I am right-brained. I am creative and ever-exploring new ideas, thoughts, and issues. I love the challenge to understand what haunts me or what I want to grasp. It is one of the most driving forces in my life. Look at any essay that I have written in decades, and you can see that momentum to resolve or address something.

I am driven about what I want to do. However, when faced with dealing with something that I don’t want to address, I’ll procrastinate and put off dealing with the issue. In that type of situation, procrastinating adversely affects my dreams by my inaction.

I have had a webpage for a couple of decades. During that time, I have had four web administrators. However, I had to find another person. So, what did I do? I asked one of my previous web administrators to do it for me at least on an interim basis while I looked for a full-time one. To be honest, I knew that she didn’t have the time, etc. to even fill-in for a couple weeks. She had revamped my site over five years ago. However, she sent a couple websites from which I could find web administrators from all over the world.

Reluctantly, I began the search. While I didn’t like that process of interviewing countless possible candidates, I started. It was as exciting as looking for a book’s title using the old library card catalog card filing system, which used the Dewey Decimal System. While that ran counter to what normally drives me, I had to begin the process.

I started to communicate with a handful of people who I thought could handle my site. Then it happened. On August 20 at 9:11:39am, I got a reply from Sandy, one of the candidates. I had sent links of my webpage to all the candidates so that they could determine whether they could do it. One of the possible candidates replied. She wanted to be my web administrator. And then added that she would reduce her hourly rate…drastically! What? Someone was going to do my site and not charge me much? So, I asked her why. This is her direct quote, “…because you are doing noble work and I would like to help.”

Now, to be completely honest with you, I’m Scottish. And Scotts are frugal; although, the rest of the world calls us cheap. Regardless, this is my reply to Sandy a couple of minutes after her message. “Well, noble might be a stretch, but if you go to Articles, look on the right column, and click on We Are Family...that is who I am.”

Sandy had already read We Are Family, which is where her noble comment found its genesis. I responded that I appreciated her noble comment about me. Nevertheless, she got the job not due to my being noble. She landed the job, because she was noble. The only caveat was that I was going to pay her at her regular rate. I appreciated her offer of reducing the rate, but, even a person with a Scottish background would not accept a discounted rate.

Thus began Sandy’s work on my website and Facebook. Now, who is Sandy? Well, Sandy is her nickname. Her official name is Sundas Jabeen. Twenty-five years ago, she was born in a small town in Pakistan. She talks about her parents working hard to provide for her and her two younger brothers and younger sister.

However, Sandy’s parents realized that getting a better education for their children would mean moving to the city, which would provide a better educational background for their children. That was the same type of situation that my parents faced when they moved to a suburban area outside Pittsburgh, PA. Sandy felt the same pressure that I did, since she was a firstborn also. She wanted to succeed in school as a means to show her appreciation for her parents’ sacrifice.

Sandy is a computer science graduate and began working in a search engine optimization (SEO) company as a writer, which resulted in becoming interested in web development and digital marketing. It wasn’t long before she got an internship at Silicon Valley Innovation Center. After her internment, The Clay Media, which is a digital marketing agency located in Orange County, CA, hired her as a development specialist.

Sandy’s next adventure was with a Swedish startup, Natural Cycles, which is a women’s healthcare company. She enjoys working as a web developer for a company to help women’s health issues. At the time we were corresponding to each other, Sandy was in Stockholm, Sweden.

Sandy sent me this photo of her in yellow top at the left side of the picture. The picture is of the Natural Cycles team on the roof of their office building in Stockholm. What fascinated me about the photo is that I couldn’t find anyone that looked older than 25. That issue of age is a tribute to that company. There is hope for the world when companies pick employees based upon ability and not age.

Sandy and Ali were married on May 5th, 2017 in Pakistan. They work together as web developers. He is also a photographer.

This was their traditional wedding attire.

This was their Western wedding attire.

Sandy and Ali love traveling, working at various places in the world. However, she loves Sweden.

Here are Sandy’s contact links:

"My Hauntings"

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Connecting the Dots

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On Seeing the Light

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"We Are Family"

Visit the "We Are Family" page to read more about this topic.

Darkest Before Dawn

Visit the Darkest Before Dawn page to read more about this topic.

09/17/18