Tag: Pakistan

My Good Deed For The Night

Seeing those families made me feel really good. It was like a magical quilt with every shape, size and color of student included. This is very much a city where immigrants flock. The UC Irvine program attracts even more diversity. Call me nuts, but many of these new Americans inspire me.

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I’m doing some more work for UC Irvine Extension. They’re “how to” videos for potential students. Tonight I attended graduation ceremonies to get some students on camera.

IMG_20140617_205704The school planned for around 800 at the Student Center but needed extra chairs.

Lots of proud families. Extension isn’t exactly like the rest of UCI. There are many non-traditional students learning to get ahead at work. Motivated students. Grown-up students. Many brought large families to share this momentous occasion.

Let me hit pause for a sec.

Seeing those families made me feel really good. It was like a magical quilt with every shape, size and color of student included. This is very much a city where immigrants flock. The UC Irvine program attracts even more diversity. Call me nuts, but many of these new Americans inspire me.

I was sitting on my butt on the floor on a riser waiting for things to get started. Two cameras were set to shoot.

A man in a light colored suit, carrying a “phablet,” walked up. He spoke perfect English with a heavy accent. The man was obviously concerned about something.

He wanted to know if he would have access to the video after we were done? I told him yes, it would be online, but I could see his worry was still there. He walked away.

I saw him as the graduation walk was beginning. By now I had figured out what he wanted. He was at the ceremony alone. He needed documentation.

IMAG1158“Would you like me to take some pictures,” I asked? And I did.

He is Ali Khan. The photo is for his mother, in Pakistan.

You tell me how she will feel when she sees these shots?

What a great payoff for something I was glad to do. Good deeds are often their own reward.

What’s Osama’s House Worth?

I’m not saying this is at the “no food, no phone, no motorcar, not a single luxury” level.

I can’t Zillow it and there are no “comps” so I’m stuck with the well publicized estimates of the value of Osama bin Laden’s million dollar “mansion.” in Abbotabad.

U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in a mountain cave on Afghanistan’s border, but with his youngest wife in a million-dollar compound in a summer resort just over an hour’s drive from Pakistan’s capital, U.S. officials said. – Reuters

I’m not the only one who found it odd home prices in Pakistan… even in this summer resort city… would be that high.

two property professionals in Abbottabad – a quiet, military-dominated town – said that much of that was incorrect. Based on the size of the plot and the house, which was built in 2005, and using recent property sales as a guide, they estimated that it would fetch no more than $250,000 on the current market.

“Twenty million rupees, maximum,” said property dealer Muhammad Anwar, a 22-year veteran of the local market, at his Abbottabad office. “No swimming pool. This is not a posh area. We call it a middling area.”

Asked about the American estimate, he chuckled. – Guardian.co.uk

I’m not saying this is at the “no food, no phone, no motorcar, not a single luxury” level, but it’s a house with exposed rebar on a dirt lot in a neighborhood that required 14 foot walls topped with barbed wire!

Right now I’m hoping it doesn’t turn into Pakistan’s equivalent of Graceland. It probably should have been demolished as the Seals were leaving.