spinning, I felt very light headed. I pulled over since this was the first time something like this has happened to me. At that point I decided to call the doctor at 8:00am and I spoke to him I remember that I have some meeting so I asked if I could pass by around noon, he said anytime since I’m feeling dizzy.
I opened up the little fridge in the Landcruiser and drank two mini-7 Ups to just give me a jolt of energy. When I was at work I felt nauseated the whole time there but I had to keep on going since I had a lot to finish up and I wanted others to finish a few things up as well. I’m usually following up with people, just like a storm through the office, every once in a while I would get this feeling in my gut that something is wrong and I have to rest for bit. I ran around to all the meetings, and finished up a lot of work, I thought to go to the doctor after work, I’m just stubborn and I don’t like leaving any work unfinished. This time I saw that I was losing energy and I wasn’t being as productive as I should be so decided to go to the doctor, but I did finish most of my work. I left work around 2:30pm to be at the doctor by 3:00pm. After his analysis he gave me the medication and I went home to get a little sleep, but I have few things that I wanted to do. Its annoying being sick!
After just being away for a few days from work I came back with a pile of paperwork on my table and it was insane. I had to come to full throttle from the first minute I was in, it was insane I didn’t have a lot of emails as much as I had things I had to do to make sure the ship is going forward. I’m coming in early and leaving a little late, not too late but the work at the end of the day is exhausting. Its good getting back into the groove of things but I also have to keep on pushing a lot of people and driving them nuts.
Recently I have been working on business plans, and I did them a few times before, after some trial and a lot of error I decided to give my best basic overview of how to put a basic business plan together and why it would be useful.
That main purpose of business plan is gather all your ideas in one place and communicating it to another person, so the best thing is to think about it as dialog, you want to answer every possible question that person may have, be thurough and don’t just try filling it up.
Everybody has all the details to a business plan in their heads but they don’t put it all down on paper:
- What the company is going to do?
- What problem is it going to solve?
- How big is the market?
- What are the sources of revenue?
- What is your exit strategy for your investors?
- What amount of money is required?
- How are you going to market it?
- What kind of people do you need?
- What are the marketing risks?
- What are the technology risks?
- What are the execution risks?
Have somebody else go over and critique it then fix the points you missed and keep on going over it. This is just a simple way of putting all your ideas and motivation down on a piece paper and communicate it to another person.
I was trying my best to just eat at hotels or where people said it was safe to eat while in Egypt. There were only two times when I ate outside the hotel and it seems that got me. I got a mild case of food poisoning around Wednesday night, and I felt it from Thursday afternoon and onwards. I was told that in Egypt there is a high probability that you can get food poisoning but even eating outside a hotel the one time was one time too many.
Possible Reasons:
- Water
- Salad
- Other Food
At this point I’m not sure what exactly affected me but I’m taking it easy since I do feel pain every little while, and it feels as if something is twisting around inside there. I think it will take at least another few days for it to take its course, I’m just eating some yogurt from now until then to help things settle down.
It was Thursday and everyone was getting ready for the important night, well all the females were. We were supposed to be at the hotel by 9:00pm since a few things were running late, and the hotel was 10 minutes away with traffic. We were relaxing by the pool for a few hours before deciding to freshen up, what we did was hit the steam room in the Four Season’s Spa for a few minutes, then jumping in the jacuzzi for bit, then taking a shower, and then shaving right after that. This was all taking place in the spa and provided for free to guests of the hotel, they also had a shaving kit which we all used. Then each one of us headed to their rooms to get ready by 8:30pm.
I went upstairs and took my time since it wouldn’t take me much to get ready, I decided to take another shower. I finished showering and changing into the suit in less then twenty minutes, and I have to say that I felt good. The first thought that came into my head was that now you can call me Tony Soprano, I felt like an old school mobster and it was fun.
We met in the hotel lobby and went to the hotel where the engagement was being held. When we walked into the hall I kept saying hello to all the parents that remember me from the US, then I was also saying hello to the parents of the bride and it seems they heard a lot of about, I seem to be “infamous”. Our table was pointed out to us and so we went and sat down waiting to hear arrival or some notification. The music started so we knew something was starting, and we went out to see the groom and bride. The groom was dressed nicely, but the bride looked great and both of them looked very happy. I was happy for the guy, he got a good girl and I managed to sit down and talk to her before, she had to pass my test since the groom is one of my closest friend, and she passed with flying colors. What you could pick up between them is that there is good chemistry and they do care about each other, and the funny part is he is the type of guy who doesn’t like showing his softer side, so I was enjoying every moment of it.
As they were walking in I felt really bad for them because they had to smile so much and for so long. They didn’t even get to sit down for long before they had to get up and start dancing. This engagement party was a little different then what I used to, I have never been to an Egyptian engagement party but it was very nice and classy. Everybody started dancing around the bride and groom, and all I have to say was that my feet were sore after a couple of hours. It was 90% Egyptian songs, but when the other 10% kicked in I have to say I’m happy I learned a little salsa back in the day. It was a lot of fun with great company, and everyone was very happy. It ended around 4am, and by that time I wanted to put my feet in cold water.
None of was went to sleep until 8:30am Friday morning we were sitting a while at the hotel talking about a lot of stuff and laughing, thinking about whats going to happen during the big wedding in December. The trip was worth everything to see my friend happy as he is, I’m thinking he would like to skip the whole steps but something you just have to go through.
I woke up around 1:00pm and I called the front desk asking them when is late check out, they told me its 2:00pm so I went back to sleep until 2:00pm and then I got up to shower and pack. My friends were laughing at how lazy I was being but I was exhausted after the long day/night the day before.
The driver to the airport was ready and so I was almost done with everything in the room. I was dragging myself from the room to the lobby to check out, I looked at the bill and went over everything they charged for. Then I was saying goodbye to the guys in the lobby, and I headed out. My flight was at 6:30pm and I left the hotel at 3:35pm, my friend told me it would take 30-40mins to get to the airport, no less then 30 minutes. I thought let me see if I can get there faster, I told the driver I don’t care how he drives just get me there in less then 30 minutes.
After that statement the driver turned and asked me if I would be scared, I told him to do his worst and his worst he did. He was driving like a maniac, and it felt like a roller coaster. I have no one to blame but myself, and it was very entertaining, he was splitting lanes, flying past buses, sliding a few times during turns, and we arrived in 21 minutes.
This time on the way out I found out there is a VIP service that you pay $100 to sit in a lounge while they check in your bags and stamp your passport while you sit and wait in a somewhat comfortable area. While everything was done I went straight to the business lounge and I passed out on the couch from 4:15 until 5:30pm, then the guy woke me up to board the plane. I boarded the plane and went to sleep before take off, I was lucky I did that since the plane was 45 minutes late. This time I was lucky we had a more experienced pilot, and the flight was mostly filled with business men, so no screaming kids.
Kuwait airport was something else though, they couldn’t land the plane at a gate since it seemed there were too many planes. So that meant a long wait for bags, which turned into a 20 minute wait to get our bags, and I didn’t get mine until 25 minutes after that so that was another 45 minutes, at peak efficiency! I was happy to get into my Landcruiser and drive home on the open roads of Kuwait.
I think the title speaks for itself, one thing everyone should know from day one! The taxi cabs in Egypt don’t care if they hit you and if they do they make the biggest scene in the world making it seem like it is the end of the world. I feel really sorry for the person who decided to draw any lines on any of the roads in Egypt, they mean nothing to anyone in Egypt! Another note most of the Taxi Cabs are either Fiats or Peugeots from the 60s and 70s, and they are made of complete steel which makes them invulnerable to 21st century vehicles.
Honking is second nature to everyone who drives there, and they always cut each other off, its complete insanity. The funniest thing I saw was when a police officer pointed at two different lanes to go forward at the same time which resulted it 4 car accident, nobody was hurt but it was funny nobody slowed down for the other person coming in the direction to their left, nobody backs away in Egypt.
The past couple of days I have been running around with a few of my friends in Cairo to different parts and meeting his wife to be for the first time. I have to say that I think I left a lasting impression on her and her great family. It was funny, two of us were always tagging along with the guy for all the errands he had to run and adjusting all the details before the engagement party.
All I said to him was that I would look better then him in a suit guaranteed, so keep your girl close to you! It was four of us who are good friends from California all meeting up for his engagement in Egypt, and the wedding is supposed to take place in the end of December which is going to be insane. We were staying at the Four Seasons Nile in Cairo for the whole time, and everything in Cairo is 10-15 minutes away, its only because of traffic that you would be late.
The first day was fun I met up with the guys later in the night while I was reading through some paperwork for work. Then we went out at night and we hung out until 6am, then we went to the pool for a couple of hours the next day and relaxed. Then we went out to dinner with his bride and her friends which was a lot of fun. The next day we were relaxing since the engagement party was going to take place at around 9pm, so we were relaxing next to the pool for most of the time before getting ready. All I had to do was shower, shave, and put the suit on which took about 20 minutes at most since I was taking my time.
Everything went really quick, but it was nice seeing my friend really happy and seeing a few of my friends who I’m planning to join up with in the states in a couple of months.
Going back for some old school movies we decided to watch The Matrix, I had it on HD-DVD and I kept pushing for it. It brought back a lot of memories, and it was one hell of a movie that left its mark. The action was nothing short of great even though I have seen it many times, seeing Neo realize his powers against The Agents gets my blood pumping. This movie is nothing short of excellent but there was something different this time around, this the first full length movie I have watched in 1080p on a 1080p screen. The details and depth of view was fantastic, its as if you were in every scene, and you could feel the hits in each fight scene its fantastic. If your a movie lover then then HD-DVDs or Blu Ray DVDs are for you. The fight between Neo and Agent Smith in the train station was fantastic since you see it from different angles and it keeps shifting around.
I decided to get something quick to eat at Pizza Expressbefore getting on the plane since I was really hungry, and so I had the cream chicken pizza which was pretty good. There was a decnet amount of people at the airport.
If you can, AVOID flying Kuwait Airways! The staff was very unprofessional except for one person, the plane feels really old in the inside and I think a bunch of kids were having a scream-a-thon in between the cabins. I was lucky I managed to go to sleep, I didn’t think it would be a good thing to eat anything they were offering either.
At one point the pilot warned us to put our seat belts on once every three minutes, it made no sense even the older gentlemen next to me was getting annoyed with him. As we were getting close I didn’t think you could do what this pilot did with this plane. At one point the plane was pointing up, and descending then suddenly he hit the brakes real hard making the plane tilt forward so then at that point the plane is pointing downward and he lowered the gear while the plane is really high up. When it came to the landing, the plane was pointing to the left during the landing so it jolted around when it landed. This pilot had no clue what he was doing, and when there was turbulance he made it feel like we were inside a blender.
The only thing I can say about Cairo Airport is that it reminded me the Friday Market with more people shouting for their bags, it was total insanity.
