I've only been away for about a week but it seems like it has been forever. There is a lot to write so let me get started. September 11 came and went last week and it was pretty much what I expected. A couple of the shows on TV that night were pretty interesting - CBS had some really good stuff like 60 Minutes 2 and that footage filmed by those 2 French filmmakers.

Aside number 1: that new Missy Elliot song - what the heck is she saying in the course? I can't understand at all...This is my take:
itz snurf ama within id nayet chrup (just in case you were wondering - that is not English)

Dallas is nothing great. It's pretty flat (flatter than Toronto if you can believe it}). It's hot as hell. Damn hot! It is very white and black in pockets. Fair share of Hispanics too. I guess it's just like almost every other big city in America. The suburbs are straight out of TV or the movies - bungalows, huge lawns, SUV's, other nice luxury cars, 2.3 children, white picket fences. in my cousin's neighbourhood, the city had actually painted all the fire hydrants silver cause the residents of the neighbourhood thought the red was an eye sore! The biggest tourist attraction in Dallas is the site of the JFK assassination. I saw the grassy noll (spelling?) and the book depository window from where it is said that Lee Harvey Oswald shot one of the bullets. The one cool thing about this historical attraction is that there are a bunch of people there who sell replica newspapers, books, etc with all sorts of information on the shooting. But they all have their own conspiracy theories about who was involved and their motives so it is relaly interesting to hear what they have to say. Most of them claim that they were there in Dallas when it happened. On Saturday night, I stayed at my cousin Ratheen's house and had a good time. His mom made some wicked fajitas and at night I went out with his best friend, a Puerto Rican guy named Eddie who is a pilot in the US Airforce. He was a really fun guy so that was fun. The first bar we went to was kind of like places on King West in Toronto but we didn't stay long cause the music sucked. Left there and went to a bar that was totally a university hang out. Reminded me of a Waterloo bar. I was so psyched to talk to this one Spanish girl in a pink shirt but I chickened out in the end. What a loser!!! (I am referring to me, not her). Before going to my cousin's for dinner with his family, I saw two of my other cousins from my dad's side. They both have young kids so it was cool to see Meera and Anusha for the first time. Unfortunately Eshan was not home cause he was playing with one of his buddies but the other two girls were so adorable.

Flew home on Sunday and in the paper, I found this funny article about airplane security - check it out: "... There are already imaging machines capable of seeing through clothes and talk about developing brainwave-monitoring devices supposedly capable of detecting agitated minds that could be harbouring hostile thoughts." - I thought that was really funny.

Sunday night when I came home, some family friends - Priya and Ashwin came over with Priya's sister and mom. Priya just had her first child - a boy they named Rishi. He is a really cool kid - only about 45 days old so that was really cool to see and meet him. Ashwin said the funniest thing..."It's a wonder that someone so small can make so many loud noises from every part of his body". He was referring to his son, not me. This week has actually gone by really quickly. I've been busy with work so that is probably why. Actually, this week I've been on the road a lot going to Cambridge, Hamilton and Kitchener. I really gotta work on getting more sleep at night though cause the days come and I get so tired by about 10:00 am and then again at around 2:00 pm. It ain’t good cause I am gonna fall asleep on the job one day. Went to Jay and Meeta's house in Hamilton yesterday night and that was a lot of fun. They've got two kids - Ashwin (10 months) and Dineesh (3 years) - they are both cool kids as well. Man, I am seeing a lot of cool kids of late and I seem to get along and play with all of them...they all like me too! What message am I supposed to take from all this?

I’ve got some stuff to do over the next while…

1. Gotta get back on the work out routine – I have been getting very apathetic and lazy and haven’t been to the gym once in the past 3 weeks.
2. Gotta stay true to the diet (I’ve been slacking of late)
3. Gotta study more for work so I can really know my stuff (especially stuff like anatomy and how the products work)
4. Gotta do some shopping (suits, WRINKLE - RESISTANT Dress Shirts and dress shoes) - anyone wanna help me?

Karen, Amisha, Ingrid, Rachel, Luen, Christine, Julie, Tai, Kevin, Tchao, Craig, James, Reshma, Ketan, – how ya’ll doing? Sorry I haven’t read some of your pages of late but hope that you are all chilling.

Good night everyone,