The years come and go, I have no problem with that,its how they creep up on you without a please or an excuse me, they just make way and count another day.

We all tend to get lost in our everyday life, just by showing up sometimes alive and well. The days seem to either be joyful, sad, miserable,fun, happy, lost, and I can go on forever on what you might feel in any given day. We focus on certain things that keep us in or around our comfort zones, never going out of our way to make sure everything else is being handled with care.

I used to blame it on the rain, but that’s long gone and done with, I always blame myself in the end, its me and only me that takes things for granted. It is me who never took the time to get closer and move in with my brothers and sister, Its me that never pushed for things to be. Its me that is the eldest of brothers, They said that I am the responsible one, I said I had enough of that, I can barely handle myself,sounds familiar?

People come up to me and say your my brother from another mother, I feel happy, but wait I have a brother from my original mother, where is he now? where are they now? what are they feeling? what are they facing? do they need my help? do they want me by their side? have I failed this darned responsibility my father and mother threw upon me and watched me fail and fail some more? I never meant to, please forgive me.

As I watch my brother, especially this one called “Ahmed” he is the end of the grape vine, as they say in arabic. He is our dearest youngster who was nothing but a baby in my eyes for many years. Today he is a grown proud man with his head full of great ideas and opportunites like never before. He makes me laugh in the strangest of moments, he has a sweet kind of personality you see.

Ahmed makes me proud for many reasons. He never caused any problems or was a brat while growing up, very quite individual, very discreet, yet very wild with his friends and very wise as they say.

Ahmed never made my parents angry, which is not normal these days, I made them angry many times while growing up, I hope they forgive me. Here is a run down of things i will miss in Ahmed:

• He kicks my ass in playstation soccer, while he is gone i will train like a maniac!
• He reminds me of myself at his age, loving every moment and learning new things every day.
• He is the closest to my son Sultan, I always call him Sultan and my son Ahmed.
• He is a great thinker for his age, you could always break a conversation with him and enjoy every idea being brought up.
• He cracks me up with his jokes and sarcastic comments.
• He remembers things I forgot when he was a young boy, very small details I never noticed he cherished, I will always remember them Ahmed.
• He is the future, I see it in his eyes, I hear it in his words, he has it made, he has already made me proud, and will continue to do so as long as I live.
• He makes sure my parents are OK and handles my mothers angry moods swings with a sweet smile, he handles my fathers requests like commands in the army, to the very last word.
• He manages to make everyone around him happy with his amazing insight, his world is an amazing one where him and his friends gather to have innocent fun and share some laughs.
• He shares his views with my brother Hazim, another smart one, who does not know what to do once he is gone? The love is common, I love them all, for the love they share.

I know now that I have wasted years away from you little brother, for I was occupied in my life trying to figure out things that never needed any figuring out in the first place. I managed to screw up many things in my life easily, fixed some, threw the rest away,I still play like we used to, I hope we never change little brother. When you come back home, the playing will be more I assure you, don’t lose that playful heart of yours.I love it when you and my son play a game or debate a subject while I witness you two going on in your own little worlds, I can say it with all my heart you make me proud, and I am happy that my son has an uncle like you Ahmed.I know I am talking too much now, I know that I should have done the talking earlier in my years, please forgive me, for I have been busy with non important things in my life, but that’s life you see, you only know the true value of someone when he decides to move on or gain an international degree for a few years or so.I promise you this my little brother, no matter how far you travel, how high you fly, how low you go, Always remember this very important piece of information, I will be by your side no matter where you decide to reside, one things for sure little bro, I will be there, you can count on it and take it to the Bank.I watch the hours go by today as you get ready to leave us for your education calling, As much as I want you to do that, as much as I want you to stay another day, or year(s). I know what you will become my little brother, only little in my memory, but a wise, handsome man, armed with the latest education and ambition anyone can dream of.

GO GET EM TIGER!

See you soon, very soon and Allah be with you, farewell my brother Ahmed.

Mamdooh Al-Radadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

1-Make friends as you go along, its OK to talk to strangers.

2-Get rid of bad and negative friends.

3-Take risks.

4-Enjoy a good laugh.

5-Spread the wealth while you still can.

6-Show your loved ones what they are to you.

7-Fake it till you make it.

8-The bench is not where the game is played, its in the field.

9-Training for what you want gets you places sooner or later.

10-Complaining kills you and makes you a loser.

11-You can’t taste the honey without the sting of the Bee.

12-Friends will come and go, you will have a handful at your later years, and they are your true friends, not the hundreds or thousands you made during your life.

13-Love will come and knock on your door several times in your lifetime, don’t forget where you put the keys.

14-You will have many stabs in your back, guard your heart.

15-It gets really bad before it gets better, much better than before.

16-Enjoy the journeys you take, relax at your destinations, some people forget that most of the learning happens on the journey and not at your final destination.

17-Leave the negatives and run, they only shed a wet blanket on you, have you ever tried to swim with your clothes on?

18-Take care of your health now, its called playing when your young, they call it exercise when you grow up.

19-Do not compare yourself with movie stars, there are far more beautiful people outside Hollywood and Bollywood, They just had a chance to appear and appeal to the masses.

20-Never trust a used car salesman wearing polyester and a rolex watch.

21-Do not forget to treat the elders nicely when you are young, soon you will be old and what goes around comes around.

22-Try and be nice to the small people, they had a hand in what you are today.

23-Enjoy the beauty of nature, you never know when all you can see is the inside of your grave.

24-Your children are an extension to your existence, are you sure you are treating them right and making the best of your time together?

25-Money is a means to get what you want and live the way you want, do not let it be your only need. Use it, do not let it use you, master it or it will master(CARD) you.

25-Keep your mind open to other cultures and walks of life, you never know where your next big idea will come from.

26-No matter how high you fly, remember that one day your battery will end and your time will be up, so learn, plan, remember your maker in order to have a safe landing.

27-Express yourself more than you usually do, speak up and be heard.

28-If you don’t like your job, find another, fast.

29-Keep your promises and if you can’t explain why, don’t shy away.

30-Beware of the free gifts you get in life from strangers.

31-When you fail, it is a sign you are on the right track.

32-Smile at strangers every day, the power it gives you is unimaginable.

33-Forget the bad things and people in your life, forgive quickly and turn the page.

34-Keep an eye and ear for the changes in music and technology, if you don’t you will reduce your crowd to the old and miserable few, while you can enjoy the young and wild forever.

35-Read and read some more, keep reading till you CAN take it some more.

36- Spread your knowledge and never keep it to yourself, the more you give the more you gain.

Mamdooh Al-Radadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

Deep, deep down in the most inner layers of our community lies an embedded message that many of us are unaware ever existed. This message was layed i am sure in total darkness and by people that were freaked from anything positive especially if it made them laugh.

What I was shocked about when I was very young was the way that all my aunts and cousins seemed to crack up and laugh for a few minutes then someone, possibly the eldest or the one pretending to be the most influential would bring the laughter to silence by saying the most awkward words I ever heard and bring them up today to question.

“Allahum Akfeena Shar Al-Dihik hada” meaning exactly that, Allah have mercy on us for laughing and we do not wish to see the consequences of this laughter.

So with every laugh comes a misery. Like after the rain comes the sun, after that laugh comes the tragedy.

I am sure that there is some significant religeous matter to the saying, I can respect that laughing with no cause is an insane mans doing and might leave you looking a bit on the crazy side. My question is why do we kill the best medicine ever known to man, laughter.

So what these messages are relaying is” once you start to laugh, really laugh, and the whole room is cracking up with laughter like never before, stab that laughter in the heart and let it die!”

So know I know why I see grumpy faces while going to work in the morning, and at night at the supermarket, and the couple barely looking at each other with 2 children also with 50 year old grumpy faces, it also explains the fake smiles we get in life, and the Anti-smiling hostess on the plane, and the grouchy looking people in the cars next to me, and the etched marks of sadness and lack of laughter vitamins on that old womans face, the strange and un-polite looks people give you in mosques and malls.

Here is my message to you :LAUGH as much as you want, remove those sick messages we were given as children, replace them with more funny bones!

Don’t we ever learn from travelling the world? don’t you realize how people don’t gaze into you and stare, instead send you a simple smile once you both make eye contact?

Smile on

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

The first question that a person is asked when he starts to think of a partner is the famous” Well what do you really want in your man?”.If you ask the same person the question twice in a month you might get two answers.

“She’s the one!” he points to his mother as they walked by a wonderful looking twenty something girl, all he got was a glimpse and what looked like a smile, but then again who cares, she is drop dead gorgeous he thought to himself, and with a teenagers attitude. Just the thing to kick me back into the fast lane thinks the 27 year old US Grad engineer. I need some action in my life and she spells action.

Little did he know that he was not even on her radar system, her mind was with her boyfriend and lover for 2 years, he promised her they would get engaged soon.

There are 4 major players in the Marriage set-up or success/ Failure process: The Girl, The Boy, The Parents, The community( Friends are from he community also).Sooner or later parents and children have the clash with all teh ingredients that either separates them or end up with grandchildren in a year or two and a happy home.

What parents want( Then & Now): A guy that will be a Man by all its meanings, A Man that will take good care of our child, A Girl that will become our loving daughter, A Girl that will handle my son with love and tenderness thinks the mother, A Man that will be gentle to my baby girl and never hurt her unless he wants me to come and shove his face down the toilet bowl thinks the over possessive father. I can go on for ever with what parents want, but its all there and more.

What a Girl wanted-back then: A loving, nurturing, handsome, cheerful, caring,family kind of man( not the family guy),Money isn’t everything, well just a little bit, A man who will love her till the day they part, a person she can talk to, share dreams with, enjoy a lazy friday/sunday with, play with, take her breath away,  a man who will learn everything with her, a man who will respect her family, a person with high ambitions… and all the other goodies, basically Mr.Perfect.

What a guy wanted-back then: A beautiful, gorgeous, envy of all, loving, virgin. A sweet person, a care taker, a great cook, a very low tuned individual, not a

outspoken rude girl, a shy girl, never a in-your face kind of girl, a very well brought up girl with family traditions, a girl that respects me, a much younger girl than me so I can program her, a virgin with no experience whatsoever in life, a girl that has never known a guy in her life, a blind cat preferably.

What a girl wants today: A very outgoing, been around kind of guy, the player in todays market, a handsome guy, great financial backgrounds, a lot of money with some girls, normal money with others( depending on the level and ambitions of this particular girl), A person that has been to places, a man that has had his share of girls and fun, a heartbreaker, a smoker, a stoner, a drinker, a party animal, a cool cat, a person that would not mind me traveling alone with girls and boys, a very relaxed and almost no or very low jealousy levels, A man that will take me places, A man that wants to have fun. Do you see the ingredients, very true statements of many real females. I can understand that this is not the whole population, but just go and ask questions and see what you get, then dare go under the skin and ask some more.

What a guy wants today: Exactly what he wanted back then, but not a girl he knew, how can I be with the girl I have dated, what will she do after we are married, maybe she will cheat on me? just like she got to know me she will know someone else,oh, and yes a virgin. On a different level they might have changed on the shy level, they do want her shy, but outgoing is important these days, the culture has changed, and he wants to go out as couples, even single friends…its cool. He wants a family girl, Some hunt down rich girls so they won’t torture him between pay days, Some below their standard so he has the upper hand, and everything she sees is a miracle..lol, true. He pretends to want her for her mind,when she stands up to his level of thinking, he is petrified! sadly today girls are becoming more educated than shallow boys.

What does the community wants: I never got that one, community will cast a spell on a successful marriage and will die to get the latest gossip off a successful

relationship” did you hear about Suha and Ahmed? I heard she caught him on the phone with his ex-girlfriend” Gossip loves broken homes, or actually breaking homes. The sad thing is they do that to better themselves, they had a sad story, so why should a nice girl be cinderella? she should suffer like me. So in the end I never cared what community wanted, I have proof.

The numbers don’t lie: I have witnessed on a personal level the difference between people getting married in court and the ones getting divorced.

The line for people getting married is like people standing in line waiting at a boring Rocky the 15th movie, and the ones getting divorced are the ones waiting in line for the new blockbuster movie Hangover! its that bad, the courts have put drastic measures to block this Exodus of people from Marry-Land, but with little benefits. Take a look at this 2007 figure;

33 Saudi women get divorced daily. The high court in Jeddah reported last year divorce rates in the Red Sea city had jumped by 60 percent over the previous two years while it reached 39 percent in the capital Riyadh.

In a symposium held late last year in Kuwait, a study presented by Dr. Abdulaziz Alahmed estimates the divorce rate in Kuwait at over 25% while in Qatar at 38%. In the UAE, the rate amounted to 46%.

So my point is the times have changed, the reasoning has been altered and people need to know what they want in a relationship before they join captain  jack sparrow the pirate on a deserted island, or is t deserted? could be more population of divorcees than married people soon.

What’s you’re take on the subject? Who is to blame? the media? the families? the western style living in a muslim world?

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

One of the longest running ad campaigns in the world is the famous “Got Milk?” campaign encouraging the consumption of cow’s milk. The ad started back in October 1993 and has not stopped since. It was established by the ad agency Goodby silverstien & partners for the California milk processor board and then licensed for nationwide usage for other milk processors.

Needless to say they increased milk consumption around the USA and I’m sure around many places around the world who saw the ad. That is not the reason I am talking about the campaign.

I have been seeing this ad for many years and actually like the white mustache on the ads, the thing that hit me lately was why did we never witness any kind of colaboration in our part of the world? forget the country, lets just talk about a region, not even a region a city…ok I rest my case on the geographical part.

What we did witness was a price war between the Golaithes of the industry trying to crush each other out of the way, until neighbering countries started to complain about this crazy price war that was killing their sales. Then suddenly they stopped that and started giving us more milk for the same price, i think soon they will deliver cows for the freshest milk you can ever find, the cows will be leased ofcourse.

The benfits of such campaigns are endless. Forget the healthy ingredients a glass of milk has, even if it is only to a certain age. What about calcium and the number of females in our region with featherlight bones? Elderlies with stronger bones, Sleep benefits, helping with cavities, muscle rebuilding.

Forget all that. What about the lactose intolerance that many of the population suffer from and only complain about bloated stomaches? You think the milk producers did not know that? visit any  top end supermarket and watch how fast the boxes of lactose free milk disappear.

My message: Make money but at the same time pay something back or at least educate the community of the benefits and your bottom line will also increase. It cost the members of that californian dairy committee 3 cents per box only. No creativity whatsoever, nothing out of the box in this region except milk!

You travelled half way across the world with my father to fulfill his dream, you left your family in uncertain times and unmatched dangers to start a new life in a far away land without ever looking back, I salute you!

I never actually stood in-front of you and thanked you as much as i should, but I do every waking hour when I see your  missed phone calls and hear that voice that reassures her little boy that everything is going to be OK, I love you.

Mothers come and go in different sizes and styles and shapes, no matter what they look like they always feel great. My mother is special more special than any other mother there is out there, That’s what we all say and truely believe, I adore you.

You call me up and complain about my brothers, sister, father, life, money, situation and I listen with an eager beaver attitude trying to stop you complaining, please don’t stop complaining to me, I look forward to sharing the moments with you, I understand you.

You took care of me when i couldn’t walk or talk or go to a bathroom, you made me look good to you’re best possible imagination and capabilities, you kept me warm and kept me cold, you served me for as long as I can remember, I would die for you.

Mother, I shed a tear just now, may you always be in my life, may you always disturb my so-called meetings and friend gatherings and children’s time, may you always rampage through my life and storm me with you’re sweet, never ending warmth and Love, I pray to the almighty Allah he keeps you by my side, for I will never have enough of you and will always need you by my side, for it is you that made me what i am today, I love you.

p.s. I dedicate my first blog to the reason for me being here today, you guessed it, my mother Nawal Darwish.