Finally after the storms had passed Tampa Bay Florida was its beautiful normal version again.
I managed to get back on my jet ski briefly. This is a hyperlapse (accelerated) video of my ride.
The sailboat sounds were just fun to add.
Thankfully the Yamaha WaveRunner SVHO does not creak like the sounds in the video would suggest.
© 2017 IMRAN™
One of my worst weaknesses (yes, shocking that I have even one, right? LOL) all my life has been procrasti..... wait a second, let me install this hot new software first... OK... I am back... yes, as I was saying... procrastination. I am kidding about installing the software (or am I ? LOL).. but you get the idea.
The one flaw of my many which has let me... or, I should say, that I have let keep me from doing all that I need, want, aim, dream and hope to achieve in my life. I have probably only hit 1-2% of all that God gave my potential for, and it is a crying shame that it is so little because of the one weakness which I allow to get the better of me.
One way I have compensated for the many days of my life I was not productive is doing things in binges... Just like watching Netflix's The House Of Cards 13 episodes per season within 2-3 nights, I will sometimes go 24-36 hours on a productivity binge.
That is what I ended up doing last night when I took this selfie this morning. As Friday dawns over the Great South Bay outside my windows at home on Long Island, with merely 2 weeks left in what was one of the fastest flying years I can remember, I am taking time to reflect.
The good thing on such 24-36 hour days is that I will get a lot done, but the down side is that each time, each darn time, I kick myself about how this or that could have been done weeks, or even months ago. And, as many of you are all too familiar, I am sure, you too end up swearing off procrastination, "Never Again!" Until, of course, we do it the very next day or week.
We may not always overcome every weakness, but at least committing to fight it is a step forward. Not just a promise to make in new year's resolutions, not just in promising ourselves to try to make tomorrow better, but to doing it Now!... Forget doing better tomorrow.. Make the rest of today, make the rest of this hour, even make this minute, a better use of time than the previous.
That is a fresh start without having to wait for a new year... That is a chance to begin anew even as our lives hurtle towards an end we all will reach sooner or later. No matter what time is left available to use, let us promise to make better use of it.
May God give us the strength to overcome our weaknesses and the tenderness to forgive ourselves and others for what we fail to achieve due to them. As long as we promise "I can and will do better" ... we will!
© 2016 IMRAN™
IMG_7777
(Click to see the interactive virtual reality experience.) I had stepped out of my then office on 52nd Street near Radio City Music Hall when I took shot this handheld panorama on an iPhone 4S.
Unfortunately even four years later, with PhotoShop CC 2017 the program fails to properly stitch actual Spherical panoramas.
Doing the upper view accurately would take too long so I hope you will just enjoy the street scene with some inaccurate processing above my name.
© 2012-2016 IMRAN™
Some photographer posted in a FaceBook group about a model hurting their feelings by saying the photos they took (including location, hair, makeup) weren't worth more than $10 each. I think a dozen people commented on that post.
As I clicked to post my response on the original post it disappeared. Maybe the original poster deleted their post. I'm just sharing my "comment" here for everyone, as there will always be unappreciative and ungrateful clients in every field.
I wrote: "Most people do not appreciate intangible expertise or subtle specialization or soft services nor put real monetary value on it.
They'll pay a plumber $200 for fixing a $100 leaky toilet but will have a heart attack paying $300 for cloud & technology or management consulting advice they hit you up for regarding their million dollar business.
I haven't seen the work the original poster did but assuming it was well done I'd say, go with the attitude, "Yes, the photos were worth just $10 each because the ungrateful model wasn't worth more. 
😋"
😋
Michigan is about to approve cars without drivers or steering wheels on its roads. Some people will worry. But a driverless car is better than cars with moron drivers, especially the ones I see everywhere in the USA, but especially in Florida or in NY on the Long Island Expressway.
You know the types of drivers I am talking about. The ones with a genetic inability to turn their fat neck to look over their shoulder, the ones without a brain capable of processing moving over from the fast/passing lane, or the ones without a decent upbringing to know now to be @a$$#0¬3$ on the road.
At least driverless cars will signal when turning or changing lanes, not hog the passing lane like a fat stupid obnoxious pig, or drift between lanes while texting. And I am being polite. LOL
IMRAN™
Drone Flying At Dusk, Nightfall On Tampa Bay Florida 360° VR TimeLapse - IMRAN™
View in your VR glasses for a 360° view! OR just play in YouTube or FaceBook and rotate the phone. OR swipe with your fingers to rotate left and right to see the full scene as if you are standing there with me. This is an absolutely unedited timelapse video from Nikon KeyMission 360 as I flew my drone at home in Apollo Beach, Florida, to capture 4K video of the dusk while the Nikon camera took five sets of 10 seconds long timelapse clips. You will see the drone takeoff, and land, while boats and birds go by while fish in the water gather around the green lights I installed. I simply combined the 5 clips in iMovie with NO editing or processing of ANY colors of ANY kind. SOOC video. I simply added music, titles, transitions and exported the file. Enjoy!
© 2016 IMRAN™
#VR #360VR #timelapse Nikon Nikon KeyMission 360 #sunset #nightfall #TampaBay #Florida #music #video #SOOC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTB1XWa2P7Y
Everyone knows of my weakness for beautiful women in general, and gorgeous blondes in particular. I would never press Eject or run from them unless they are bipolar or two-faced.
I also happen to love Music of almost all types. Other than a few notable exceptions though, rap, especially the cuss-violence-hate-lack-of-talent filled kind that seems to get most popular because of the ghetto gangsta culture popularized in some communities and by some media, is not on my favorites list. That is why I hardly ever heard of Kanye West types unless they did stupid, or ridiculous, or criminal stuff that got in the news.
Despite all that, I had fallen in love with the song "No Church in the Wild". Kanye, JAY Z, Frank Ocean. Not one of them a person I had ever bought a song of, yet this one quickly became one of my 50 Most Played Songs ever. Surprisingly full of poetry, music, politics, religion, society, history, more music, lyrics, and deep ideas... all wrapped into one song. A song to be remembered for a lifetime by any artist, even though it had 3 major names behind it.
That song was where I first got to know about this, well, artist. Though Kanye, JayZ, et. al. are not in my playlist except that one incredible song above, when I was on iTunes updating apps today, I saw this new album being promoted. I clicked to hear what the much hyped album BLOND by Frank Ocean album would offer.
I clicked, and listened, and then the next one, and then the next one, and.... Now I know the good reason that the "Artist" is hiding this face on the album cover.
The first few tracks sounded like typical B- to B+ songs one can find in many albums. But due to some technical bug, it seems most of the remaining song files got corrupted on iTunes and every CD that was manufactured. I could not hear decent music. I could not hear anything poetic. I did not hear lyrics. I heard some possibly human sounding voices cussing and more like whining than singing.
Then I realized, I had to write this review and save you from wasting your time, if you ever consider getting or hearing BLONDE by Frank Ocean.
What do you think?
© 2016 IMRAN™
"Microsoft Windows smartphone sales collapse. Down 76%!" reports Computerworld.
That's not a WindowsPhone ringing but death bell of Microsoft's phone platform strategy that you do not hear, because when was the last time you heard a WindowsPhone ring except for the expensive product placements on TV shows and in movies?
It was a mere $8-10 BILLION write off which destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Nokia employees. Please stand by for a similar LinkedIn write off in 3 years for about $30 Billion. They could have cured Cancer or built 1000 hospitals worldwide with that money!
Imagine me, a MacOS lover from Day 1, working at Microsoft (in strategy / cloud / consulting though) for 3 years. Ironically, I was already sick and tired of the 200 years old iOS UI (user interface) that has STILL not changed since it launched, and the UXdesign (user experience getting worse) from Apple in EVERY area.
So I was actually happy to see Microsoft's WindowsPhone interface as one of the few things they did not steal from, I mean, copy from Apple, and something actually better. But, the problem was not the technology. It was, and likely still is, the people of Microsoft.
It is a company with MANY smart people who made so many stupid decisions again and again, but never learned. A most senior leader liked some ideas I had to build a WindowsPhone ecosystem. He connected me with an Indian guy (not Satya Nadella) who was the VP responsible for WindowsPhone app and ecosystem development. I wish I remembered his name now.
On each proposed step I discussed, he laughed and said, "We are Microsoft, We do not need to do that." And, "Developers are begging us to develop on our platform."
I wish I could have recorded that conversation for entertainment value alone.
Imran Anwar
Beautiful summer day on Long Island, New York, at my blessed home. Looking out the sliding doors I saw a reminder of why I love having planted four butterfly bushes years ago. They grow massive and even 12 feet tall or higher before being trimmed by the landscapers. Some days they're covered in monarch butterflies. The bushes, not the landscapers. 😄
Today I saw these two bright yellow and dark blue spotted ones despite it being a windy day. I was able to get close to them and record, create and upload this fun little movie right from my iPhone 6S+. NO color editing or setting or filter of Any kind.
© 2016 IMRAN™
PS Absolutely ƒ-\/-©-|{-!-N-G stupid FaceBook system deleted this video with a false claim that it contained someone else's copyrighted material? Really someone else owns my home and butterfly bush? And the stupid music in the video is actually one of the free BUILT-IN themes for use free in Apple's own FREE iMovie app for iOS. Goddamn stupid policing of wrong stuff while anyone can take your photos and create fake profiles without anything being done by these morons to verify your profile so victims of the fake profiles at least know it was not you. Way to go Mark Zuckerberg, turning a jolly light afternoon into one of extreme irritation. FU. Frankly, Underwhelmed by the 'intelligence' of FaceBook engineers.
What!? HOW DARE THEY DO THAT?! A shameful image to see on Pakistan's Independence Day, August 14! People of Pakistan ...
Why are pictures of the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and respected Miss. Fatima Jinnah, up SO HIGH?
They are almost too close to the greatest leaders on the Planet (Lollywood) that no one will remember in 50 years.
//end sarcasm
Send 1000 Jootian (rotting shoes) to the ass licking chamchas (sycophants) who put up the posters this way. Thanks to Shams Bin Niaz for the photo.
For my non-Pakistani friends, this is like political parties here putting up posters of Donald Trump/Mike Pence or Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine ABOVE posters of George Washington/Abraham Lincoln along city streets on the 4th of July.
Sadly, we are not far from that situation here in USA either. A few years ago Fox News had actually done a segment on George W. Bush (Yes, the moron retard Iraq War one) being THE GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER...
Seriously. It seems Pakistan has also reached that level of sickening political shamelessness. Or, wait.... is it the other way around?
Q. Why are Chinese roads built so wide?
A. To leave room for traffic to get around dead accident victims laying there.
Help a dying man?.. They have such hectic social lives these Chinese running/driving by. "Ain't nobody got time for that...."
This video shows that the only thing cheaper than the Chinese junk we buy here is Chinese lives in China . Shame.
Even in countries with frequent terror attacks like Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., where terrorists detonate additional bombs to kill the innocent people gathering to help bombing victims, decent people still rush to help.
Shame on every single person that ignored this victim and kept on going.
What do you think?
IMRAN
https://www.facebook.com/240170852998660/videos/276137382735340/
I'll be honest, though my Dad loved British cars in Pakistan, until he finally got used to the reliability and quality of Honda vehicles, but I have never been a fan of them.
I never liked the classic Rolls-Royce Motor Cars regardless of how much class they were supposed to exude. I disliked them even more when BMW bought the RR brand and made them into brutish, more monstrous than sophisticated, tanks, which, in recent years were being sold in such ugly garish colors that only a hoodlum rapper on LSD (does THAT drug even exist anymore, or was that taken over by some other company too LOL) and a love of shiny disco balls would love.
But, seeing this newest model, I have to say, when I am ready for 4-5 luxury cars, I would consider having this particular model among a Mercedes Maybach / S600/ S65 AMG, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and possibly one of those Danish supercars.
Though I am not a fan of the rear-swinging doors, this is a great photo and color scheme.
Who wants to come for a test drive?
Imran
