Master and Commander: The Far Side of 2012

It’s the end of another year - it’s time for another yearly review. I can now write about all the travels I went on this year, about the philosophical question that bugged me, or about my alias. I’m not going to do that this year. Instead, I’m going to write about leadership. Last year, ’11, was the year of “first times”. 2012 was for me the year of “leadership” and by that I don’t mean leadership by other people. I’m writing about me taking leadership. At work, I started to teach and lead the research group, at weddings, I was not any more a simple guest but either the “best man” or “the guy who married the couple”. I organized events, I chaired consultation, and I planed hikes... well a hike and only one other person showed up for that hike. A good leader knows when to do a task himself and when let other people do the work, and is not ashamed to show some tears. As a leader you have to work instead of to party.
Now, let’s try to make a forecast for the next year. What will come after “the year of postdoc”, “the year of first times”, and “the year of leadership”. Maybe, it will be “the year of inspiration”, because I write my first novel. Actually, I started to write my first two novels - so maybe 2013 will be the year of “finish one freakish thing before start a new one”.

Why not?

The Name of the Bros

My brother Sina has birthday. This year I am going to give him a picture I drew as a present ... and this post. Don't you love if you get something which comes from heart in stead from store?
Sina is the big brother. He has been around all the time I was in this world. That has some drawbacks. When I was little, I was nicknamed "Susu". That was a long time ago and since everyone stopped calling me that. Everyone except Sina - he still does. To tease him, I nickname him "Sisi". Two can play that game.

Susu and Sisi

Because my name is Soroosh, which is for most people difficult to pronounce, spell, and remember, people often try to come up with a nickname for me. My policy is: I will ignore the nickname and pretend they are talking to someone else. Depending on who is more stubborn either the nickname dies or it catches on. Most of the time, people come up with variations of my name as a nickname, like "Roooosh" (Thanks to David "The Faz" Faroz for that name). Girls like to add an extra vowel at the end of my name, very common is an "i" or an "a". The nickname "Doctor Doctor" is because I'm Dr Pezeshki (Pezeshk is Farsi for physician). From time to time, people give me the same name as heroes from popular culture. I have been nicknamed "Snoopy", "Spiderman", and "Harry Potter".

"Roooosh" is not just a name, it's a lifestyle 

Ohh, I got off track. I wanted to write about Sina. What did I forget? O yes. Happy birthday, Sina.

Next year, I will make a vase out of clay for Sina's b'day

PS: Some other nicknames include but not limited to: Super Soroosh, Evil Soroosh, the dream crusher, sope

Me, Myself & Blog

I am busy with the redesign of my blog and homepage. A lot is going to change. I will let you know once everything is done. Because of all that I don't have time to write a longer post. But you will not miss out on your weekly scoop of me. Here are some post from other people about me or where I am mentioned.
These post have been confirmed to be about myself:

• Married to ADD: The 15th step of the 5 step process 
• Rezalution: Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy!

And this post is assumed to be about me; Affirmation is awaited:

• wired uk

Election

A horrible time ended fortunately last Tuesday with the election. It's done for now, no more electioneering. It was an awful time but at the same time it was interesting to see the differences to electioneering in Germany. Some people here see it as there duty to put signs of whom they support. In the Halloween season the most terrifying decoration in the lawns were political signs.

Political signs in the lawns

Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected. Some call this re-election historic. I think his election was historic and big and I don't see how his re-election can keep up with that. Historic persons will be subject of TV documentaries, soap operas, and vampire movies. It's a matter of time till "BHO" will be on HBO.
A very interesting development happened on state level. Colorado, Oregon, and Washington had proposition to segregate from United States and become a part of the Netherlands by legalizing marijuana. The proposition in Colorado had the number 64 and the supporter got donations from pro marijuana groups from all over the US. With that they had more funding then the opponent. With all the money they run an intensive add campaign. At the university campus (where else?) the pot heads covered each place with there adds. Proposition 64 will legalize marijuana and tax it. The collected taxes will go to schools in Colorado. It will be the first time that smoking weed will help our schools. In Colorado and Washington the propositions were accepted. Now, the question is if the federal government will allow the legalization of marijuana in those states. BHO would not be the first president who would fight segregation, not even the first from Illinois.

"Yes on 64" in Denver university campus

More money and more advertisements

New York, I kinda like You

Back in November 2010, I went to LA and did a side seeing of all the places known from movie and TV. Last September, I went to New York and Washington DC to continue my side seeing. New York is of course known from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle". I was not traveling alone. My brother came, too. Two brothers on the road of course known from the movie "Rain Man".  It was his first visits to the US and so I had to introduce him to the American cousin. And for that there is plenty of opportunities in NYC - there are about one million hot dogs stands, so there are one million hot dog sells men and women in New York. One million sells personnel to feed the 2 million police officers.

That's the closest I got

We saw the statue of liberty (known from the movie "Ghostbusters 2"), we went to the central park (known as the "romantic road" in the movie "Die Hard with a Vengeance"), time square (known from the movie "Vanilla Sky"), and over the Brooklyn Bridge (known from an insurance commercial - also known from an insurance commercial: Mount Rushmore). We went to museums and didn't paid the recommended price (known from the TV show "The Simpsons").

Brooklyn Bridge

We went on a day trip to Washington DC, because it was close by. It's funny, when you visit a city as a tourist everything is close by but as a local it's not. For local people most sides are too far away to go to. And sides that aren't far away, are not going to vanish. So why go and see them now? That's why I haven't seen one side in Hamburg/Germany.
In DC, we saw the white house, the capitol, and the Lincoln memorial with the reflecting pool. The Lincoln memorial and the reflecting pool of course known from the movie "Forrest Gump".

The reflection of the Washington memorial is pointing where Forrest and Jenny hugged

But it was not all nice and beautiful in New York. We had also rough moments. For example, when we end up in Harlem and the Bronx. It was tough man.  Sad thing about what I just said is a lot of young folks don't get the reference thanks to Giuliani's politics of "New York needs to become a secure, boring place". Thank you, Giuliani. The even sadder thing is I went to Harlem and Bronx to tell people how rough it was. 

O Brother, Where Art Thou From?

This post proves my blog is still alive. It is also a proof of my existential dilemma. When people ask me where I am from, I do not know what to answer. Am I an Arab, German or Iranian? I do not know and I have the hardest time to give a brief answer. One thing is clear: I once wrote "we Americans" and the general response was: "You are not American". The funny thing is, other people don't have such a hard time to classify what I am: Indian. German people think I am Indian, Iranian people think I am Indian and today one Indian guy in the grocery store thought I am Indian.
If I was an Indian my name would be for sure Suresh like Dr. Suresh from the TV show "Heroes". I will surrender to the majority verdict and give from now on the short answer: I am from India. All I need now is an Indian accent.

Just Another Day at the Center

Badonkadonk

Translation of the license plate from Farsi: Lexus's Badonkadonk 

Superstition

Step 9

Tomato Mozzarella Omelet

French Freedom Toast

Khoreshte Ghorme-Sabzi

Jambalaya

Khoreshte Badenjoon

Lasagna

 Jenny says: mmmm!

The Big, Fat, American-Spanish-Scottish Wedding

My friends Rezal and Robert got married. They had a typical American-Spanish-Scottish wedding. Although, everyone of you had attended at some point in life such a wedding I am going to blog about it and about all the additional events which accompanied the wedding.

The Engagement Party

Well actually, I can't write a lot about the engagement party because I was not invited to it. In fact, I have never been invited to an engagement party in my life. That is not intended to be a criticism to Rezal and Robert - they don't have to invite me - it's a criticism to my 3 married siblings who didn't invite me to their engagement party. Soheil, don't bother to invite me to your wedding if you don't plan to invite me to your engagement party.

The Wedding Shower

As I understand, wedding showers are a new developments and are based on bridal showers. I was not the only man attending for the first time a wedding shower. Wedding showers are one of the many times you have to buy a gift. I just realized you need to buy a gift also for engagement parties. Soheil, you don't have to invite me to your engagement party, nor to your wedding shower. Being the son of a Yazdy and Isfehani is the Iranian equivalent of being Scottish. 

The Bachelor Party

In order to prevent my blog from a R rating and because I don't want to expose Robert, I'm going to stick with the "official" version: We played video games all night long. We played a game called Warcraft 3, I mean of course Warcraft 3.0 (@Robert: They will buy it more easily if we use .0)  

The Wedding Rehearsal

Wedding rehearsal is one more thing I attended for the very first time. As far as I know, I have never been before at a wedding that was rehearsed before. As the represent of the Spiritual Assembly, I had to sign the documents at the wedding. To not mess up I had to attend the rehearsal and practice how to sign.

The Wedding

Originally, I thought my task at the wedding would be something different: eight or nine months ago, before Rezal and Robert were engaged, Rezal asked me if I would like to be her maid of honor. I told her, it was my dream since I was a little girl. I meant by that: "yes". But she must have understood: "hell no", she asked someone else. It's not the first time Rezal and I had a misunderstanding.  Instead, I become the representative of the Spiritual Assembly, or as someone at the wedding called me: "the guy who has married them". To clarify, the Spiritual Assembly has married them - I was just representing the Assembly. But, I love my new title and I will keep it anyway.

The Wedding Reception

I'm running out of space so I will keep it short. Another reception, lots of food, music, no dancing.

Wrap up

One or two months ago, I meet Robert while he was planning his wedding. I asked him how he was doing. He rolled his eyes and said with a tired voice: "There is so much to plan for a wedding". I guess the hassle is the reason why in America most breakups happen while weddings are planned. In Germany most breakups happen during the seven year itch (verflixte 7. Jahr). So, congratulations Robert and Rezal, you made it through the worst part. From now on, it will be only better. Let me give you an advice for the next seven years: Don't move to Germany.

Little Mr Sunshine

I have changed again, dude. I never thought I will have enough of sunshine and wish it will rain. Let me back up. When I was a child and before my family and I moved to Germany, we lived in a place where we had 360 sunny days. Rain was so unusual that the one or two times in the year it rained we run out and start to dance in the rain. Than, we moved to north Germany, with the overcast days all year long. There, nobody dances in the rain. When after one week rain the sun came out for half an hour, I had to sing "I can see clearly, now the rain has gone".  Beside that, I couldn't express any feelings in such a grey environment.
Two years ago, I moved to Colorado where the sun shines for more than 3000 hours in a year. People here don't know what a rainy week means. That amount of sunshine brought all sorts of forgotten feelings back but also a desire for rain. And we need rain here - there are several wild fires here in Colorado - thank God, it rained the other day.  So much sunshine can be trouble. Not only it can cause wildfires but it also makes sick: The other day, when I was thinking about all the people who lost their homes to the fire, I didn't want to do anything anymore. This sickness effected also my scientific curiosity: I didn't care why the raindrops which rolled down my cheeks were so salty.

They're back

My School

Exiting development at work lately. Some weeks ago, I asked my supervisor if I can give lectures because I want to learn how to teach. It's part of J's five step plan. My supervisor asked me to give a series of introduction lectures for the new students in our research group. 
Teaching students at University level changed my life: My goatee transformed into a professor beard. and I become more serious. That's why I am not going to write an amusing story here. Instead I am going to lecture you - nothing funny about that.
My lecture today will be about the polarization of light. Electromagnetic waves like light are perpendicular or transverse waves. Transverse wave is a science-y term for a wave in which the oscillation is not in the direction of the wave propagation. It's like a wave created with a rope where each part of the rope moves up and down while the wave moves horizontal. Another common wave type is a longitudinal wave where the oscillation is in direction of the wave propagation like a queue, where everyone is pushed for- and backward by the closest persons and everybody holds position - a typical queue.

In 3 dimension transverse waves can oscillate in a bunch of directions. Light from light sources like sun, incandescent light bulbs, CFL, and others consists of waves oscillating in all directions. It is possible to filter some of these directions out so that the light has oscillation in one direction by using a polarization filter. If non polarized light (light that oscillates in all directions) got reflected on a non metallic surface with a certain angle part of the waves would become longitudinal waves. But, since light can not be a longitudinal wave, reflection of light on non metallic surfaces can make light polarized. So, what would happen if we would use a polarization filter on light that got reflected? We can either eliminate the reflection or enhance the reflection by reducing all the other light.
One field of application of polarization filters is photography. In the following pictures you can see how a polarization filter can change the green of leaves (by eliminating glare) and the blue of the skies (The color of the sky is basically a reflection).  With that we get an increase of the contrast between sky and clouds - clouds look fluffier.

No polarization filter @ISO 80, F4, 1/500 s

Polarization filter: decreased contrast between sky and clouds @ ISO 80, F3.2, 1/400 s

Polarization filter: Higher contrast between sky and clouds and different colors @ ISO 80, F3.2, 1/400 s

 The polarization filter will change also the mod of pictures from rainy days as shown in the next pictures.

No polarization filter @ ISO 80, F 2.8, 1/160 s

Polarization filter: enhanced glare @ ISO 125, F2.8, 1/80 s

Polarization filter: eliminated glare (note the road marking and the roof color)

 In the next picture you see why stalker love polarization filters.

Left no polarization filter; center polarization filter is enhancing reflection; right polarization filter is eliminating reflection

But polarization filters not only have an influence on reflections as one can see on my face in the next pictures.

No polarization filter... well actually you can see the filter... photo taken without polarization filter... without the use of a polarization filter

Polarization filter: Enhancing the smile

One of those - now

PS: Finally in English, so that Rezal Roxanne Martinez Wollschläger Fordham Sanchez soon to be Gillies can read it.
PPS: I'm working on a new word post and will publish it soon. Keep checking.   

The Unmeasurable Distance

The World is so Small from Up There

Your bike has the right to remain silent

This background is real...

... I swear

Water falls

PS: The title of this post is by intention "Water falls" and not "Waterfalls"
PPS: Thank you John for the suggestion

Big City Lights

Ray of Light

I25 from Highland Bridge

No Title

Spring

I bike you, too