In a similar theme to the "7 Up" posts I did earlier I got really interesting gift -- a digital photo frame. One of those picture frames were you can store a lot of photos on it and it will slowly scroll through them all. My friends Carrie and Kamahl gave it to me for staying a couple of weekends at their place to take care of their cats while they were away. I was surprised that they gave me gifts, one would have thought eating their food for four days would have evened things out, but anyway...
So far I haven't put any pictures on the frame. This has more to do with some technical difficulties involving a USB memory stick then lack of interest in using the photo frame. But what was really cool about it was that it made me go through all of the pictures that I have on my computer, looking for nice ones to put in the frame. There were a lot of photos.
Sometimes I gripe about Doha being dull and things being repetitive but looking at the pictures I can't get over all the stuff that I actually did do (or to put it more accurately -- where I have travelled). In the past two-odd years I have travelled to 14 countries. 14!! And in the previous 36 years I had travelled to 7. This December I will probably be going to another one. And next March another one.
2 1/2 years.
I have pictures of Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Forbidden City, the skyline of Hong Kong, the ruins of Petra, the Swiss Alps, the Hagia Sophia, and the St. Charles Bridge.
I have climbed the Great Wall, toured Roman ruins, swam in the Dead Sea, and wandered through the Grand Mosque in Muscat.
I drank raki on the Galata Bridge, vodka at a jazz club in Shanghai, absinthe in Montmartre, pilsner in the High Tatras, a latte on Robson Street, and a pint on Portobello Road.
I have seen the Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone, the Kiss by Klimt, a Chinese Opera, and the Sword of the Prophet Mohammed.
I ate snake soup in Hong Kong, coq le vin in Paris, langhose in Slovakia, halwa in Oman, cheese fondue in Interlaken, and bangers & mash on the Strand.
Sometimes you have got to just put life in perspective.
Thanks Carrie and Kamahl.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Comprendez-vous francais?
During Ramadan pretty much every restaurant is closed until evening, which means I've been eating lunch at the office a lot. Thankfully my friend Serdar's wife works somewhere where they have a cafeteria that is still open during the day so Serdar and I went out there for lunch one day. The menu was French cuisine.
Now I studied French for a number of years in school. Not that I wanted to, it was just a requirement of the school system in Canada at the time. Now I wish I had paid more attention as I'm getting more interested in learning other languages. But as it stands my legacy of French knowledge from all those years of schooling is pretty dismal. And a little knowledge can be quite dangerous. Which is why when I saw couple of the items on the menu I was really thrown:
Boeuf a la mode et sa garniture
Poulet cocotte grand mere
What do you think these are?
My rough translation of the first one was "beef in a sauce and a garnish" but it was the second one that really threw me because I thought "cocotte" meant prostitute. I'll leave it to you to try and figure out what the rest of that one is from there.
Thankfully I spoke later to a French colleague who clarified what the real translation was. Just a misunderstanding on my part as there is a second meaning of cocotte.
The beef was really tasty.
But I didn't try the chicken.
Now I studied French for a number of years in school. Not that I wanted to, it was just a requirement of the school system in Canada at the time. Now I wish I had paid more attention as I'm getting more interested in learning other languages. But as it stands my legacy of French knowledge from all those years of schooling is pretty dismal. And a little knowledge can be quite dangerous. Which is why when I saw couple of the items on the menu I was really thrown:
Boeuf a la mode et sa garniture
Poulet cocotte grand mere
What do you think these are?
My rough translation of the first one was "beef in a sauce and a garnish" but it was the second one that really threw me because I thought "cocotte" meant prostitute. I'll leave it to you to try and figure out what the rest of that one is from there.
Thankfully I spoke later to a French colleague who clarified what the real translation was. Just a misunderstanding on my part as there is a second meaning of cocotte.
The beef was really tasty.
But I didn't try the chicken.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7 Up -- part 2
28: Location -- Vancouver, British Columbia
After finishing my degree in chemistry I went to the University of British Columbia to do a year and-a-half of work to get a degree in psychology. Needless to say arts degrees are easier than science degrees, I don't care what arts students tell you. Once that was over, and the final rejections for grad school came (UBC alone had over 600 applications for eight spots), I was left with little direction as to what I was going to do now. So I spent a couple of months looking for a job and passed the time playing games at a nearby game store -- Mishra's Game Factory. Out of the blue one of the guys who was part owner of the store asked if I wanted a job at the store, not sure exactly why they asked me but it sounded like a great deal.
Thus started a phase of my life which to this day I consider the most fun I've ever had.
I was already there a lot playing games and now I was getting paid to do it, selling the merchandise as well as organising gaming tournaments. Because the store was a hub of the local gaming community there were people constantly in the store playing the various games and I got to know a lot of people: George, Happy John, Bitter John, Bryan, Mike McPhee and his group of friends (such as Mike, Mike, & Mike, no I'm not kidding), Dean and Liz, Byrun (whose blog I have a link to), Matt Nakamura, Uri, Orson, Sing, Aidan and Kerry, Fred, Dennis, Peter and the other card sharks (like Terry and Terry), and many more whose names escape me at the moment. By age 28 I had worked there probably close to four years, enjoying every minute of it. I was living downtown sharing an apartment with my high-school buddy Jake and since downtown was pretty much where it's at I never needed a car. Life was good.
But by this time I was also finishing my entrance courses to become a Chartered Accountant. After a few years at the store I knew that there was no way I could continue doing this forever. Don't get me wrong, it was a blast, but I really wasn't making any money, store revenues were slowly going down, and I was getting concerned that if I did not make a change soon I would end up being "Comic Book Man" from the Simpsons. My father, who I'm quite sure hated my job, recommended that I study to become a CA. He agreed to pay the costs if I would agree to do it so I did.
So by this time 1998 I had finished my entrance courses and had found a job as a junior accountant in Kamloops, a city about five hours drive away. I was going to be moving in about a month to start my three year apprenticeship before becoming a full Chartered Accountant. The days of playing games and hanging out with my friends in Downtown Vancouver were about to end. Even at that time I knew that I would never have so much fun in my life again. At least though I had plans for the future and when I got my designation I would be able to make a decent amount of money so that I can actually start saving. I was 28 and barely had a couple of hundred bucks on me.
35: Location -- Bermuda
After my three years in Kamloops I had achieved my designation as a Chartered Account, including passing the brutal UFE exam (16 hours, four hours a day for four days) on my first try. I was not happy at the firm so as soon as I had my designation I immediately called a placement agency in the back of an accountant magazine that specialised in jobs in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Had an phone interview with KPMG within a week and had a job offer about a week later. So I was off to Bermuda.
Shortly after I got to Bermuda my father passed away of cancer, leaving to catch my flight to Bermuda was the last time I saw him. Between that tragedy, moving to a new place where I did not know anyone, and being really busy with work I can definitely say that it was the worst winter I ever had. I spent six months being miserable and regretting my decision to move here.
That summer I was sent on a three-month secondment to the Bermuda Monatery Authority, the financial regulator. I was working in their Insurance Department helping out with some backlog. I worked well there, and they liked me working there, so they extended my secondment to the end of my KPMG contract and then hired me. I was now an insurance regulator. I liked my job. And because it was summer I was experiencing Bermuda's incredible beaches for the first time. Things were looking up.
Three years on I was still there but had moved on to the Policy Department by then. I was staying in a three-bedroom house on the water that I shared with two housemates, had a weekly tennis group that I played with, was volunteering at the zoo, and had a number of new friends: George, Knut and Petra, Janel, Gregg, Mike R and Jen, Lothar and Fiona, Martin, Zuzana, Eric & Fredericka, and others. But I had been in Bermuda for five years and it was a small island, very small. I was starting to get what locals called "Rock fever" and felt like I needed to get away. Also the Bermuda Immigration Department was very strict about work visas and would generally only foreigners work on the island for six years. And because Immigration also required that any job vacancy be posted my work would have had to post my new position if they wanted to give me a promotion -- so there was little room for me to advance. So it was either renew my contract for one year only or start looking for something else. By this time I was still uncertain as to what I was going to do, but by December I had made my decision...
38 (now): Location -- Qatar
And here I am, and insurance regulator in Qatar.
Looking back it is bizarre the path my life took. At any point in time if someone had told me where I would be, or what I would be doing, seven years later I would have told them that they were nuts.
A lot of other people can really plan for the future. They can tell you what the be doing 5, 10, or maybe even 15 years down the road and sure enough they do it. I can never plan like that, I always seem to just go with whatever opportunity happens to come by at the time I'm looking for one. Can't say that I have done too bad by it though, non?
After finishing my degree in chemistry I went to the University of British Columbia to do a year and-a-half of work to get a degree in psychology. Needless to say arts degrees are easier than science degrees, I don't care what arts students tell you. Once that was over, and the final rejections for grad school came (UBC alone had over 600 applications for eight spots), I was left with little direction as to what I was going to do now. So I spent a couple of months looking for a job and passed the time playing games at a nearby game store -- Mishra's Game Factory. Out of the blue one of the guys who was part owner of the store asked if I wanted a job at the store, not sure exactly why they asked me but it sounded like a great deal.
Thus started a phase of my life which to this day I consider the most fun I've ever had.
I was already there a lot playing games and now I was getting paid to do it, selling the merchandise as well as organising gaming tournaments. Because the store was a hub of the local gaming community there were people constantly in the store playing the various games and I got to know a lot of people: George, Happy John, Bitter John, Bryan, Mike McPhee and his group of friends (such as Mike, Mike, & Mike, no I'm not kidding), Dean and Liz, Byrun (whose blog I have a link to), Matt Nakamura, Uri, Orson, Sing, Aidan and Kerry, Fred, Dennis, Peter and the other card sharks (like Terry and Terry), and many more whose names escape me at the moment. By age 28 I had worked there probably close to four years, enjoying every minute of it. I was living downtown sharing an apartment with my high-school buddy Jake and since downtown was pretty much where it's at I never needed a car. Life was good.
But by this time I was also finishing my entrance courses to become a Chartered Accountant. After a few years at the store I knew that there was no way I could continue doing this forever. Don't get me wrong, it was a blast, but I really wasn't making any money, store revenues were slowly going down, and I was getting concerned that if I did not make a change soon I would end up being "Comic Book Man" from the Simpsons. My father, who I'm quite sure hated my job, recommended that I study to become a CA. He agreed to pay the costs if I would agree to do it so I did.
So by this time 1998 I had finished my entrance courses and had found a job as a junior accountant in Kamloops, a city about five hours drive away. I was going to be moving in about a month to start my three year apprenticeship before becoming a full Chartered Accountant. The days of playing games and hanging out with my friends in Downtown Vancouver were about to end. Even at that time I knew that I would never have so much fun in my life again. At least though I had plans for the future and when I got my designation I would be able to make a decent amount of money so that I can actually start saving. I was 28 and barely had a couple of hundred bucks on me.
35: Location -- Bermuda
After my three years in Kamloops I had achieved my designation as a Chartered Account, including passing the brutal UFE exam (16 hours, four hours a day for four days) on my first try. I was not happy at the firm so as soon as I had my designation I immediately called a placement agency in the back of an accountant magazine that specialised in jobs in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Had an phone interview with KPMG within a week and had a job offer about a week later. So I was off to Bermuda.
Shortly after I got to Bermuda my father passed away of cancer, leaving to catch my flight to Bermuda was the last time I saw him. Between that tragedy, moving to a new place where I did not know anyone, and being really busy with work I can definitely say that it was the worst winter I ever had. I spent six months being miserable and regretting my decision to move here.
That summer I was sent on a three-month secondment to the Bermuda Monatery Authority, the financial regulator. I was working in their Insurance Department helping out with some backlog. I worked well there, and they liked me working there, so they extended my secondment to the end of my KPMG contract and then hired me. I was now an insurance regulator. I liked my job. And because it was summer I was experiencing Bermuda's incredible beaches for the first time. Things were looking up.
Three years on I was still there but had moved on to the Policy Department by then. I was staying in a three-bedroom house on the water that I shared with two housemates, had a weekly tennis group that I played with, was volunteering at the zoo, and had a number of new friends: George, Knut and Petra, Janel, Gregg, Mike R and Jen, Lothar and Fiona, Martin, Zuzana, Eric & Fredericka, and others. But I had been in Bermuda for five years and it was a small island, very small. I was starting to get what locals called "Rock fever" and felt like I needed to get away. Also the Bermuda Immigration Department was very strict about work visas and would generally only foreigners work on the island for six years. And because Immigration also required that any job vacancy be posted my work would have had to post my new position if they wanted to give me a promotion -- so there was little room for me to advance. So it was either renew my contract for one year only or start looking for something else. By this time I was still uncertain as to what I was going to do, but by December I had made my decision...
38 (now): Location -- Qatar
And here I am, and insurance regulator in Qatar.
Looking back it is bizarre the path my life took. At any point in time if someone had told me where I would be, or what I would be doing, seven years later I would have told them that they were nuts.
A lot of other people can really plan for the future. They can tell you what the be doing 5, 10, or maybe even 15 years down the road and sure enough they do it. I can never plan like that, I always seem to just go with whatever opportunity happens to come by at the time I'm looking for one. Can't say that I have done too bad by it though, non?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Seven Up!
For the last couple of weeks the "classic movies" have been the Up Documentaries by Michael Apted. In 1963 of the group from the BBC interviewed about a dozen seven-year-old children from various backgrounds in a documentary called Seven Up. It proved to be a hit so every seven years thereafter they would track down the same children to interview them to see how they were doing with the resulting documentaries called 14-Up, 21-Up, 28-Up and so on. The most recent one is 49-Up which I think was released last year. So far friends and I have watched 7, 21 and 42, and the 49 we will see in a few weeks when a friend brings it back from the States. They're quite good and I recommend watching them, especially 7 which cracked me up something fierce.
Reflecting on the movies I thought it would be interesting to compose my own brief 7 Up blog entry, turns out my life had changed significantly every seven years...
Born: 1970
7 -- Location: Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is where I was born. I went to an elementary school a little more than a block away and my house was fairly close to the edge of the city and the beginning of the prairie (now I'm sure it's a few kilometres away from the prairie since the city must have grown). Most of my time was spent playing with my friend Terry Dixon and getting into the standard hijinks a young boy that age would get into. I also seem to recall that the nearest corner store, where my friends and I would go buy candy, was I think six or seven blocks away. My street ended at a small hill beyond which was a large field with railway tracks, but I do not recall if there were any trains using them. I hope I have my year right but I believe around this time in 1977 my family was preparing to move to Penticton, British Columbia, where my father had been transferred. I remember looking forward to the move as it would mean a long journey into the mountains, which I had never seen before.
14 -- Location: Penticton, British Columbia
At this point I was attending McNicoll secondary school, about a 20 minute walk away. Oddly enough I do not recall much specific to myself around this time. It was 1984 is what I remember most was the changes that were occurring in technology and culture. Music videos were becoming huge, and personal computers were starting to become prevalent. My friend Joel and I were using his Commoadore Vic-20, and it may been 1984 that he got a Commodore-64, which for its time was absolutely mind-blowing. I was also spending a lot of time down at the arcades, which were a big thing in the 80s, and hanging out at the local comics store. I think I also started working summers that year, with my first job being at the concession stand at the Okanagan Game Farm (maybe that was 1985, can't remember). I do not recall that I had any real plans for the future, my plans probably consisted of going to university after I graduated from high school, but that would have been four long years away.
21 -- Location: Kelowna, British Columbia
By the time I graduated from high school the nearby college, Okanagan College, had opened a satellite campus in Penticton for first-year students so I did my first-year college there then transferred to the main campus about 70 km north in Kelowna for the second year, majoring in chemistry. The college was a two-year college at which point students would then transfer on to the major universities on the coast (University of British Columbia, Simon Freezer University... etc) to finish their degrees. Oddly enough when I was in second year Okanagan College announced that it had a new tie-in with the University of British Columbia and were thus going to offer full four-year degrees. So at 21 I signed up to Okanagan College for my third year ...
... and I was the only chemistry student!
That was kind of bizarre being the only chemistry major. Now most chemistry courses that I took had more than one student in it because of the biology and physics majors. It usually ranged from four students to about seven. But there was the occasional specialist chemistry class for which I was the only student. Just me and the professor in the classroom, and because rules required that during labs the professor and at least one lab assistant be present I had the occasional lab where I was the only student and had two people helping me. Weird, eh?
How professors treated it differed depending on the professor. Some treated it more as a tutorial while others just went into "teaching mode" and did the same routine that they would if they had a class of 50 people.
Being the only student did have its advantages and disadvantages. If I was sick or away all I had to do was let the teacher know and I wouldn't miss anything, which was pretty cool. I was also able to schedule a couple of my exams to be at a more convenient time since I was the only one writing them. Downsides were since there was no one else in the class there were no other students to kind of compare notes or answers on assignments, and the worst part of it was you had to pay attention the entire time in class. No matter how boring the lecture was you couldn't drift off or start daydreaming because the professor was talking directly to you the whole time! There were some days where it was pretty tough.
At the time I was sharing a two-bedroom apartment with two other guys from the college. It was a nice place and just across the street from the science buildings so it took me all of three minutes to walk to class sometimes. There were a number of housemates who came and went in that apartment but I think at the time I was rooming with Brad Wakefield and Mike Varga, two guys from a town called Salmon Arm a couple hours drive north. I was hanging out with some friends from high school who also moved up to Kelowna (Jake, Tyson, Scott), my best friend Rod Young, as well as the Salmon Arm crew Brad & Mike knew.
I also recall being pretty broke. I was working summers and weekends at a nearby Agricultural Research Station operated by the government which paid enough for me to not have to use student loans to pay for school but did not leave a lot of extra money for fun. I was also stubborn and would refrain from asking my parents for money as much as possible, even if that meant eating Raman noodles for dinner. I also remember I was starting to get less enamoured with chemistry and was not sure whether I would even be able to go on to graduate school. My favourite course was actually a geography class taught by a really nice professor who was big on getting students to use their brains and think a bit beyond just rote memorisation. I don't remember his name but I do recall he was close to retiring.
My plans for the future were unknown and I seem to recall being a little bit worried about it.
Next blog entry: 28-Up, 35-Up, and today.
Reflecting on the movies I thought it would be interesting to compose my own brief 7 Up blog entry, turns out my life had changed significantly every seven years...
Born: 1970
7 -- Location: Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is where I was born. I went to an elementary school a little more than a block away and my house was fairly close to the edge of the city and the beginning of the prairie (now I'm sure it's a few kilometres away from the prairie since the city must have grown). Most of my time was spent playing with my friend Terry Dixon and getting into the standard hijinks a young boy that age would get into. I also seem to recall that the nearest corner store, where my friends and I would go buy candy, was I think six or seven blocks away. My street ended at a small hill beyond which was a large field with railway tracks, but I do not recall if there were any trains using them. I hope I have my year right but I believe around this time in 1977 my family was preparing to move to Penticton, British Columbia, where my father had been transferred. I remember looking forward to the move as it would mean a long journey into the mountains, which I had never seen before.
14 -- Location: Penticton, British Columbia
At this point I was attending McNicoll secondary school, about a 20 minute walk away. Oddly enough I do not recall much specific to myself around this time. It was 1984 is what I remember most was the changes that were occurring in technology and culture. Music videos were becoming huge, and personal computers were starting to become prevalent. My friend Joel and I were using his Commoadore Vic-20, and it may been 1984 that he got a Commodore-64, which for its time was absolutely mind-blowing. I was also spending a lot of time down at the arcades, which were a big thing in the 80s, and hanging out at the local comics store. I think I also started working summers that year, with my first job being at the concession stand at the Okanagan Game Farm (maybe that was 1985, can't remember). I do not recall that I had any real plans for the future, my plans probably consisted of going to university after I graduated from high school, but that would have been four long years away.
21 -- Location: Kelowna, British Columbia
By the time I graduated from high school the nearby college, Okanagan College, had opened a satellite campus in Penticton for first-year students so I did my first-year college there then transferred to the main campus about 70 km north in Kelowna for the second year, majoring in chemistry. The college was a two-year college at which point students would then transfer on to the major universities on the coast (University of British Columbia, Simon Freezer University... etc) to finish their degrees. Oddly enough when I was in second year Okanagan College announced that it had a new tie-in with the University of British Columbia and were thus going to offer full four-year degrees. So at 21 I signed up to Okanagan College for my third year ...
... and I was the only chemistry student!
That was kind of bizarre being the only chemistry major. Now most chemistry courses that I took had more than one student in it because of the biology and physics majors. It usually ranged from four students to about seven. But there was the occasional specialist chemistry class for which I was the only student. Just me and the professor in the classroom, and because rules required that during labs the professor and at least one lab assistant be present I had the occasional lab where I was the only student and had two people helping me. Weird, eh?
How professors treated it differed depending on the professor. Some treated it more as a tutorial while others just went into "teaching mode" and did the same routine that they would if they had a class of 50 people.
Being the only student did have its advantages and disadvantages. If I was sick or away all I had to do was let the teacher know and I wouldn't miss anything, which was pretty cool. I was also able to schedule a couple of my exams to be at a more convenient time since I was the only one writing them. Downsides were since there was no one else in the class there were no other students to kind of compare notes or answers on assignments, and the worst part of it was you had to pay attention the entire time in class. No matter how boring the lecture was you couldn't drift off or start daydreaming because the professor was talking directly to you the whole time! There were some days where it was pretty tough.
At the time I was sharing a two-bedroom apartment with two other guys from the college. It was a nice place and just across the street from the science buildings so it took me all of three minutes to walk to class sometimes. There were a number of housemates who came and went in that apartment but I think at the time I was rooming with Brad Wakefield and Mike Varga, two guys from a town called Salmon Arm a couple hours drive north. I was hanging out with some friends from high school who also moved up to Kelowna (Jake, Tyson, Scott), my best friend Rod Young, as well as the Salmon Arm crew Brad & Mike knew.
I also recall being pretty broke. I was working summers and weekends at a nearby Agricultural Research Station operated by the government which paid enough for me to not have to use student loans to pay for school but did not leave a lot of extra money for fun. I was also stubborn and would refrain from asking my parents for money as much as possible, even if that meant eating Raman noodles for dinner. I also remember I was starting to get less enamoured with chemistry and was not sure whether I would even be able to go on to graduate school. My favourite course was actually a geography class taught by a really nice professor who was big on getting students to use their brains and think a bit beyond just rote memorisation. I don't remember his name but I do recall he was close to retiring.
My plans for the future were unknown and I seem to recall being a little bit worried about it.
Next blog entry: 28-Up, 35-Up, and today.
Cell phone update
Well what do you know my mobile phone works after all! I tried charging it up again and everything worked fine. Motorola rules!
Except now the picture tube on my television is blown. If it is not one thing it is another...
Except now the picture tube on my television is blown. If it is not one thing it is another...
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Saudi cleric wants death for astrologers
So as you are aware there is a lot of financial turmoil in the markets now, what with many investment banks, as well as one of the largest insurance companies in the world (AIG), seeking buyers and/or facing bankruptcy. Someone e-mailed me for my opinion on it the other day. So what is my take on it? Sorry, that's work-related stuff. No work chat on the blog.
As for more mundane matters the knee is improving but not 100% yet. I've been seeing a physiotherapist recommended to me by a colleague and it seems to be working out well. No pain anymore but the right knee still gets uncomfortable when I stand for longer than 15 or 20 minutes. The physiotherapist has me on an exercise programme to strengthen the muscles so I'm sure in a few more weeks everything will be a-okay.
In critical thinking news a cleric in Saudi Arabia recently announced that astrologers should be put to death by the sword. A bit harsh, don'tcha think? I don't think the sharia courts of Saudi Arabia plan to follow through on that recommendation but I think things such as astrology are illegal there anyway so one astrologer would face a lesser penalty of some sort. Though I have not looked at the laws here I am sure it's illegal since you never see astrologers advertising their trade in Qatar. Now I am not a big fan of astrology, centuries of discovery and advancement in astronomy and related sciences have shown quite conclusively that astrology does not work. It has been studied extensively by scientists. The positions of celestial bodies do not influence us. That said, while I wish people would stop supporting astrology I am not some rabid anti-astrology campaigner. I know someone here who believes in astrology and they are a real nice person. I'm not about to start getting confrontational about astrology just to prove a point. I might consider getting in a confrontation if an astrologer was trying to skim money off of someone I knew, as while some astrologers are true believers I am of the opinion that most are just con-artists walking the walk to get easy money off of astrology-believers. Similar to a lot of the "psychics" that plague North America.
I suppose it is the same with any belief system, if you start to challenge a person's beliefs out of the blue people will just get defensive and "close the wagons" so to speak. That creates nothing but animosity. I would be the same. Better to make information available for people to educate themselves, or discuss it with them if they ask.
But back to Saudi Arabia. The unusual thing about this cleric is that for him to recommend the death penalty for astrologers means that he actually believes that astrology works. If I recall correctly sorcery is a very grave crime in Islam, so I think this cleric equates astrology to sorcerous practices. He would be better off educating himself a bit more about astronomy and physics and save the death-penalty rants for murderers and other horrendous criminals. I suppose he might be annoyed at the prevailance of such things on television in the Arab world. Many Arabic channels geared to young people have little "compatibility" charts on the side where viewers can text their name, a potential mate's name, and maybe their birth dates and watch as this little compatibility thing on TV spits shows a rating of how compatible you are. It is really a harmless gimmick to get teenage girls to text and would be shocked if people were actually using that to make choices about who they will marry. I suppose stranger things have happened though.
Sorcery being a crime has actually led to some interesting situations here in the Gulf -- the police treat seriously reports of individuals selling "magic amulets", "love potions" and other New Age tomfoolery and have arrested people in the past for it. The person arrested is now in a quandary as they will have to tell the court that they are either (a) a con artist as the stuff they were selling does not work, or (b) engaging in sorcery because the stuff does work. I suspect most opt for (a) as the penalties for sorcery or probably a lot greater.
E-album of Slovakia is almost done! You should see it soon.
As for more mundane matters the knee is improving but not 100% yet. I've been seeing a physiotherapist recommended to me by a colleague and it seems to be working out well. No pain anymore but the right knee still gets uncomfortable when I stand for longer than 15 or 20 minutes. The physiotherapist has me on an exercise programme to strengthen the muscles so I'm sure in a few more weeks everything will be a-okay.
In critical thinking news a cleric in Saudi Arabia recently announced that astrologers should be put to death by the sword. A bit harsh, don'tcha think? I don't think the sharia courts of Saudi Arabia plan to follow through on that recommendation but I think things such as astrology are illegal there anyway so one astrologer would face a lesser penalty of some sort. Though I have not looked at the laws here I am sure it's illegal since you never see astrologers advertising their trade in Qatar. Now I am not a big fan of astrology, centuries of discovery and advancement in astronomy and related sciences have shown quite conclusively that astrology does not work. It has been studied extensively by scientists. The positions of celestial bodies do not influence us. That said, while I wish people would stop supporting astrology I am not some rabid anti-astrology campaigner. I know someone here who believes in astrology and they are a real nice person. I'm not about to start getting confrontational about astrology just to prove a point. I might consider getting in a confrontation if an astrologer was trying to skim money off of someone I knew, as while some astrologers are true believers I am of the opinion that most are just con-artists walking the walk to get easy money off of astrology-believers. Similar to a lot of the "psychics" that plague North America.
I suppose it is the same with any belief system, if you start to challenge a person's beliefs out of the blue people will just get defensive and "close the wagons" so to speak. That creates nothing but animosity. I would be the same. Better to make information available for people to educate themselves, or discuss it with them if they ask.
But back to Saudi Arabia. The unusual thing about this cleric is that for him to recommend the death penalty for astrologers means that he actually believes that astrology works. If I recall correctly sorcery is a very grave crime in Islam, so I think this cleric equates astrology to sorcerous practices. He would be better off educating himself a bit more about astronomy and physics and save the death-penalty rants for murderers and other horrendous criminals. I suppose he might be annoyed at the prevailance of such things on television in the Arab world. Many Arabic channels geared to young people have little "compatibility" charts on the side where viewers can text their name, a potential mate's name, and maybe their birth dates and watch as this little compatibility thing on TV spits shows a rating of how compatible you are. It is really a harmless gimmick to get teenage girls to text and would be shocked if people were actually using that to make choices about who they will marry. I suppose stranger things have happened though.
Sorcery being a crime has actually led to some interesting situations here in the Gulf -- the police treat seriously reports of individuals selling "magic amulets", "love potions" and other New Age tomfoolery and have arrested people in the past for it. The person arrested is now in a quandary as they will have to tell the court that they are either (a) a con artist as the stuff they were selling does not work, or (b) engaging in sorcery because the stuff does work. I suspect most opt for (a) as the penalties for sorcery or probably a lot greater.
E-album of Slovakia is almost done! You should see it soon.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Happy Birthday Mark!
My brother Mark turns something like 5 billion tomorrow. After reading about my recent injuries with the knee, hands etc he informed me that I would have more to come as once you turn 40 you just fall apart. Joy!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Mark!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Mark!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
More random updates
Well, the phone still doesn't work. I guess I couldn't have expected it to after sitting on the bottom of the pool for about 20 minutes. Thankfully I still have my old mobile and the sim card survived the pool incident so I didn't lose any of my friends' numbers. I now have to explain to the friend who gave me the phone what happened to it. My old phone is such "old tech" (true) that they bought the phone for me as a gift because it bugged them that I was using it. They will definitely notice that I'm back on my old phone.
It's not that my friend is some technology snob, the phone really is old tech. I got it by boldly walking into a mobile phone store a couple of years ago and pretty much saying "Your cheapest phone please!". It works fine, it is just not fancy in any way. (For those of you whose curiosity has been piqued it is a Motorola C113)
Speaking of new tech I just bought a new camera. My old Olympus D-560 was just not cutting it any more. Bulky, slow, and had an annoying motor sound when it opened and closed, something I really noticed when I was on vacation. Even more embarrassing was that most mobile phones with a camera feature had better resolution. Considering the camera is a good six years old it has served me well but it is time to move on to something a little smaller and more high-tech. So I picked myself up an Olympus Stylus-820, fits nicely in a pocket, 5X optical zoom, 8.0 MP, image stabilisation, and my new memory card can hold almost 1300 pictures! I'll give it a good workout tonight at a Sohour dinner that I'm going to.
Have I mentioned that it is Ramadan? For 28 days all the Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset so the hotels have lavish banquets in the evenings. Every year the office invites all the staff to one, this year it is at the Sharq spa & resort, one of the nicest hotels in town, so it should be a good spread. They will likely have entertainment as well such as musicians and Sufi dancers (perhaps better known to you as Whirling Dervishes). No bellydancing though -- that's not allowed in Qatar. Too lewd for Qatari moral values I guess.
I also received a couple of requests for that e-album of Slovakia. You haven't missed it, is just not finished yet. I've actually been quite swamped with work but more importantly these albums always take more time than I realise. You see, when I put the pictures in the album I do research to flesh out the descriptions and try to have the information correct. This takes time especially when the album is a good hundred photos or so. Then I have to upload it all onto the net, and the connection at the compound is very slow. I'm almost there, I have the pictures already uploaded and am now starting to transfer the descriptions, just be patient.
For Eid I think that I am going to stay here for the first time ever. I was checking out flights and holiday packages but I left it too late and it just got too expensive. Between that and the knee problem I figure I should just take it easy. I was considering a quick holiday to Munich for Oktoberfest but the prices were brutal. Most decent hotels in the city wanted €300+ per night, and even a one star hotel wanted €120. Ack! What a rip-off, I'm not paying that kind of money just to drink beer from a fancy mug. The cost of flight and three nights hotel was almost the price of my nine-day London/Paris trip that I did last summer. No thanks. I'll just save the money and stay here.
It's not that my friend is some technology snob, the phone really is old tech. I got it by boldly walking into a mobile phone store a couple of years ago and pretty much saying "Your cheapest phone please!". It works fine, it is just not fancy in any way. (For those of you whose curiosity has been piqued it is a Motorola C113)
Speaking of new tech I just bought a new camera. My old Olympus D-560 was just not cutting it any more. Bulky, slow, and had an annoying motor sound when it opened and closed, something I really noticed when I was on vacation. Even more embarrassing was that most mobile phones with a camera feature had better resolution. Considering the camera is a good six years old it has served me well but it is time to move on to something a little smaller and more high-tech. So I picked myself up an Olympus Stylus-820, fits nicely in a pocket, 5X optical zoom, 8.0 MP, image stabilisation, and my new memory card can hold almost 1300 pictures! I'll give it a good workout tonight at a Sohour dinner that I'm going to.
Have I mentioned that it is Ramadan? For 28 days all the Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset so the hotels have lavish banquets in the evenings. Every year the office invites all the staff to one, this year it is at the Sharq spa & resort, one of the nicest hotels in town, so it should be a good spread. They will likely have entertainment as well such as musicians and Sufi dancers (perhaps better known to you as Whirling Dervishes). No bellydancing though -- that's not allowed in Qatar. Too lewd for Qatari moral values I guess.
I also received a couple of requests for that e-album of Slovakia. You haven't missed it, is just not finished yet. I've actually been quite swamped with work but more importantly these albums always take more time than I realise. You see, when I put the pictures in the album I do research to flesh out the descriptions and try to have the information correct. This takes time especially when the album is a good hundred photos or so. Then I have to upload it all onto the net, and the connection at the compound is very slow. I'm almost there, I have the pictures already uploaded and am now starting to transfer the descriptions, just be patient.
For Eid I think that I am going to stay here for the first time ever. I was checking out flights and holiday packages but I left it too late and it just got too expensive. Between that and the knee problem I figure I should just take it easy. I was considering a quick holiday to Munich for Oktoberfest but the prices were brutal. Most decent hotels in the city wanted €300+ per night, and even a one star hotel wanted €120. Ack! What a rip-off, I'm not paying that kind of money just to drink beer from a fancy mug. The cost of flight and three nights hotel was almost the price of my nine-day London/Paris trip that I did last summer. No thanks. I'll just save the money and stay here.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
A crummy day.
Well yesterday turned out to be a fairly crappy day. You know, one of those days when you just would have been better off staying in bed.
Firstly, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 1:30 but at 9:30 that morning the clinic called to say that the doctor would not be available at 1:30 so can I change my appointment to an earlier time such as 11:30. That was somewhat inconvenient but not a big deal, these things happen. So I get to the clinic a little early (it was my first time there so they had told me I need to show up a little earlier in order to fill out paperwork), filled out the forms, and then waited to see the doctor...
Which happened at 1:00!
Yes, I was waiting there well over an hour and a half. Why in the world they told me to show up at 11:30 I have no idea. At least there was an AC Milan game on at the time which helped while always some time. And the staff were really apologetic about the delay, to the point where even another doctor turned to ask the staff why I was still waiting as he had noticed I had been there for a while.
I forgot to mention, why was I at the doctor? During my trip to Slovakia there was a lot of walking around and standing around at museums and for some reason my legs would get tired fairly quickly. Then my friend and I went hiking in the mountains. At the end of the first day my knees were in agony. Granted I had been hiking in mountains all day but my knees hurt more than they should have been. We tried hiking again two days later on an even gentler trail but my knees wound up in pain again. So once I got back to Doha I scheduled an appointment with this clinic as they had a doctor who specialised in knee injuries.
The diagnosis: (spelling may be a bit off here) Pataeua Condromalagia. Essentially a weakening of the muscles surrounding the kneecap, causing the kneecap to press more against the bones and tendons resulting in painful inflammation.
Well, that sucked. But it is not as bad as it could have been, at first the doctor suspected a condition called oesteoathrosis but he had a thick accent so I thought he said oesteoporosis! (you know, that weakening of the bones common in elderly ladies). I nearly fell out of my chair! Thankfully he corrected my mistake and a quick x-ray ruled out the oesteoathrosis, which sounded scary as well anyway.
So now I have to get physio to strengthen the muscles around my kneecap. My legs were the last place I ever thought I would have weak muscles considering I walk a lot and used to play a lot of tennis.
So that evening I decided to do some swimming since that would be exercise that would not really affect my knees. So I am swimming around the pool and after about 20 minutes I noticed that there was a mobile phone on the bottom of the pool. I knew that wasn't mine because mine was in my knapsack on the lounge chair so I assumed it belonged to the other gentlemen swimming in the pool. But when I pointed it out he said it was not his. A closer look revealed that was the same model as my phone.
And then I realised that, for some unknown stupid reason, I had put my phone in the pocket of my swimsuit when I headed out to the pool! That was my phone!! So not only did I decide to put my phone in my swimsuit pocket, something I've never done previously, I must have looked like an idiot in front this other guy. "Oh yeah, that's my phone!"
I have decided to dry my phone out for a couple of days in the hopes that it works. If it does I am going to send an e-mail to Motorola telling them they have absolutely amazing-quality phones.
I went to bed early telling myself that tomorrow had to be a better day.
Thankfully, it was.
Firstly, I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 1:30 but at 9:30 that morning the clinic called to say that the doctor would not be available at 1:30 so can I change my appointment to an earlier time such as 11:30. That was somewhat inconvenient but not a big deal, these things happen. So I get to the clinic a little early (it was my first time there so they had told me I need to show up a little earlier in order to fill out paperwork), filled out the forms, and then waited to see the doctor...
Which happened at 1:00!
Yes, I was waiting there well over an hour and a half. Why in the world they told me to show up at 11:30 I have no idea. At least there was an AC Milan game on at the time which helped while always some time. And the staff were really apologetic about the delay, to the point where even another doctor turned to ask the staff why I was still waiting as he had noticed I had been there for a while.
I forgot to mention, why was I at the doctor? During my trip to Slovakia there was a lot of walking around and standing around at museums and for some reason my legs would get tired fairly quickly. Then my friend and I went hiking in the mountains. At the end of the first day my knees were in agony. Granted I had been hiking in mountains all day but my knees hurt more than they should have been. We tried hiking again two days later on an even gentler trail but my knees wound up in pain again. So once I got back to Doha I scheduled an appointment with this clinic as they had a doctor who specialised in knee injuries.
The diagnosis: (spelling may be a bit off here) Pataeua Condromalagia. Essentially a weakening of the muscles surrounding the kneecap, causing the kneecap to press more against the bones and tendons resulting in painful inflammation.
Well, that sucked. But it is not as bad as it could have been, at first the doctor suspected a condition called oesteoathrosis but he had a thick accent so I thought he said oesteoporosis! (you know, that weakening of the bones common in elderly ladies). I nearly fell out of my chair! Thankfully he corrected my mistake and a quick x-ray ruled out the oesteoathrosis, which sounded scary as well anyway.
So now I have to get physio to strengthen the muscles around my kneecap. My legs were the last place I ever thought I would have weak muscles considering I walk a lot and used to play a lot of tennis.
So that evening I decided to do some swimming since that would be exercise that would not really affect my knees. So I am swimming around the pool and after about 20 minutes I noticed that there was a mobile phone on the bottom of the pool. I knew that wasn't mine because mine was in my knapsack on the lounge chair so I assumed it belonged to the other gentlemen swimming in the pool. But when I pointed it out he said it was not his. A closer look revealed that was the same model as my phone.
And then I realised that, for some unknown stupid reason, I had put my phone in the pocket of my swimsuit when I headed out to the pool! That was my phone!! So not only did I decide to put my phone in my swimsuit pocket, something I've never done previously, I must have looked like an idiot in front this other guy. "Oh yeah, that's my phone!"
I have decided to dry my phone out for a couple of days in the hopes that it works. If it does I am going to send an e-mail to Motorola telling them they have absolutely amazing-quality phones.
I went to bed early telling myself that tomorrow had to be a better day.
Thankfully, it was.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
More random bits
Well the Olympics are over but it looks like a least one athlete has been reading my blog. Here I was saying that Taekwondo was kind of dull so the Cuban tae kwon do champ Angel Matos decided to liven things up a bit by kicking the referee in the head! Shame I missed that. Anyway he's been banned from the sport for life, can't say I blame the IOC for that call -- what referee would be willing to oversee a match with Matos after that.
With all the Olympics stuff going on I missed a really good story involving critical thinking. This has to do with that Bigfoot scam that happened in the States, where a couple of guys froze a gorilla suit in a block of ice and claimed it was Bigfoot. Even some major media outlets were reporting on it. Shock of all shocks, thanks to the media hype they sold the "body" to some pro-Bigfoot people for some undisclosed sum and by the time the buyer managed to thaw it out and discover it was a rubber suit the guys had skipped town.
I kind of feel bad for the buyer as they obviously let their enthusiasm for Bigfoot override their caution. When someone announces that they have found an hereto undiscovered new species of 7 foot primate that had been roaming North America without us discovering it until now verify it before putting money down.
So what do I think of Bigfoot? Sorry all you Bigfoot enthusiasts out there but I cannot believe that a species as large as Bigfoot, which apparently roams North America from Alaska all the way down to Alabama, could have escaped being captured and studied by now. How can a species with that big of range have escaped detection all these years?
Anyway for those of you are interested in such things Google the word "cryptozoology". This is about researching legendary animals, though I think most of those people are a little out there. Bigfoot, yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and so forth, there are people still trying to find them.
In local news the big stories are a Qatari student in the UK who was beaten to death by a gang, and a road rage incident in Qatar where one of the drivers pulled a gun and started shooting at the other car, causing an accident which killed the other driver. (Both drivers were Qataris) The gun incident is kind of concerning as that is the first time, that I know of, that has happened here. The guy with the gun is now in serious trouble of course but even if he had not killed anyone or shot the gun he was facing good jail time. Qatar takes unregistered guns very seriously, it was only a couple weeks ago that another Qatari had his car searched by the police where they discovered an unregistered rifle and some ammo. The guy got three years in prison! Ouch. That is some serious gun control laws.
Finally, a piece of trivia that you may have seen in the papers recently. The Collins Dictionary company recently announced what they believe is the most misspelled word in the English language. The result?
Supersede
Because it is not spelt "supercede". Collins believes we get it wrong because we are used to words like "precede" and "intercede". I was surprised because I definitely would have spelt it with a "c". I surveyed six people in the office and five of them thought it was spelt with a "c" and the sixth wasn't sure if it could be spelt either way. Oxford dictionary agrees with Collins. One of my co-workers suggested that maybe "supercede" is an acceptable North American spelling. If anyone has an American or Canadian dictionary who can verify it, please let me know.
With all the Olympics stuff going on I missed a really good story involving critical thinking. This has to do with that Bigfoot scam that happened in the States, where a couple of guys froze a gorilla suit in a block of ice and claimed it was Bigfoot. Even some major media outlets were reporting on it. Shock of all shocks, thanks to the media hype they sold the "body" to some pro-Bigfoot people for some undisclosed sum and by the time the buyer managed to thaw it out and discover it was a rubber suit the guys had skipped town.
I kind of feel bad for the buyer as they obviously let their enthusiasm for Bigfoot override their caution. When someone announces that they have found an hereto undiscovered new species of 7 foot primate that had been roaming North America without us discovering it until now verify it before putting money down.
So what do I think of Bigfoot? Sorry all you Bigfoot enthusiasts out there but I cannot believe that a species as large as Bigfoot, which apparently roams North America from Alaska all the way down to Alabama, could have escaped being captured and studied by now. How can a species with that big of range have escaped detection all these years?
Anyway for those of you are interested in such things Google the word "cryptozoology". This is about researching legendary animals, though I think most of those people are a little out there. Bigfoot, yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and so forth, there are people still trying to find them.
In local news the big stories are a Qatari student in the UK who was beaten to death by a gang, and a road rage incident in Qatar where one of the drivers pulled a gun and started shooting at the other car, causing an accident which killed the other driver. (Both drivers were Qataris) The gun incident is kind of concerning as that is the first time, that I know of, that has happened here. The guy with the gun is now in serious trouble of course but even if he had not killed anyone or shot the gun he was facing good jail time. Qatar takes unregistered guns very seriously, it was only a couple weeks ago that another Qatari had his car searched by the police where they discovered an unregistered rifle and some ammo. The guy got three years in prison! Ouch. That is some serious gun control laws.
Finally, a piece of trivia that you may have seen in the papers recently. The Collins Dictionary company recently announced what they believe is the most misspelled word in the English language. The result?
Supersede
Because it is not spelt "supercede". Collins believes we get it wrong because we are used to words like "precede" and "intercede". I was surprised because I definitely would have spelt it with a "c". I surveyed six people in the office and five of them thought it was spelt with a "c" and the sixth wasn't sure if it could be spelt either way. Oxford dictionary agrees with Collins. One of my co-workers suggested that maybe "supercede" is an acceptable North American spelling. If anyone has an American or Canadian dictionary who can verify it, please let me know.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Birthday wishes
My niece's birthday was yesterday (at least it was yesterday my time, because she lives 11 time zones west of here it shouldn't be yesterday where she is) Happy birthday Karis!
Hopefully Mommy and Daddy took her out to a playground or somewhere else fun and then went home for cake! Or maybe stayed home and played, and then had cake! Anyway, hope you have (had?) a great day Karis, and cake. *kiss*
Hopefully Mommy and Daddy took her out to a playground or somewhere else fun and then went home for cake! Or maybe stayed home and played, and then had cake! Anyway, hope you have (had?) a great day Karis, and cake. *kiss*
More on Olympics
Apparently Canada has in the last four or five days acquired a nice haul of medals, which should at least allay fears that we were not going to win any. Of course Australia has a lot more so I'm sure there will be more moaning by Canadians once the initial rush has calmed down and the Olympics are over. Whatever.
I do like watching the Olympics possibly because it gives you the chance to see all sorts of sports that I would never usually see. So here is my take on some of the sports I had been watching:
Rowing -- pretty interesting to follow, races do not take a lot of time and they are usually quite close which adds to the excitement.
Volleyball -- decent amount of action, sometimes good drama, but I find the matches sometimes take too long
Boxing -- to me Olympic boxing is not as exciting as watching regular boxing (you know, 10 to 15 rounds, usually ends in a knockout). Knockouts are rare Olympic boxing and they do not fight many rounds.
Taekwondo -- not that exciting to watch unfortunately. A lot of time is spent with the fighters just moving a bit back and forth waiting for their opportunity.
Diving -- interesting for perhaps about 20 minutes then gets repetitive. I couldn't get caught up in the excitement.
Athletics -- I like watching it, even the more obscure ones like polevaulting. Except for speed walking, which I just find bizarre.
Gymnastics -- a lot of people really like watching it but I find myself kind of neutral about it, doesn't really grab me.
Water Polo -- actually not that bad. I happened to turn the TV on when one match was starting (Greece versus Germany) and watched the entire match. It will not be replacing hockey or soccer any time soon though.
Handball -- I don't really get it, rather watch water polo or basketball
Basketball -- the games featuring the United States have not been all that great because the US has been stomping over every opponent. Basketball is at its best when the game is close. I will still try to watch the gold medal game though.
Equestrian -- believe it or not I actually watched a large portion of the team competition and found it interesting. But I must confess it was interesting only in that I wanted to see just how badly some riders were going to screw this up. One horse refused to jump over a water hazard, and another almost managed to throw his rider. One horse seemed to make a career out of just crashing through the gates, which I found quite amusing. I also amused by how the Saudis had one "his Royal Highness" on the team (one of the hundreds of Saudi princes I assume) and he was the worst one on the team.
So enjoy the last few days of the Olympics, I'll try the catch what I can.
I do like watching the Olympics possibly because it gives you the chance to see all sorts of sports that I would never usually see. So here is my take on some of the sports I had been watching:
Rowing -- pretty interesting to follow, races do not take a lot of time and they are usually quite close which adds to the excitement.
Volleyball -- decent amount of action, sometimes good drama, but I find the matches sometimes take too long
Boxing -- to me Olympic boxing is not as exciting as watching regular boxing (you know, 10 to 15 rounds, usually ends in a knockout). Knockouts are rare Olympic boxing and they do not fight many rounds.
Taekwondo -- not that exciting to watch unfortunately. A lot of time is spent with the fighters just moving a bit back and forth waiting for their opportunity.
Diving -- interesting for perhaps about 20 minutes then gets repetitive. I couldn't get caught up in the excitement.
Athletics -- I like watching it, even the more obscure ones like polevaulting. Except for speed walking, which I just find bizarre.
Gymnastics -- a lot of people really like watching it but I find myself kind of neutral about it, doesn't really grab me.
Water Polo -- actually not that bad. I happened to turn the TV on when one match was starting (Greece versus Germany) and watched the entire match. It will not be replacing hockey or soccer any time soon though.
Handball -- I don't really get it, rather watch water polo or basketball
Basketball -- the games featuring the United States have not been all that great because the US has been stomping over every opponent. Basketball is at its best when the game is close. I will still try to watch the gold medal game though.
Equestrian -- believe it or not I actually watched a large portion of the team competition and found it interesting. But I must confess it was interesting only in that I wanted to see just how badly some riders were going to screw this up. One horse refused to jump over a water hazard, and another almost managed to throw his rider. One horse seemed to make a career out of just crashing through the gates, which I found quite amusing. I also amused by how the Saudis had one "his Royal Highness" on the team (one of the hundreds of Saudi princes I assume) and he was the worst one on the team.
So enjoy the last few days of the Olympics, I'll try the catch what I can.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Canada and the Olympics
So it is day number eight of the Olympics and I woke up this morning to see that Canada still had zero medals. [Update: by this afternoon we had 3 but I'm still going to rant anyway]. Now I know that Canada has never been a major Summer Olympics nation but even this was a little surprising to me as it usually doesn't take us eight days to get medals. Not surprising to me however was the inevitable news articles and editorials in Canada griping about our Olympics performance. So why wasn't I surprised?
Because this happens every Summer Olympics!
Canadians always seemed shocked when we don't wind up with 40+ medals so we start going through the excuses, the handwringing, the appeals to our politicians and sporting authorities to explain what happened, the angry letters to the editor. Comparisons to Australia are inevitably made. Comparisons to countries in the developing world who managed to get medals are inevitably made. And then one month later we forget about all that because it is time for hockey to start. Four years later the cycle will begin anew. As far as I can tell moaning about the Summer Olympics is a Canadian tradition.
So, in true Canadian-Olympic spirit, here are my gripes about the whole process:
1) Stop the comparisons with Australia
Yes, Canada and Australia have similar levels of wealth. Yes, both countries are large, sparsely-populated “Western” nations. Yes, men in both countries like to wrestle wild and dangerous animals (Australians: crocs, Canadians: Revenue Canada lawyers) but there is one key difference -- Australians happen to like some sports that offer a lot of medals, such as swimming, whereas we like sports that don't offer a lot of medals, such as hockey and curling. It is that simple. The most medals a country can win in hockey is 2. The most medals at country can win in curling is 2. The most medals a country can possibly win in swimming is probably something like 10,000 or so. That's just the way it is. If it bothers you that much that Australia has big Summer Olympics medals tallies than petition the IOC to include all of the NHL's Skills Competition events as separate medal items in the Winter Olympics. While you're at it, ask them to include relay versions of those same events. Canada will then triple its Winter Olympics medal tallies and you can sleep smugly.
2) The other 46 months between Olympics
One article I read really hit it on the head when they noted that we don't seem to care about almost any of the Summer Olympics events or the athletes competing in them for the 46 months between Summer Olympics. Only when the Olympics are upon us are we suddenly concerned with our rowers, wrestlers, gymnasts, and swimmers and demand that they perform and get medals. Is this really fair?
Why are we heaping these expectations upon them now? If we haven't been following gymnastics for these last four years it seems a little unfair to suddenly become concerned about our athletes performance in Beijing. While we spent 46 months ignoring the athletes they continued to train and compete, representing their country in the sports they loved. They certainly couldn't have been doing it for the money, and probably 98% of them are never recognized by people when they walk down the street. Local television usually doesn't even bother broadcasting their events because they know Canadians would rather watch something else. And a major endorsement deal is highly unlikely. So we don't embrace them for 46 months, then for two months demand medals. If I were a Canadian athlete slugging it out for four years in obscurity, then suddenly asked why I'm not in the top three, I'd be tempted to tell these people demanding medals where to go. Maybe Canadians should stop looking at medal counts and look at how they placed compared to expectations. Winding up in fifth place at an Olympics is pretty awesome when you are only ranked number 20 or so in the world. Yet for many of these athletes such achievements go unnoticed.
3) Stop the comparisons with developing countries
Whenever we start comparing our medal count to some country in the developing world the underlying implication is that only money gets medals. The worst offenders are those that state something along the lines of “EVEN country XYZ has medals” with country XYZ inevitably being either war-torn, destitute, in Africa, or all of the above.
Many Olympic events do not require a lot of technology or money to train athletes in. Athletics, boxing, weightlifting, in sports like these any country has the potential to create gifted competitors, and in many of these countries sporting success is the only hope these athletes have of earning a reasonable amount of money to support their families. So they train, and train hard. Their countrymen support them. I attended the weightlifting at the Asian Games the place was packed with Iranians, Arabs and people from other nationalities, who were loudly cheering for the athletes, many times chanting their names. Can you name one Canadian weightlifter? And many times these athletes are successful and rightfully earn Olympic medals. Good for them! Money doesn't mean everything in sport so stop acting too shocked when someone from a poor nation can actually outcompete “Western” athletes in some events.
In fact the Olympic events that annoy me are those that basically exclude the Developing World because of the costs involved to either participate in it, or to train people to excel at it. Could someone explain to me how most developing nations could have even a chance of competing in something like equestrian events? Or sailing? As far as I'm concerned the IOC should consider getting rid of most of these high-tech, high-expense events and focus on those that countries of any economic level have a realistic chance to participate in.
Okay rant over, time for me to go back and watch the Olympic coverage.
Because this happens every Summer Olympics!
Canadians always seemed shocked when we don't wind up with 40+ medals so we start going through the excuses, the handwringing, the appeals to our politicians and sporting authorities to explain what happened, the angry letters to the editor. Comparisons to Australia are inevitably made. Comparisons to countries in the developing world who managed to get medals are inevitably made. And then one month later we forget about all that because it is time for hockey to start. Four years later the cycle will begin anew. As far as I can tell moaning about the Summer Olympics is a Canadian tradition.
So, in true Canadian-Olympic spirit, here are my gripes about the whole process:
1) Stop the comparisons with Australia
Yes, Canada and Australia have similar levels of wealth. Yes, both countries are large, sparsely-populated “Western” nations. Yes, men in both countries like to wrestle wild and dangerous animals (Australians: crocs, Canadians: Revenue Canada lawyers) but there is one key difference -- Australians happen to like some sports that offer a lot of medals, such as swimming, whereas we like sports that don't offer a lot of medals, such as hockey and curling. It is that simple. The most medals a country can win in hockey is 2. The most medals at country can win in curling is 2. The most medals a country can possibly win in swimming is probably something like 10,000 or so. That's just the way it is. If it bothers you that much that Australia has big Summer Olympics medals tallies than petition the IOC to include all of the NHL's Skills Competition events as separate medal items in the Winter Olympics. While you're at it, ask them to include relay versions of those same events. Canada will then triple its Winter Olympics medal tallies and you can sleep smugly.
2) The other 46 months between Olympics
One article I read really hit it on the head when they noted that we don't seem to care about almost any of the Summer Olympics events or the athletes competing in them for the 46 months between Summer Olympics. Only when the Olympics are upon us are we suddenly concerned with our rowers, wrestlers, gymnasts, and swimmers and demand that they perform and get medals. Is this really fair?
Why are we heaping these expectations upon them now? If we haven't been following gymnastics for these last four years it seems a little unfair to suddenly become concerned about our athletes performance in Beijing. While we spent 46 months ignoring the athletes they continued to train and compete, representing their country in the sports they loved. They certainly couldn't have been doing it for the money, and probably 98% of them are never recognized by people when they walk down the street. Local television usually doesn't even bother broadcasting their events because they know Canadians would rather watch something else. And a major endorsement deal is highly unlikely. So we don't embrace them for 46 months, then for two months demand medals. If I were a Canadian athlete slugging it out for four years in obscurity, then suddenly asked why I'm not in the top three, I'd be tempted to tell these people demanding medals where to go. Maybe Canadians should stop looking at medal counts and look at how they placed compared to expectations. Winding up in fifth place at an Olympics is pretty awesome when you are only ranked number 20 or so in the world. Yet for many of these athletes such achievements go unnoticed.
3) Stop the comparisons with developing countries
Whenever we start comparing our medal count to some country in the developing world the underlying implication is that only money gets medals. The worst offenders are those that state something along the lines of “EVEN country XYZ has medals” with country XYZ inevitably being either war-torn, destitute, in Africa, or all of the above.
Many Olympic events do not require a lot of technology or money to train athletes in. Athletics, boxing, weightlifting, in sports like these any country has the potential to create gifted competitors, and in many of these countries sporting success is the only hope these athletes have of earning a reasonable amount of money to support their families. So they train, and train hard. Their countrymen support them. I attended the weightlifting at the Asian Games the place was packed with Iranians, Arabs and people from other nationalities, who were loudly cheering for the athletes, many times chanting their names. Can you name one Canadian weightlifter? And many times these athletes are successful and rightfully earn Olympic medals. Good for them! Money doesn't mean everything in sport so stop acting too shocked when someone from a poor nation can actually outcompete “Western” athletes in some events.
In fact the Olympic events that annoy me are those that basically exclude the Developing World because of the costs involved to either participate in it, or to train people to excel at it. Could someone explain to me how most developing nations could have even a chance of competing in something like equestrian events? Or sailing? As far as I'm concerned the IOC should consider getting rid of most of these high-tech, high-expense events and focus on those that countries of any economic level have a realistic chance to participate in.
Okay rant over, time for me to go back and watch the Olympic coverage.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Coinage
Coming back from my vacation I had a bit of coinage with me from the various countries that I've visited and immediately put it in my "coin drawer" and then realised that there were a lot of coins in there. So what do I have?
-- $1.36 Canadian, including two fifty-cent pieces (any Canadian remember those?)
-- £2.25
-- 500 Bahraini fils
-- 11.80 Euro (Christ that's a lot, better remember to bring it with me next time I am in Europe)
-- 1.60 Hong Kong dollars
-- 2 UAE dinar
-- 22 Czech crowns
-- 0.25 Caymanian dollar (where did that come from? I've never even been to the Cayman Islands)
-- 22 pence from the Isle of Man
-- 0.10 Turkish lira
-- 1.50 Macau dollars
-- $.40 of convertible Cuban peso (in Cuba this currency had a value on par with the US dollar but is worthless anywhere else)
-- unidentifiable coin, has "20" on one side and "confederatio Helvetica" on the other. I don't think it is Turkish.
-- unidentifiable coin, has the number "1" on one side and some sort of Oriental script on it which I think is Chinese. Maybe some kind of Chinese penny?
While I'm in the drawer I may as well list a few "souvenir bills" that I have kept over the years:
-- 10 million Zimbabwe dollars (was only worth about $.30 when I got it and the bill expires on June 30, 2008 so is worthless now)
-- 1 punt note from the Central bank of Ireland
-- a US two dollar bill
And of course I have some Canadian, US, British, Bahraini, UAE, and Euro notes for spending when I am next in those countries.
Looking back at all of this I now realise that different currencies are annoying. I think the Europeans have the right idea by trying to harmonise to just one currency. The Gulf countries may do the same in 2010 and have just one Gulf currency. Fine by me.
-- $1.36 Canadian, including two fifty-cent pieces (any Canadian remember those?)
-- £2.25
-- 500 Bahraini fils
-- 11.80 Euro (Christ that's a lot, better remember to bring it with me next time I am in Europe)
-- 1.60 Hong Kong dollars
-- 2 UAE dinar
-- 22 Czech crowns
-- 0.25 Caymanian dollar (where did that come from? I've never even been to the Cayman Islands)
-- 22 pence from the Isle of Man
-- 0.10 Turkish lira
-- 1.50 Macau dollars
-- $.40 of convertible Cuban peso (in Cuba this currency had a value on par with the US dollar but is worthless anywhere else)
-- unidentifiable coin, has "20" on one side and "confederatio Helvetica" on the other. I don't think it is Turkish.
-- unidentifiable coin, has the number "1" on one side and some sort of Oriental script on it which I think is Chinese. Maybe some kind of Chinese penny?
While I'm in the drawer I may as well list a few "souvenir bills" that I have kept over the years:
-- 10 million Zimbabwe dollars (was only worth about $.30 when I got it and the bill expires on June 30, 2008 so is worthless now)
-- 1 punt note from the Central bank of Ireland
-- a US two dollar bill
And of course I have some Canadian, US, British, Bahraini, UAE, and Euro notes for spending when I am next in those countries.
Looking back at all of this I now realise that different currencies are annoying. I think the Europeans have the right idea by trying to harmonise to just one currency. The Gulf countries may do the same in 2010 and have just one Gulf currency. Fine by me.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
I'm back
Okay -- I'm back!
Where have I been? On vacation in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and even a day trip to Vienna.
For those of you on my e-album list I'm starting to get all the pictures together to put into albums but it is going to take me a bit of time. Between my friend Zuzana and myself we had over 900 pictures. I'm thinking of splitting it up into three e-albums (of about 50-100 pics each, I'm not going to use them all) so that it is more manageable. Just be patient, 900 pictures is a lot to sort through.
So instead of going into detail about the trip I think I will use this post to discuss things that I experienced that can not be explained in pictures:
-- the Slovak and Czech languages, while they use the Latin alphabet, have of course different syllable stresses than English and certain letter combinations are pronounced differently then you would instinctively do in English. As a result I became very good at pronouncing most Slovak/Czech words that I saw incorrectly. I did improve a little as time went on but it is funny how as soon as you start reading a word it is very difficult to "override" your instinct for how it is pronounced in your native language. My friend explained that in Slovak the letters only have one sound, which makes it even less complicated than English where letters like 'c' or 'g' could be pronounced in different ways, but I never could quite get a handle on it.
-- beer is reasonably priced, in many cases the same price as a soda. I've never been to many places in the world where a beer was about the same price as a cola. Outside of the big cities a pint of beer was usually around US $1.30-$1.50. And Czezh/Slovak beers are quite nice too. I quickly learned that "pivo" means beer.
-- for you nondrinkers the cola of choice is not Coke or Pepsi but a local one called Kofola. In some restaurants it is even available on tap, much like draft beer. While it is very popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic my friend told me she had never seen it anywhere else.
-- the border between Austria and Slovakia is open and you do not even have to stop your vehicle when crossing the border. Quite a change from when Slovakia was in the "Iron Curtain" and Austria was in the "West", and that was what, 20 years ago? It is sad to think that it was not so long ago that people could be arrested or even killed crossing that border.
-- The highway road quality is generally better in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The main highway from Prague to Brno (the second-largest city in the Czech Republic) was rough and bumpy while the moment that highway crossed into Slovakia it became a lot smoother. Unless the Czech Republic do some serious roadworks that highway is going to be a real mess in about three to four years.
-- in the Czech language "Prague" is actually spelt and pronounced "Praha". That kind of surprised me as I had no idea why English would convert Praha into Prague (why would English add a 'g'?). A Czech friend of mine figured that English took it from the German who also pronounce it "Prag". Perhaps to get even while we use "Vienna" in Austria the city's name is actually spelt "Wien". Bear this in mind if you're ever on a road trip through Czech Republic and Austria because if you start looking for road signs pointing you to "Prague" or "Vienna" you will not find them.
That is it for now, if I think of anything else I will post it. The e-albums should start arriving within the next week or so.
Where have I been? On vacation in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and even a day trip to Vienna.
For those of you on my e-album list I'm starting to get all the pictures together to put into albums but it is going to take me a bit of time. Between my friend Zuzana and myself we had over 900 pictures. I'm thinking of splitting it up into three e-albums (of about 50-100 pics each, I'm not going to use them all) so that it is more manageable. Just be patient, 900 pictures is a lot to sort through.
So instead of going into detail about the trip I think I will use this post to discuss things that I experienced that can not be explained in pictures:
-- the Slovak and Czech languages, while they use the Latin alphabet, have of course different syllable stresses than English and certain letter combinations are pronounced differently then you would instinctively do in English. As a result I became very good at pronouncing most Slovak/Czech words that I saw incorrectly. I did improve a little as time went on but it is funny how as soon as you start reading a word it is very difficult to "override" your instinct for how it is pronounced in your native language. My friend explained that in Slovak the letters only have one sound, which makes it even less complicated than English where letters like 'c' or 'g' could be pronounced in different ways, but I never could quite get a handle on it.
-- beer is reasonably priced, in many cases the same price as a soda. I've never been to many places in the world where a beer was about the same price as a cola. Outside of the big cities a pint of beer was usually around US $1.30-$1.50. And Czezh/Slovak beers are quite nice too. I quickly learned that "pivo" means beer.
-- for you nondrinkers the cola of choice is not Coke or Pepsi but a local one called Kofola. In some restaurants it is even available on tap, much like draft beer. While it is very popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic my friend told me she had never seen it anywhere else.
-- the border between Austria and Slovakia is open and you do not even have to stop your vehicle when crossing the border. Quite a change from when Slovakia was in the "Iron Curtain" and Austria was in the "West", and that was what, 20 years ago? It is sad to think that it was not so long ago that people could be arrested or even killed crossing that border.
-- The highway road quality is generally better in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The main highway from Prague to Brno (the second-largest city in the Czech Republic) was rough and bumpy while the moment that highway crossed into Slovakia it became a lot smoother. Unless the Czech Republic do some serious roadworks that highway is going to be a real mess in about three to four years.
-- in the Czech language "Prague" is actually spelt and pronounced "Praha". That kind of surprised me as I had no idea why English would convert Praha into Prague (why would English add a 'g'?). A Czech friend of mine figured that English took it from the German who also pronounce it "Prag". Perhaps to get even while we use "Vienna" in Austria the city's name is actually spelt "Wien". Bear this in mind if you're ever on a road trip through Czech Republic and Austria because if you start looking for road signs pointing you to "Prague" or "Vienna" you will not find them.
That is it for now, if I think of anything else I will post it. The e-albums should start arriving within the next week or so.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Oman
So I just got back from a five-day trip to Oman. It was a business trip that was only going to take two days but I loved my visit to Oman last year so I took some time off and extended the trip. My two colleagues who attended the business meetings with me did the same.
This time we really lucked out, the business hotels were offering rates of around $250 a night but one of my colleagues knew someone who worked at the Shangri-La resort there (one of the nicest resorts in Oman) and found out that they were having a special that was cheaper than the business hotels. So I booked myself four nights at the Shangri-La resort and had an awesome time. I won't get into the details of the amenities, if you're really interested you can look it up yourself online. Needless to say the only hotel I have ever stayed in that compares to it is the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.
The organisation that we were meeting in Muscat were really gracious hosts. Despite the fact that we weren't even meeting them until the fourth day of my trip they provided us with a car and driver the whole time to take us around the city and into the countryside. We went down to the Souq in Muttrah one evening, where my colleagues and I went shopping for various Omani goods. Oman is historically famous for its silver jewellery and silversmithing so one of my colleagues picked up some silver jewellery for his wife, while another one of my colleagues started pricing out traditional Omani daggers. The daggers are not cheap, a real one generally costs around $500-$800, but it was interesting to look at them. My colleague plans to come back to Muscat with his wife later in the year so he will probably purchase a dagger then. He has to be careful though as some of the daggers have handles made of rhino horn so would likely be illegal to transport to the West. We also purchased some frankincense (Oman is where frankincense comes from) as well is a traditional Omani dessert called halwa. Halwa is difficult to describe, it is somewhat like a sticky pudding made with various items like sugar, dates, and rosewater. During our meetings our hosts also provided us with halwa to snack on so it is apparently a popular food in Oman.
On Sunday we did a day trip to the old capital Niswa to see the old fort there as well as visit the Al-hudda caves, one of the largest cave systems in Oman. Considering that Niswa is approximately 200 km away from Muscat it was really nice for our hosts to have provided a car and driver to take us all the way there and back. The trip didn't take as long as I expected as the driver was averaging around 150 km/hr the entire way, as is typical of highway driving in the Middle East. We visited the fort and toured the museum there. It was hot, around 40°, but as we were in the interior it was a dry heat as opposed to the humidity on the coast so it was bearable as long as you had some water with you. We then went to the caves which were not very busy as summer was the off-season. So my colleagues, the driver and I had our own guide to give us a tour around the caves. The caves were only 25°, which at first was quite refreshing, but it was quite humid in there so after a while it felt quite muggy. I think in the cave we walked close to 1 km so we were sweaty by the time we were done. At the end of the tour we were actually glad to be back out in the dry heat! It was a nice cave though and even had a lake with blind cave fish in it. Turned out that guide has a brother who is studying at the University of Toronto and he hoped to visit him one day in the winter so that he could see snow. I told him that winter in Canada is definitely an experience but that if he gets the chance to go Toronto to really prepare himself for the cold weather. Somehow I don't think most Arabs adequately prepare themselves for -20°.
As was typical of my first trip there Oman was clean and the people generally friendly, much more so than in other countries in the Middle East. I am sure I will go back there again for a vacation. Maybe next summer I will go to Salalah in the aouth, Omanis have told me that in July and August it is actually quite pleasant there as it is one of the only places in the Arabian peninsula that gets rain during the summer, helping to keep it cool. Hopefully I will find out myself.
This time we really lucked out, the business hotels were offering rates of around $250 a night but one of my colleagues knew someone who worked at the Shangri-La resort there (one of the nicest resorts in Oman) and found out that they were having a special that was cheaper than the business hotels. So I booked myself four nights at the Shangri-La resort and had an awesome time. I won't get into the details of the amenities, if you're really interested you can look it up yourself online. Needless to say the only hotel I have ever stayed in that compares to it is the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.
The organisation that we were meeting in Muscat were really gracious hosts. Despite the fact that we weren't even meeting them until the fourth day of my trip they provided us with a car and driver the whole time to take us around the city and into the countryside. We went down to the Souq in Muttrah one evening, where my colleagues and I went shopping for various Omani goods. Oman is historically famous for its silver jewellery and silversmithing so one of my colleagues picked up some silver jewellery for his wife, while another one of my colleagues started pricing out traditional Omani daggers. The daggers are not cheap, a real one generally costs around $500-$800, but it was interesting to look at them. My colleague plans to come back to Muscat with his wife later in the year so he will probably purchase a dagger then. He has to be careful though as some of the daggers have handles made of rhino horn so would likely be illegal to transport to the West. We also purchased some frankincense (Oman is where frankincense comes from) as well is a traditional Omani dessert called halwa. Halwa is difficult to describe, it is somewhat like a sticky pudding made with various items like sugar, dates, and rosewater. During our meetings our hosts also provided us with halwa to snack on so it is apparently a popular food in Oman.
On Sunday we did a day trip to the old capital Niswa to see the old fort there as well as visit the Al-hudda caves, one of the largest cave systems in Oman. Considering that Niswa is approximately 200 km away from Muscat it was really nice for our hosts to have provided a car and driver to take us all the way there and back. The trip didn't take as long as I expected as the driver was averaging around 150 km/hr the entire way, as is typical of highway driving in the Middle East. We visited the fort and toured the museum there. It was hot, around 40°, but as we were in the interior it was a dry heat as opposed to the humidity on the coast so it was bearable as long as you had some water with you. We then went to the caves which were not very busy as summer was the off-season. So my colleagues, the driver and I had our own guide to give us a tour around the caves. The caves were only 25°, which at first was quite refreshing, but it was quite humid in there so after a while it felt quite muggy. I think in the cave we walked close to 1 km so we were sweaty by the time we were done. At the end of the tour we were actually glad to be back out in the dry heat! It was a nice cave though and even had a lake with blind cave fish in it. Turned out that guide has a brother who is studying at the University of Toronto and he hoped to visit him one day in the winter so that he could see snow. I told him that winter in Canada is definitely an experience but that if he gets the chance to go Toronto to really prepare himself for the cold weather. Somehow I don't think most Arabs adequately prepare themselves for -20°.
As was typical of my first trip there Oman was clean and the people generally friendly, much more so than in other countries in the Middle East. I am sure I will go back there again for a vacation. Maybe next summer I will go to Salalah in the aouth, Omanis have told me that in July and August it is actually quite pleasant there as it is one of the only places in the Arabian peninsula that gets rain during the summer, helping to keep it cool. Hopefully I will find out myself.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Travel, parties and Turkish soccer
Got back from a business trip in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday night. Was there for three days: one day into Abu Dhabi, two days in Dubai. The trip went smoothly enough but it was dusty much like the rest of the region. Took a taxi to get from Abu Dhabi to Dubai (about 160 km) which took us through all of the major developments in Dubai -- it is incredible to see just how much construction and development there is been in Dubai last few years. Tower after tower of residential and commercial development, and most of these buildings were an average 50 to 60 stories tall. Make Doha look like a minor construction zone. Traffic was bad as usual.
A coworker of mine is moving to Dubai soon and was looking at real estate prices. Two-bedroom apartments were sitting in the range of 2.6 million to 4.2 million dirham (~$720,000 to $1.15 million US). Isn't that crazy? How can people afford to live there with prices like that for an apartment? And yet people keep talking like the prices are going to go up 20 to 30% a year. I see it more as a team of hot potato -- speculators buy the apartments, flip it to someone else, who flips it to someone else when the prices have gone up enough, but eventually someone will get stuck holding the apartment when the price corrects itself and goes down.
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On Saturday night I hosted a small dinner party for some friends. It always seemed that I was eating over at other peoples places and never returning the favor so it was high time that I hosted an event myself. What made it slightly challenging is that some of my guests are vegetarian, two of them are vegan, and I am generally a lousy cook! So I planned ahead about a month in advance began experimenting with vegetarian chili recipes. It seemed like a decent way to go as you just add various vegetables and spices to a boiling pot of water and let simmer (and I was pretty sure I couldn't screw that up). Have crackers, cheese, chips and grapes for starter snacks, ice cream, strawberries and cherries for dessert, and you have a well-rounded all-vegetarian and mostly vegan meal. Friends of mine brought over a blender so we could make mango juice with freshly picked mint, which was really nice in the summer heat. Overall I'd say that went pretty good. It went so well that my friend’s 92-year-old mother-in-law told me that if she were a bit younger she’d make a play for me since I'm such a good cook. (cheeky lady! And what is a bit younger -- 75?)
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So did anyone catch that Turkey versus Croatia soccer game the other day? I watched it with my friend Serdar (a Turk, natch) and his family. What a crazy game! After the last shot at the end everyone was going absolutely nuts! If you don't know when talking about look up the game in online news. The entire country of Turkey must have partied all night.
A coworker of mine is moving to Dubai soon and was looking at real estate prices. Two-bedroom apartments were sitting in the range of 2.6 million to 4.2 million dirham (~$720,000 to $1.15 million US). Isn't that crazy? How can people afford to live there with prices like that for an apartment? And yet people keep talking like the prices are going to go up 20 to 30% a year. I see it more as a team of hot potato -- speculators buy the apartments, flip it to someone else, who flips it to someone else when the prices have gone up enough, but eventually someone will get stuck holding the apartment when the price corrects itself and goes down.
*************************************
On Saturday night I hosted a small dinner party for some friends. It always seemed that I was eating over at other peoples places and never returning the favor so it was high time that I hosted an event myself. What made it slightly challenging is that some of my guests are vegetarian, two of them are vegan, and I am generally a lousy cook! So I planned ahead about a month in advance began experimenting with vegetarian chili recipes. It seemed like a decent way to go as you just add various vegetables and spices to a boiling pot of water and let simmer (and I was pretty sure I couldn't screw that up). Have crackers, cheese, chips and grapes for starter snacks, ice cream, strawberries and cherries for dessert, and you have a well-rounded all-vegetarian and mostly vegan meal. Friends of mine brought over a blender so we could make mango juice with freshly picked mint, which was really nice in the summer heat. Overall I'd say that went pretty good. It went so well that my friend’s 92-year-old mother-in-law told me that if she were a bit younger she’d make a play for me since I'm such a good cook. (cheeky lady! And what is a bit younger -- 75?)
*************************************************
So did anyone catch that Turkey versus Croatia soccer game the other day? I watched it with my friend Serdar (a Turk, natch) and his family. What a crazy game! After the last shot at the end everyone was going absolutely nuts! If you don't know when talking about look up the game in online news. The entire country of Turkey must have partied all night.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Olympics results - and vacation plans
So Doha did not make the shortlist for the Olympic Games. The IOC decided to shortlist 4 cities and Rio Chicago Madrid and Tokyo made the list. Shame. I'm still not sure why exactly they did not make the shortlist, I suppose that information will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. It looks like Qatar is big on hosting some major event -- a newspaper article mentioned that Doha might try to place a bid for the 2018 World Cup. Uh, I'm not sure if they have the infrastructure necessary to host an event like that, that requires having a lot of very large soccer stadiums.
My friend Byrun wants Rio to get the Olympics. I'd have to agree, it would be nice if South America could host the Olympics for once.
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Speaking of which, a friend Byrun has moved from Vancouver to Saskatoon to continue in university (so I guess I better update the link on the site for the new city). Good luck Byrun!
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Weather here has been a "cool" 40°, mostly because of all the dust is being blown around blocking out the sunlight. Weather reports noted that there's been a shamal wind in the last three or four days that has been kicking up a lot of dust from the deserts. I thought that shamal was an Arabic word referring to a specific type of weather phenomenon only to find out from my Qatari colleagues that shamal simply means "north". So, it looks like a north wind is kicking up a lot of dust.
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Summer vacation is almost booked! Looks like at the end of July I will be going to Slovakia and the Czech Republic for a couple weeks to visit some Czech and Slovak friends that I met in Bermuda. Initial plans are to go to Bratislava, Prague, Perdubice, and tour some of the Slovak countryside. Maybe I will even have time for a couple of days in Vienna. It should be a lot of fun.
My friend Byrun wants Rio to get the Olympics. I'd have to agree, it would be nice if South America could host the Olympics for once.
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Speaking of which, a friend Byrun has moved from Vancouver to Saskatoon to continue in university (so I guess I better update the link on the site for the new city). Good luck Byrun!
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Weather here has been a "cool" 40°, mostly because of all the dust is being blown around blocking out the sunlight. Weather reports noted that there's been a shamal wind in the last three or four days that has been kicking up a lot of dust from the deserts. I thought that shamal was an Arabic word referring to a specific type of weather phenomenon only to find out from my Qatari colleagues that shamal simply means "north". So, it looks like a north wind is kicking up a lot of dust.
************************
Summer vacation is almost booked! Looks like at the end of July I will be going to Slovakia and the Czech Republic for a couple weeks to visit some Czech and Slovak friends that I met in Bermuda. Initial plans are to go to Bratislava, Prague, Perdubice, and tour some of the Slovak countryside. Maybe I will even have time for a couple of days in Vienna. It should be a lot of fun.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Olympics!
So tonight is it very important announcement for the country of Qatar -- the international Olympic Committee will be announcing a short list of candidates for the 2016 Olympics. Doha is one of the seven candidate cities vying for the 2016 Olympics (I think be others are Baku, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Prague, and Tokyo) and tonight the IOC shortlists it down to four or five.
I hope Doha does make it onto the shortlist because it will be a key step to hosting the Olympics. Now I don't mean the 2016 Olympics, personally I don't think Doha realistically has a shot at that. But before any Qatari reading this gets all bent out of shape I have two reasons why I don't think they will get it:
1) almost no city ever gets awarded the Olympics on their first bid (in fact I was always under the assumption that no city gets it on the first bid, but it may have happened in the past such as Atlanta -- I haven't researched it though)
2) from a geographic perspective it is unlikely that the games will return to a country in Asia this quickly. The 2008 games are about to start in China, the 2012 games are in Europe. It seems unlikely to me that the 2016 games are going to go back to Asia to a first-bid city with a population of less than one million people.
My personal bet is on it going to one of the Americas.
So why am I hopeful that Doha makes it onto the shortlist? Because it is an important steppingstone for the 2020 Olympics -- that's the Olympics I think they really have a shot at! But it is important that they get onto the 2016 shortlist -- by making it onto the 2016 shortlist Doha will undergo further IOC review, they will point out the weaknesses in their application and give Doha time to remedy them for a solid 2020 bid.
Now others may disagree with my analysis, and deciding on which city gets the Olympics always has had a bit of a political element to it, but I just can't see that it would be Asia's turn again. 2020 -- strive for it Doha. Don't give up if the 2016 bid doesn't work out.
We'll find out tonight -- good luck Doha!
I hope Doha does make it onto the shortlist because it will be a key step to hosting the Olympics. Now I don't mean the 2016 Olympics, personally I don't think Doha realistically has a shot at that. But before any Qatari reading this gets all bent out of shape I have two reasons why I don't think they will get it:
1) almost no city ever gets awarded the Olympics on their first bid (in fact I was always under the assumption that no city gets it on the first bid, but it may have happened in the past such as Atlanta -- I haven't researched it though)
2) from a geographic perspective it is unlikely that the games will return to a country in Asia this quickly. The 2008 games are about to start in China, the 2012 games are in Europe. It seems unlikely to me that the 2016 games are going to go back to Asia to a first-bid city with a population of less than one million people.
My personal bet is on it going to one of the Americas.
So why am I hopeful that Doha makes it onto the shortlist? Because it is an important steppingstone for the 2020 Olympics -- that's the Olympics I think they really have a shot at! But it is important that they get onto the 2016 shortlist -- by making it onto the 2016 shortlist Doha will undergo further IOC review, they will point out the weaknesses in their application and give Doha time to remedy them for a solid 2020 bid.
Now others may disagree with my analysis, and deciding on which city gets the Olympics always has had a bit of a political element to it, but I just can't see that it would be Asia's turn again. 2020 -- strive for it Doha. Don't give up if the 2016 bid doesn't work out.
We'll find out tonight -- good luck Doha!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Lazy Friday
I forgot to mention that my birthday was a little while ago. Not a big deal really, birthdays were never a big celebration in my family so I don't take my birthday that seriously (for us Christmas was the big family holiday). As we got older we would e-mail or otherwise send birthday wishes to one another, and if we were around take them out to dinner. Mom was the exception, her birthday was Christmas Day, and we would always make sure that she got separate birthday presents as well as Christmas presents, as well as a nice cake with candles at dinner. (As an aside, if you know someone who's birthday lies very close to Christmas, and you plan to get them a gift, I recommend not giving them a "combination" birthday/Christmas present.) Most times I don't even mention to people when my birthday is.
This year a few friends knew that it was my birthday so we decided to go out for dinner to Souq Waqif later in the week, a couple of days after my birthday. I never turn down a nice dinner! So I arrived at my friends' house earlier that afternoon to watch a movie when they surprised me -- their whole family came out of the kitchen with a chocolate cake, complete with candles, and a present! I was not expecting that at all and was completely taken aback, especially since my birthday had been a couple of days ago.
Wasn't that sweet of them? When I think about it I can't really remember the last time I had a birthday cake, certainly not in the last five or six years, and despite my earlier spiel about birthdays not being a big deal I felt grateful that they had taken the time to get a cake for me. I think there is an old saying along the lines of unexpected surprises being the most pleasant, and this was no exception.
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I know I just mentioned eating cake and going out for dinner but despite that I am actually on a diet. Really, honest! It turns out a few of the other guys in the office also wanted to lose some weight so we all agreed to sign up to the gym on the first floor of our office tower and go there every lunch hour. We started this week and so far so good as I went three lunch hours (missed one because I was supposed to be going to Dubai so I didn't bring my gym bag, see previous blog entry) and I plan to go all five lunch hours next week. Going to the gym to exercise is easier when there are other people expecting you to do it. Hopefully we can keep this up for at least a few months.
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In regards to my last post about countries requiring exit permits a friend of mine mentioned that he had looked into it and as far as he knows only Saudi Arabia and Qatar have exit permit requirements for foreign workers living there. I still bet that North Korea has some sort of exit permit system in place, it is just that they don't really have many foreign workers living there and many of those who are there were kidnapped by them back in the 70s, so I'm willing to bet they would need some kind of government permission to leave the country. Anyway, isn't it weird that there are probably only a handful of countries that still have this requirement?
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Nothing much else happening today, just another lazy Friday in Doha. I think the Rugby Club next door is having a barbecue this afternoon so I might go just to have one burger. Just one. After that I'll just hang around until the stores are open in the evening as I need some new dress shirts, as well as an extra towel and gym shorts for the above-mentioned workouts. Later.
This year a few friends knew that it was my birthday so we decided to go out for dinner to Souq Waqif later in the week, a couple of days after my birthday. I never turn down a nice dinner! So I arrived at my friends' house earlier that afternoon to watch a movie when they surprised me -- their whole family came out of the kitchen with a chocolate cake, complete with candles, and a present! I was not expecting that at all and was completely taken aback, especially since my birthday had been a couple of days ago.
Wasn't that sweet of them? When I think about it I can't really remember the last time I had a birthday cake, certainly not in the last five or six years, and despite my earlier spiel about birthdays not being a big deal I felt grateful that they had taken the time to get a cake for me. I think there is an old saying along the lines of unexpected surprises being the most pleasant, and this was no exception.
***********************
I know I just mentioned eating cake and going out for dinner but despite that I am actually on a diet. Really, honest! It turns out a few of the other guys in the office also wanted to lose some weight so we all agreed to sign up to the gym on the first floor of our office tower and go there every lunch hour. We started this week and so far so good as I went three lunch hours (missed one because I was supposed to be going to Dubai so I didn't bring my gym bag, see previous blog entry) and I plan to go all five lunch hours next week. Going to the gym to exercise is easier when there are other people expecting you to do it. Hopefully we can keep this up for at least a few months.
***********************
In regards to my last post about countries requiring exit permits a friend of mine mentioned that he had looked into it and as far as he knows only Saudi Arabia and Qatar have exit permit requirements for foreign workers living there. I still bet that North Korea has some sort of exit permit system in place, it is just that they don't really have many foreign workers living there and many of those who are there were kidnapped by them back in the 70s, so I'm willing to bet they would need some kind of government permission to leave the country. Anyway, isn't it weird that there are probably only a handful of countries that still have this requirement?
******************
Nothing much else happening today, just another lazy Friday in Doha. I think the Rugby Club next door is having a barbecue this afternoon so I might go just to have one burger. Just one. After that I'll just hang around until the stores are open in the evening as I need some new dress shirts, as well as an extra towel and gym shorts for the above-mentioned workouts. Later.
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