Things are Bad

Things are Bad

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. 

Everybody knows things are bad.  There is a depression out there, yeah.  

Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. 

The dollar buys a penny’s worth.  Banks are taking our money and charging us outrageous service fees, yeah.
Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter.  Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it, right.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had some more homicides and numerous violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be, yeah.

We know things are bad – worse than bad.  It is crazy, right. 

It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore.  We sit in our house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave me alone in my living room.  Just leave us alone.’

Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone.  I want you to get MAD!  I don’t want you to protest.  I don’t want you to riot.  I don’t want you to write to your congressman.  

I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write to your  congressman. 

I don’t know what to do about the depression and the crime in the street. 

All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. 

You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’

So, I want you to get up now.  I want all of you to get up out of your chairs.  Open your window and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’

Things have got to change.  

But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…

You’ve got to say, ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis.  But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’

Thank you for reading,

Lost my iPhone 6

Lost my iPhone 6+

Lost my iPhone 6+ by leaving it at the back seat of a yellow taxi in Istanbul.   Me and my son Ahmet were sitting in the back, while my wife was sitting in the front seat.  We had a conversation with the driver as he said that he was assigned to a station in Kucukyali of Istanbul.  However, we did not think to get his plate number, which would have made it easier to locate the driver later.  

Also, when getting out of the taxi, I noticed that it was actually a blue car, but painted yellow over it.   

Lastly, it was a small SUV type vehicle not a sedan.  

I hurried home, and my brother in law Gokhan completed a google search and found out that there were a minimum six taxi stations in Kucukyali, this was not a good news.  He called all of them, but no driver had brought back a phone to the station. 

I decided to go to Kucukyali and visit each taxi station.  Kucukyali was half an hour away by bus.  The first station I visited was called Kucukyali Merkez taxi, and the attendant advised me that they did not have a driver with the description I gave them, plus he advised me that there were ten taxi stations in Kucukyali and he gave me a list of all of them, this was more bad news for me.  

I walked to the following stations with out success:

Kucukyali Merkez,

Altmisuc,

Kilavuz,

Karayollar, 

Altintepe, and

Isik. 

I was getting exhausted and sweating, literally I was wet with sweat.  Plus, I was losing hope, actually I had lost hope already and I had walked for over two hours and I was feeling like I was wasting time now and in my mind, I thinking of having to organize my old phone as my new phone one again.  

The next taxi station on my list was Aydinevler, this station was north of the E5 highway, and therefore took me another 30 minutes of walking.  

I went into the station and spoke with the attendant and after my description of the car and the driver, he called the driver and the driver said "yes he had the iPhone", I was almost in tears, I was soo very happy.  The driver was on his way back to the station to give me my phone.  

I walked over to the near by corner store and bought one litre of coke, Fanta orange juice and lemonade as a gift to all the drivers at the station.  They were very pleased at this action of mine. 

The driver came, we hugged, I grabbed my phone and walked home with a smile and joy in my face.  The drivers name was Alaeddin.  

This was my last day in Istanbul prior to returning to Canada the next day, it will be the most memorable day of the entire trip as it has very low emotions to extreme high emotions.