Personal

I’m headed to Santa Monica on Thursday. Anyone want a ride?

The iPhone 3G is pretty rad, but after some reflection, there’s no real compelling reason for me to sell my first generation iPhone and get a new one. 1) The 3G costs just as much as the old one over two years. In fact, slightly more. 2) Taxes/fees included, my cell phone bill these days on T-Mobile (for 1000 minutes) is usually about $80. On AT&T it would cost me about $90 for less minutes, plus 3G. Is that worth…

After basically 24 hours of traveling from Breda –> Schiphol (Amsterdam) –> CDG (Paris) –> SFO, I’m finally, and thankfully, home. More coming soon.

Music: Blue Scholars – Fire for the People 12:08 am Pacific Time March 30 2008 I’ve heard that you can take the temperature of Iranian social freedoms by a quick glance at how young women (teenagers, mid-20s) wear their hejab. In the early days of the Islamic Republic, the chador (large black cloak) was enforced. Nearly 30 years later, it’s migrated to a simple hejab (headscarf). Very religious women will have it tightly wrapped around their heads and will usually…

Mila Rainof, one of the smartest, ambitious and most interesting people that I knew in middle school and high school has suddenly passed away in a tragic car accident in New Haven, where she was attending medical school at Yale. While I lost contact with her over the years, I feel a renewed sense of connection, knowing that she would have come to Oakland this fall to start her residency. The world is indeed worse-off without her. We’ll miss you,…

Part III ; Part II ; Part I Music: Blue Scholars – Second Chapter 9:16 Pacific Time March 26 2008 Without even realizing it, I clench my teeth and suck in air quickly and audibly, almost every time I ride in a Tehran taxi — my instinctual physical reaction to the frightening proximity of myself to the driver of the adjacent speeding car. I’m not afraid, per say, of my own personal impending doom, but rather that one of these…

Parts I and II can be found here, and here, respectively. Music: Beethoven – Symphony No. 6 12:17 pm Pacific Time March 24 2008 For the last couple of days, we begin our morning with Iranian noon, a sweet, almost buttery cheese, homemade quince jam, Persian tea and Peet’s Coffee. That’s right, Peet’s Coffee in Tehran. My father packed two pounds of French roast as a little comfort element for my mother whilst in unfamiliar territory. Yesterday morning, after our…

Music: The New Pornographers – Sing Me Spanish Techno (Soho Sessions) 1:03 pm Pacific Time March 22 2008 Khanoom and her husband — who passed years before — are buried sideways, so that they can face the Shrine of Massoumeh in Qom for all of eternity. This is the holiest of Iranian cities, the base of Iranian Shi’ite clergy and theology. Men walk the streets in dark robes and white turbans and glare out from behind their bearded and sunglassed…

So, as you probably know by now, I was traveling in Iran for two weeks in late March. I didn’t blog about it or publicize it much, given that as a dual-citizen (I can be drafted into the Iranian military, although I have a short-term exemption) and a journalist (I didn’t do any reporting while I was there), there was a very small possibility that I’d somehow get into trouble. You never know. Fortunately, I made it back without incident.…

Posts re Austin and more from Iran coming soon. It’s good to be home.