Wizard of Oz told the Tin Man...

… “that a heart is not measured by how much you love, but by how much others love you.”

As you know, we celebrated the birth of our son, Brayden Layegh, at 3:19 AM on Tuesday, February 22, 2011. As I began to reflect back on the week, I realized how lucky we are to be surrounded by such loving family, friends and colleagues.

• Thank you for being there for us every step of the way during the pregnancy, including the “surprise” baby shower J
• Thank you for meeting us at the hospital when we were being checked in.
• Thank you for taking care of my little Princess Isabella the whole day while we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of her little brother… I know she had a blast at the aquarium and loved the sushi dinner.
• Thank you for the well wishes and your patience… I know many of you were waiting by the phone and checking the Facebook updates every minute for the news.
• Thank you for the messages via Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerry Messenger and by email… we love you all.
• Thank you for calling in every couple of hours to see if we needed anything.
• Thank you for keeping me well fed throughout the hospital stay, including the homemade meals that came with the stainless steel cutleries J
• Thank you for the gifts and flowers and the numerous trips you made downtown just to visit the little Peanut and his ever-so-beautiful Mom.
• Thank you for straightening Karm’s hair just to make sure she looks beautiful for her release the next day.
• Thank you for keeping us company way past the visiting hours and the Diet Coke J
• Thank you for taking care of us before, during and after.

Most importantly, thank you for sharing the joy with us. Karm, Isabella, Brayden and I love you forever and always… we’re certainly loved by you!

Thanks for reading,

Armin

Milestone Achieved...

And I have to thank you!

I began writing for therapeutic purposes; it was a way for me to share my personal thoughts and experiences with my family, friends and colleagues. I find peace in sitting in front of my computer and collecting my thoughts, reflecting on my days past and typing away.

I think we all reach a point in our lives where we want to share and teach. I think most of us want to let others know that they are not alone. We contribute to each others’ experiences across the globe without ever setting foot in each others’ houses, neighbourhoods, villages, cities or countries.

It’s an amazing world we live in and we have each other to thank for it, good or bad.

So what milestone am I thanking you for? It is the 1000+ readers celebration, some of whom I’ve never met before nor have I visited their countries in the past.

Here’re some stats to share with you:

• First blog entry: 9:30 PM – Pacific Standard Time, on November 24, 2010, titled Not Another Blogger
• Number of readers to date: 1,027
• Most read blog entry: Rest in Peace My Friend, dated January 1, 2011
• Least read blog entry: You’re purple; want to be friends, dated February 6, 2011
• Top three “referring sites” in order: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (in case you’re wondering, Google was number 4 on the list)
• Funny Stat: One of the reasons why my blog showed up on Google so many times was because of people searching for the following keywords: “big mac delicious”, which took them to my blog J
• “Page views by countries” in order of highest to lowest (are you ready for this – drum rolls please): Canada, United States, Denmark, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Philippines, Slovenia, and France; the best part is that I haven’t even been to those countries that are marked in “red”
• Just for fun, I thank the following “browsers” (top three only as the list is too long): Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox
• Also, I’d like to thank the following top three operating systems for allowing readers to access my blog: Windows, Macintosh and iPhone.

Once again, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read my blogs... it means a lot to me.

Good bye, farvel, 再见, Abschied, mabuti bye, nasvidenje, au revoir, and …

وداعا

Armin

How to add a customer in 5 minutes and lose it in 3!

Recently, a young man stopped by our house to sell us a newspaper subscription. Although he was not dressed for the occasion (gym appropriate attire), he had the right attitude and the selling skills that were unparalleled: Firm introduction, smile on his face, and a well rehearsed sales pitch.

He told me of what I should expect out of my purchase and how it would benefit me (the buyer), him (the seller - in this case, the newspaper publisher would contribute a percentage of his sales towards his college Journalism School tuition if he sold 1000 subscriptions in one month), and the company (increase in number of readers = increase in advertising revenues).

But here’s the sales “hook”: The price was just perfect; a 3-month subscription at approximately $.50 per issue.

So I signed up and began to enjoy receiving my newspaper every morning, Monday to Saturday, before 6:00 AM, and reading at nights while sipping on my chamomile tea. Life was good! Until a month into my subscription…

I received a call from the customer service department of the publisher asking me whether or not I was enjoying my paper. Excitedly, I told them yes. The pleasant voice on the other line asked whether or not I’d like to extend my subscription to the end of the year. I answered of course I would if they are willing to maintain the same price. The voice, with a little smirk, said “No Sir, that was just an introductory price and that there’s no way we could extend the same deal”. Disappointed, I said thank you and informed “the voice” of my intention to cancel the subscription after my three months are up. “The voice” thanked me for my time and then hung up on me. L

About a week later, I received another call from the customer service department and we went through the same exercise as the one before: I agreed to extend my subscription only if the newspaper company is willing to offer the same deal. “The new voice” said there’s no way and that I’ll need to call another number to cancel my subscription before my three months are up to ensure that I won’t be penalized for not canceling on time. L

So I called the “subscription / customer service” department to cancel my subscription, which is open from Monday to Friday from 5:30 AM to 2:30 PM (convenient hours). Suddenly, I was the most valuable customer ever and they couldn’t figure out why the last two customer service representatives could not extend the same deal. They tried very hard to keep me as a customer, including offering me the same great deal as the one I had for the full year, but the damage was done. I had given them two chances to renew the subscription with no success, so now I had decided to cancel my subscription (at least until the next “door-to-door” sales representative shows up at my door with a better deal than the last one I had).

My two cents: Amongst a whole series of disappointing customer service interactions, this newspaper company and its representatives failed to see the benefits of keeping me as a customer at a reduced rate versus losing me and not generating any revenue, albeit a very small one.

Thank you for reading,

Armin

PS. Even though I love technology, I must admit that for me there’s something magical about opening my favourite newspaper and losing myself in the commentaries and the editorials.

You’re purple; want to be friends

Can you imagine what an awesome world we would be living in if we could read each others’ moods? One look at yourself in the mirror and you’d know exactly what type of day you were about to have. And people around you would either ignore you or would want to be your best friend.

Imagine no more comments like “wow, did you get off the wrong side of the bed this morning” or “who peed in your cereal” because people knew what kind of mood you’re in: Black.

Another day, people would say things like, “oh, here comes Mr. Sunshine” or “wow, you look terrific today”. That is simply because you’re yellow with a tint of green.

And then there’re moments that complete strangers would ask “you’re purple; want to be friends <wink> <wink>?”. Ahhh, you’re in heaven!

Imagine, there will be no more arguments, fights or disagreements; only world peace! This, of course, could only happen if we could read each others’ moods.

Impossible you say; rubbish I say!!! The technology is already here, it’s just that we are not taking advantage of it. They are called BioDots ;)

These tiny little “mole” looking stick-on items are readily available. Here’s how they work: As most of us know, body temperature changes under stress due to slower and/or restricted blood flow... the colder one gets the tenser the mood; do you remember the whole fight or flight or freeze symptoms when facing danger? Well, on the colour spectrum, ranging from purple to black, you’d most likely be at black when facing a tense situation.

There are times that I wish we all had a BioDot planted on our foreheads. I know of couple of people that could definitely use such a tool to keep friends, colleagues and foes away.

This product, of course, does have a downside: it doesn’t come in the glow-in-the-dark version, which is too bad because most of us could have used one at the nightclubs during our teen years.

Thanks for reading,

Armin

PS. I used one of these biodots last week and it worked 90% of the time except for when I was in a foul mood, which no colour in the world could identify it ;)

A little lie is OK, right?

Apparently, it’s not if you’re 5 years old. Shish, I was put on the spot, had to explain myself, and then had to lie some more to fix it.

Situation: My family and I were heading up to Cypress Mountain to celebrate a friend’s birthday by snow-tubing, which is an insane activity consisting of sitting on an inflated rubber and coming down a steep hill at an insane speed. Frankly, there were moments that I thought I was going to dislocate my shoulder. Back to the story: Given that this was my 2^nd or 3^rd time up the mountain, I thought I’ll use my OnStar (a person-to-person Global Positioning System offered by GMC) to find the fastest way to get there. Well, as I was speaking to “my” personal advisor, I mentioned that we were heading up to the mountains for some skiing!!!

Explanation: Aha, do you see the problem here? I said skiing and not snow-tubing. Well, as you may have guessed, this prompted my 5 year old, god bless her truthfulness, to yell from the back seat “Daddy, we’re not going skiing! We’re going snow-tubing”, all while I’m still on the call with “my advisor”. Of course, I turn around and motion to my daughter to be quiet as I do not want to embarrass myself by telling the OnStar advisor that I’m going snow-tubing. I mean really, who lives in Canada and doesn’t know to ski? Oh, I know!!! Me!

So while I’m shushing my daughter, the advisor downloads the route to my GPS and wishes us a safe trip (probably while laughing his head off on the other line) and hangs up. That’s when my daughter repeatedly informed me that I shouldn’t have lied to the advisor and that I should call them back and apologize. Apparently, apologizing to my daughter wasn’t good enough because she just wouldn’t drop it.

Lies, lies and more lies: Realizing that it was a lost battle with my daughter and the fact that calling OnStar back would not solve the problem as I would most likely end up speaking to a different advisor, I decided to end the conversation with another lie: “Honey, you’re right... I shouldn’t have lied! I promise to send OnStar an email first thing in the morning to apologize and let them know that we went snow-tubing and not skiing”.

I promise to set the record straight one day!

My commitment: I will no longer lie or exaggerate the truth! I just won’t say what’s on my mind ;)

Thanks for reading,

Armin

Ps. I hope my daughter will be as adamant in telling the truth when she is a teenager!



This is our group coming down the hill! Isabella, my daughter, is right in the middle!



Don’t pee in the ocean...

Do you remember that one time in the middle of the night, under the full moon, in Mexico, after several shots of tequila and muchas cervezas, you decided to get off your beach chair and stand by the lovely Atlantic Ocean and relieve yourself while the cool waves were gently washing your feet? Ah, it felt great, didn’t?

Well, did you look down at your feet to see where all that pee ended up?

So here we are in 2011 and many are sounding off the alarms. Scientists, environmentalists and others are no longer reminding us gently to be kind to Mother Earth; rather they are hitting us in the head with piles and piles of documents, which are most likely printed on cheap paper imported from one of the old rainforests in British Columbia or Brazil.

Well, it was nearly 40 years ago when my grandmother told me “never pee in the ocean” (please excuse the language, but she was a straight-forward and no non-sense woman, who survived many wars and did not think she owed anyone anything). She always said to be careful with how we treat Mother Earth because as kind as she is, she does have a temper.

Well, as you’d expect, I didn’t realize what my grandmother meant until a decade later. Here it goes: After many years of abusing Mother Earth, she is finally throwing it back at us. She is telling us that enough is enough and that she can no longer accommodate our wastefulness and growth. Have you noticed how much stuff we have been throwing away over the past couple of centuries? Everything we own is getting bigger, including our expectations from Mother Earth.

Why not take a step back and figure out what it is that we need in this life and pursue that instead of owning a television set in each one of our 4 bedrooms, living room, family room, toy room, home gym, entertainment room, each one of our bathrooms, and the one that is installed to the ceiling of the master bedroom so we can watch our own reflection when... well, you get the point.

My commitment to Mother Earth: I’ll never pee in the ocean again; please forgive me for that time in Cancun.

Thank you for being kind,

Armin

Rest in Peace My Friend

I can’t believe we were friends for 23 years. I have known life longer with you than without you.

I had to think really hard to remember the first time we met. I was about 7 when our family friend introduced you to me. Do you remember how shy I was? May be I didn’t show it but I had “butterflies” in my stomach. And then you were gone.

It was 8 years later when I saw you again. You helped me get introduced to new friends at high school. It was because of you that I “fit in” with the cool crowd.

Since then, you were there when I needed someone to share a moment with. You were there for me when I broke up with my girlfriends. You were there to keep me company on the lonely nights. You were there when I experienced the best and worst moments of my life.

Thank you!

But it’s time to say goodbye my friend. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that you were in fact a downer. You pretended to be a friend. You pretended that I needed you every living moment of my life. At times, you left me breathless. You began to grab a hold on me like no other friend would dare to. You began to control my life without me being aware of it. You began to call me every hour on the hour, never leaving my sight for a moment.

But then I realized something; it’s not me needing you, it’s you needing me for your survival. You managed to drain my pocket; and as though that wasn’t enough, you began to affect me. Did you think I was stupid and that I didn’t realize how your poisonous being was impacting my health? Once I realized that behind that shiny facade lived a demon stronger than all other addictions in the world, I started my plan to slowly cut you off my life. And it worked my friend!!!

You will no longer tempt me with your promise of tranquility. I am stronger without you!

Thank you for reading; here’s to a smoke free life.

Armin