Friday, December 28, 2007

Our trip to Oman's Musandam Peninsula

In mid December 2007 we stayed four days and three nights at the Golden Tulip Hotel just outside the town of Khasab, Oman. It was a very picturesque and secluded place to relax for a few days.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Enjoying the December Holidays

It doesn't seem like we've worked much this month due to many secular and religious holidays. We're busy creating our video about our trip to Oman. It'll be ready in a few days.

I returned to work after a nice ten day break and discovered that a reporter for a newspaper here wrote an article about my recent conference co-presentation. It was the Information Literacy Network's Professional Development Conference in Dubai. The title of the newspaper article is Don't Just Google It. It sums up the point of educating students to use reliable sources and not be dependent on solely using Google and Wikipedia.

Our Christmas tree is up and we have some presents under it. Darcy has baked gingerbread and shortbread cookies. Tonight she made hot apple cider. She has to report for work on Christmas Day but hopefully she can come home early. If not then I'll do my best to cook dinner that night.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

UAE National Day celebrations

We enjoyed out four day long weekend. On the first day we had a picnic and it was so nice to spend time outside! We had another picnic, this time at night with friends. The National Day celebrations this year seemed more impressive than last year. Authorities built an entertainment area on reclaimed land along the Corniche. We watched some Emiratis sing and dance up close. The fireworks were great and took place over three nights. Unfortunatel we missed two interesting events: seeing the world's largest flag and a marching band on the Corniche. More newspaper coverage about the celebrations are here. The festivities weren't complete without the traffic at night and engines revving and backfiring. It sounded like a warzone! But it was all in good fun and little to no alcohol was involved.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Getting ready to visit Fujarah

Darcy and I are going on a PI sponsored weekend getaway to Fujairah. We're getting a discount to stay one night at the Fujairah Rotana Hotel. We're driving our car and taking two people from work so it should be fun. We've not been there before. Work, as usual has been busy for both of us. I've finished teaching library classes for the semester. I taught 67 sessions to 928 male and female students - whew! I've also been working on a powerpoint presentation with a librarian in Al Ain. We'll be co-presenting at an Information Literacy conference in Dubai in two weeks. The weather continues to dry out and we've got three windows in our living room open right now. All our windows have been cleaned for the first time in about ten month. The sand and grime in the air quickly dirties windows here and you can't clean them yourself. Some interesting newspaper articles are about Abu Dhabi's soaring oil revenues. Another factoid is that the UAE apparently has one of, if not THE most, highest mobile/cell phone subscribers per capita in the world. There are 7.3 million subscribers out of an estimated population of 4.3 million. This is craziness! But another soaring statistics, albeit negative, is the severe housing shortage in Abu Dhabi.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

catalogued!

tee hee....

Michael and I are going to the camel racetrack tomorrow with some friends. It will be the first time we've seen camel races, and we are really looking forward to it. Pictures to follow...

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Travel plans

A few days ago I signed us up to go on a work sponsored weekend getaway to Fujarah on the Indian Ocean side of the UAE. The hotel price is heavily discounted so hopefully we'll make the cut.

We've seen the new taxis but we've yet to take one. Despite the subpar service that you get with taking the old gold and white taxis they are definitely part of the city's culture. It's an experience all visitors should have in Abu Dhabi.

Here are some staggering numbers about the amount of money being spent on airport construction projects here. Staying on the topic of flying, Ethihad Airways (UAE's national airline that's headquartered in Abu Dhabi) has grown quickly. But it's not as large as Dubai based Emirates Airways and its profits haven't skyrocketed as high as Sharjah, UAE based Air Arabia. Here's an article about being able to listen to our local newspaper articles online. Amazingly the new Ferrari theme park here will open in two years in time for the first Formula 1 race.

Friday night we went out for one of the few times this fall. We just haven't had the energy to do much beyond collapsing on the couch at home and surfing the web and watching dvds. Many of my co-workers have said that their workloads have been heavier this year compared to last year. So we're looking forward to our upcoming Oman trip and possibly Fujarah. We've also got to start planning our spring and summer trips soon...

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Welcome to November!

Where the heck did October go? I guess I was busy teaching classes, revising my library's website, working out at the gym and sleeping on weekends. Darcy was only working three jobs and squeezing in her weekly yoga class. The weather continues to dry out and I took my first evening walk outside in six months. It's so nice to be outside! It's major news here when its overcast and rainy. It was refreshingly cloudy today because of the tropical depression that's heading towards southern Oman.

I just read a disturing article about the Canadian Government's lack of transparency in reporting arms exports. I guess I was naive to think that this could not happen to a nice country like Canada!

I just discovered that our Gulf News newspaper has a neat PDF version that includes what they call a Smart ePaper edition. You can read the paper in a PDF like format or listen to articles that have VOIP (voice over internet protocol). Simply choose an article in the box on the right and then click on the interactive radio button on the left. Pretty neat and it's free! So we'll let our newspaper subscription run out and then listen to the news online.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Another relaxing weekend

This past week I revised my work hours to be more flexible with helping students later in the day. I think that it will work and working later two days a week allows me to sleep in a bit too. I noticed that my energy levels were much higher during the day. I'm still able to work out at the gym on Sundays and Wednesdays. I'll try and book my massage and acupuncture appointments on Thursdays. But my periformis and psoas muscles have been causing me much grief lately. It may be from working out twice a week so I'll try exercising once a week to see if there is an improvement.

My library's blog went live last week and over 100 people viewed it in the first two days. That's promising and I've since made two more postings. I have ideas about stories and library events to post but hopefully students, staff and faculty will remember to read the blog.

The weather has dried out in the past week so fall is definitely here. But it's still a bit too humid to shut off the a/c and open the windows in our apartment.

We booked three nights in mid December at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Khasab, Oman. It's in the very scenic Musandam Peninsula which forms the bottle neck of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. They had no vacancy the following weekend for Eid Al Hada. The price is high but it should be worth it. We need to decide soon when and where to go for our spring vacation. Darcy's work needs confirmation from staff very soon.

Today we visited Abu Dhabi's fifth annual ADIHEX (Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition). I enjoyed the human exhibits of men and women doing handicrafts. It seemed a bit strange to view them as living exhibitions but you don't really see them in the city doing this. The camel racing season gets underway this weekend too so we'll want to see one before it ends next spring.

I'll end this post with yet another article about the booming construction market in the GCC region (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman). Over $1 TRILLION (USD)has been invested in real estate construction! The UAE has 390 projects valued at about $430 billion USD.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Music From The Middle of Nowhere

BCC world service played a series called Music from the Middle of Nowhere a couple of weeks ago. It's hosted by k. d. lang, and it is much more than the "discussion of her musical influences" the online description suggests, delving into the history and music of the Canadian Prairies. I caught most of the first segment, which covered Alberta, on the way to the grocery store, and found it so fascinating I had to sit in the hot car in the parking lot until it was over. The BBC has finally posted more than a brief description of the series on its website; I hope you can listen to the episode and enjoy it as much as I did

.

We also found an interesting site called Meebo, which allows you to aggregate all your chat/instant messenger accounts into one place. No more logging into multiple IM programs at once--this is all in one place AND it's webbased so you don't need to download yet more software! Michael and I have signed up and are trying it out.

We had our Eid holiday from Thursday to Monday, which was a relief. We are both feeling more than a little burned out right now. We didn't do much more than go on a picnic on the Corniche and hang out at home working our way through Michael's newly-completed collection of Director's Edition Star Trek movies. It was certainly nice to relax and not have to go anywhere, or even change out of our pajamas if we didn't feel like it!

Life continues to be challenging on the job front for both of us. I have been seconded from my secondment, if that is even possible, and am now answering phones and handling VIP event RSVPs for the Festival of Thinkers that starts next week. Feeling a little squished as I try to essentially do three jobs in the space of one. I keep on telling myself that it won't be much longer, but every time i do that something else comes up! Hopefully things will settle down relatively soon...

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Eid al Fitr

The 30 days of Ramadan came to an end yesterday and the Eid al Fitr holiday has begun. Muslims celebrate the ocassion when the angel Gabriel revealed Allah's words to the prophet Mohammed where they were in turn written in the Koran. Early yesterday morning (5 am or so) we heard singing coming from the Mosque's loudspeakers. This signaled the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid. It was quite interesting to listen as we did not hear the joyful singing last year when we were in Sharjah.

Darcy and I have a five day break that began last Thursday. We've spent the first couple of days sleeping in and watching dvds. It's been a busy semester with a lot of uncounted overtime. So we needed time to decompress. We haves many dvds to watch including a ton of Star Treks. I've ordered the 49 disc 20th anniversary of The Next Generation tv series. I've also ordered the complete series of Deep Space Nine. The first season of the origional series has been re-issued (again) but this time it includes a completetly remastered version. But I'll wait until the price comes down a bit.

Darcy and I will venture outside today and do some grocery shopping at Abu Dhabi's newest mall (Al Wahda). We will start planning a trip to Musandam Peninsula. It's the northern tip of the Arabian Peninsula but it's Omani territory. It has many fiords like in northern Scandinavia and the area is drivable from Abu Dhabi.

As usual I'll mention some interesting articles from the Gulf News. There are more new building projects in our city. Construction on the the Louvre Abu Dhabi will officially get underway soon. Then there is the 2.7 billion USD commercial and residential project. Our city's old airport is getting a new facility too. Of course we can't forget Dubai. That emirate just announced a staggering project to build a 75 km canal. They're also helping to plan a 350 km cross country railway.

Finally there was an interesting article about 138 prominent Muslim scholars writing an open letter to heads of all Christian churches. I don't know if this made major headlines in the West.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

This and That....

For those of you who are interested in news from this part of the world, there's another article about Freej, the UAE's first animated series. There's also another article about the new Warner Bros. theme park and hotel deal. For us the only positive thing about this is the last sentence in the article. Apparently the UAE has the world's highest saturation rate of cell phones or mobiles (as they're called here). There are about 7 million subscriptions and the country's population is approximately 4.4 million. We've never calculated the price of gasoline here but this article says that it's $1.56 USD a gallon (3.78 litres). That's more than I thought! Staying on the topic of money, the Canadian dollar (loonie) traded above the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1974. The loonie has risen 17% this year against the U.S. dollar which is the most of any nation in the world.

The next article talks about the Global Talent Index ranking countries Middle East low in attracting and producing talented workers. Yet another survey, this time by Transparency International, ranked Middle Eastern nations low on weeding corruption. The UAE is tied for 34th out of 179 nations. Not surprising to see Scandinavian countries dominating the top. Canada placed a strong 9th place.

On a more sombre note, there is an excellent op ed piece about Iran's President Ahmandinejad's visit to Columbia University.

Interesting times

This evening we went out to a going-away get-together for a friend who is moving to Qatar. The bar we were at was an approximate 20 minute walk from our house, and the weather is finally a little drier and cooler, so when we left we decided to walk home. Well, it turned out to be an interesting walk. Not 2 blocks from the hotel the bar was in, we look up to see lights flickering in an apartment overhead. At first we thought it was a party, but it quickly became apparent that the apartment was on fire! The curtains caught just as we got close to the building, which eventually resulted in the patio windows shattering and glass and sparks falling on balconies--and spectators!--below. We got closer with the intention of going in the building to alert the watchman or security guard, but people were already coming out of the building and then, with the glass shattering, it was not safe to go near.

At first, I thought emergency workers were already present, as it looked like people were being evacuated and directed away from the building, but it eventually became apparent that the only people around were tenants and onlookers. When I realized there was no one there I called emergency, only to be told that someone was already on the way. They seemed to take a long time to get there though! The fire was still going strong long after the emergency vehicles pulled up and smoke and sparks and glass were still flying as we left.

We can't help but wonder what started it--I'm guessing either a cigarette or a candle, as is usually the case--and we certainly hope that the tenants were either not home or got out in time to be safe. We'll be watching the papers tomorrow to see if there is any news on what happened!

After all the excitement we decided to stop in a cafe I've had my eye on that was also on the way home, called Zyara. It is indeed a very cool place, and once the weather is good enough to walk outside comfortably I think I will be going there a lot. Lots of ethnic fabrics on the walls and the tables, funky decor and a Lebanese type menu. I had really good turkish coffee, and Michael had jallab, a date juice served with pine nuts that is served just at Ramadan (sounds weird; tastes good). We also had an interesting Arabic dessert made of flatbread rolled with a filling of tahini and carob. It was served with strawberries and very good!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

yet more newspaper articles

Our Gulf News newspaper has had some interesting articles of late. One is about the UAE's first animated series called Freej. It means neighborhood in Arabic and Darcy had mentioned it in an earlier entry. Apparently one of its second season episodes has caused some controversy. We've been enjoying watching the first season on dvd.

There continues to be more construction news in our capital city. Earlier I mentioned the city's newest five star hotel to open. Its grand opening will be in December. It looks impressive but the Ramadan room rates are still fairly expensive at 750 AED or about $204 USD for one night.

This article caught my eye as a huge construction project has gotten underway on the Corniche. We're not sure where exactly but it may be close to us. Another big story here is the decline of the mighty American dollar against foreign currencies. The UAE Dirham has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1980 which means that the exchange rate does not change. However, the weakened dollar has affected savings for expats here from Asia and Europe. The devaluation of the dollar hasn't affected our savings much yet. Most of our savings are in U.S. dollars but trips to Europe and the UK would be very expensive. We hope that the Canadian dollar doesn't surpass the U.S. dollar.

Just when I was hoping that Abu Dhabi would not fall into Dubai's trap of building Western style entertainment theme parks, the capital city signed a deal to build one! Warner Bros. I guess entertainment will have a big presence in the emirate after all...

Thursday, September 20, 2007

more construction news in our fair city

Ironically after mentioning not too long ago about Abu Dhabi's pace of construction not being in step with Duabi's, there appeared several stories about the capital gearing up for massive growth. The Gulf News had a story yesterday about Abu Dhabi's Vision 2030. There were more articles about the booming economy but for some reason they aren't available online. There's one article today about development in an area very close to where I work. I used to go biking around that area last year but all the construction has closed off roads for the public. So I bike inside now using the indoor bike trainer.

Here's a video that someone took of driving on Corniche road. At about the 1:10 minute mark in the video they drive past a large blue office building which is beside our apartment. I think I'm over my terrible chest cold from last week. One drawback to living here has been coping with battling many viruses. One reason may be because of so many people from all over Asia living in close quarters here. There may be more flu strains here too. I may also be more prone to chest colds from having allergies and mild asthma and breathing in the sandy air. Lucikly Darcy seems to have had a stronger constitution.

A big story in Canada is that the Loonie reached parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in almost 31 years! The last interesting article that I saw was about the commercialization of Ramadan. It's sad but true and the phenomenon is following the pattern with the commodification of Christmas in the West.

Well, I suppose it is about time I stopped relying on Michael to update the blog and write a post myself. I know it's been a long time...I've been busy at work and tired/distracted at home but I know that's not really all that great of an excuse. Just means more catching up to do later!

Ramadan has started, and this is the first time I'm working during Ramadan, which is interesting. We have reduced hours during the month, so we work 6 hours a day instead of 8 (well, 9 with unpaid lunch break time). No food or drink can be at our desks, of course, and there is a closed-off staff break room upstairs where we have to go to drink water or have coffee or lunch. There is one non-Muslim in our office who observes the fast. I have not tried it, though I will admit every year I think about it. I am reading the Quran this year, though. Ramadan is the time of year when Muslims are supposed to (re) read the Quran and Quran recitals take place in the mosques every night (especially around Laylat al Qadr, the night in the latter part of the month when the Quran was revealed to Mohammed). I have been meaning to read the copy my brother bought me a few years ago anyway, so this is as good a time as any to do it.

I am quite overworked right now, as I am working two jobs. My regular job at HCT Learning Resource Services, which brings new responsibilities and changes all the time, and which I really like, and my new part-time pinch-hitting assignment at HCT Abu Dhabi Women's College, which just lost all their librarians and many of their paraprofessional staff. Unfortunately it is the start of term, and Libraries are responsible for textbook distribution. On top of this our system has just instituted an entirely new online system for textbook ordering, distribution, and issuance. Double-whammy: not only do I have to get books for over 2600 students distributed to teachers who all really really think they needed them yesterday, I have to learn a new system, educate them on the new system, and deal with all the problems incurred by their insistence on fudging orders and fixing books "the way they've always done it before". Guess what people...if the way you did it before was appropriate and actually worked, we wouldn't have had to implement a new system with hyperaccountability! And you have to work with it whether you "like" it or not. Sigh. Work has just got a whooooolllle lot more frustrating. I have discovered anew my gratefulness for my permanent, central services, job.

Michael may have mentioned that I was going to a bellydance class before we went on our summer vacation. I have decided not to go back to the class this fall. The class is at too elementary a level, the students are not serious at all about learning to dance, and the teacher is, to be honest, not all that great a dancer OR a teacher. I did get something out of it for the time I was there, even if nothing but a structure to actually get me started dancing again and a space to refine some technique. However, especially given the fact the studio has moved and is now farther than walking distance from my house, it's just not worth it for me. If I am going to take classes here, I'd also rather take from an actual Middle Eastern dancer instead of one from Calgary!

So I got a couple of new technique/drilling videos over the summer and now I'm back to my old problem--getting the energy and discipline to practice regularly on my own instead of just sitting thinking about dancing, reading online about dancing, watching video of other dancers, etc. This is always my sticking point with any project; I'm much better at thinking than actually doing.

My boss at work is a yogini and used to be a yoga teacher. She's started up a small class for people at work, so I am going to that. We are practicing in her house right now, but after Ramadan we will have access to the Assembly Hall at work. Her style is more restorative and introspective than Iyengar style, which is what I practiced before. However, given how long it's been since I've actually practiced regularly it's at a good level for me right now.

Finally, I'll share the website of a popular made-in-the-UAE animated show, FREEJ. The first series of these 15-minute shorts just came out on video. I bought them a couple of weeks ago and we started watching them this week. The show is about a group of widowed Emirati women who live in Dubai's old town. It's pretty cute :) Our DVDs have subtitles but unfortunately the clips on the site don't! You can get a bit of a taste of it anyway, though. I love their traditional dress right down to the old-fashioned henna on their hands!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ramadan Kareem

Ramadan started at dawn this morning. However, I was bedridden with battling a bacterial infection. I had been sick for a few days and I finally found time from my busy work schedule to see a doctor, get medication, and obtain medical clearance to rest at home for a couple of days. I hope that Darcy doesn't catch my bug! We were able to see the Ramadan fireworks from our spare bedroom window tonight. They were very impressive! Once again Dubai is in the news...

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Ramadan and a new hotel

Ramadan starts in a day or two and I saw a good article in the Gulf News that discusses what it means to Muslims and non Muslims. There is also a new hotel that is opening in Abu Dhabi. Thanks to Sepideh for finding it. It's very close to where I work. We would consider booking a room if there was a promotion or a deal like the Emirates Palace hashad for UAE residents. Poor Darcy is still working close to 12 hour days and I'm sick as a dog....

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Construction projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai

There were two interesting articles in the Gulf News newspaper that I recently read. The first is about a huge construction project that is taking place one block away from our apartment building. Abu Dhabi is building a huge Central Market complex that we can see from our living room window. In the article's photo our building is near the far top left and to the right of the very large building. It would be interesting to see when it is completed but it will take years and we may be gone before then. The pace of erecting new buildings is much slower here than in Dubai. A case in point is a three month abandoned building near us still seems no closer to being demolished.

Meanwhile Dubai continues to surge ahead with its incredible number of construction projects. They are building cities at about the same pace that it's been taking Abu Dhabi to construct single buildings. Here's a good article on what's going on in Dubai. It boggles the mind as to what is happening about 100 miles up the road from where we live. Despite all the hype and excitement that surrounds Dubai, we are content with living is the country's more sedate capital. Abu Dhabi does have many other grandiose projects that are on the drawing board but I've not seen them in the Gulf News yet.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

UAE culture

Darcy found an interesting site for the group Watani. It's a program that was developed to help strengthen the local culture in the UAE. They have started publishing a comic book called Ajaaj. Ajaaj is Arabic for "sandstorm", and the hero travels within a storm. The artwork is pretty good. You can read the first issue online if you like.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Edmonton Grand Prix 2007

This was fun to watch during my vacation in Edmonton.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

We're back!

Hello everyone! We're back to blogging after having a two month hiatus. Our six week summer vacation in Canada (Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Vancouver Island and Jasper was wonderful. There were many highlights such as watching the fireworks in Ottawa on Canada Day, the changing of the guard on Parliament Hill and seeing my Mom and Stepdad's new place on Vancouver Island. We visited with family and friends on our trip and we managed to relax much of the time. Although it still a bit stressful at times with doing that much travelling and we unfortunately we were still not able to see all the people that we wanted.

But it was sure nice to have the long break. I carried over ten work days to use in the fall or winter. It will be difficult adjusting to the short North American vacations whenever to move back! We took many photos and video but it would take a long time to make an online movie. I did make a short video of the Champ Car race that my Dad and I attended. I'm using my Toshiba laptop at the moment so I'll have to use our Mac to upload the video.

We've both been very busy at work and I will have a full load of teaching classes (among other duites I have) this semester. My library now has four vacancies so hopefully we will get some good candidates soon. Darcy is now officially working full-time at the HCT.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

The start of our vacation....

It's Thursday night here and our vacation officially has started. Seems a bit surreal that we won't be working for six weeks. But that's one of the perks of living here. We've not packed anything yet.

The weight restrictions are quite limited for checked and carry on baggage so we won't be taking many personal things with us. Besides we still have many clothes in storage that we can use when we arrive in Edmonton. Much of what we'll be bringing will be gifts for people. So we'll have room to bring back things with us too.

Last week we drove back to Sharjah's Blue Souk and bought more carpets and gifts. We went with two friends who are leaving the country. We also went to an interesting historial themed mall called Ibn Battuta on the outskirts of Dubai. The mall is ostensibly the largest themed mall in the Middle East. But it didn't seem overly ostentatious as it had many educational exhibits.

I was impressed with the exhibits of historical figures including the 14th century Arabic explorer Ibn Battuta. I'd never heard of him despite being a History major in university. The explorer travelled far more than his contemporary Marco Polo. The Chinese section of the mall featured famed explorer Zheng He whom I'd also never heard of before. His fleet's ships dwarfed those of later European ships and were modern marvels. A replica (not to scale) of one of his ships instantly reminded me of the Santa Maria vessel at West Edmonton Mall. There were many other famous Oriental and Asian scientists whom I'd never heard of. Sadly this is due to a lack of exposure or interest in the West combined with a lack of Arabia promoting their heritage and history to the West. I hope that their works have been translated into English so that I can buy them for our library.

There was an interesting article this week in the Gulf News about the political and economic stability of the UAE vis-a-vis the Middle East. I suppose that I am biased since I'm living in the UAE but I agree with the author. The country does have its faults such as deplorable working and living conditions for tens of thousands of poor laborers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The humidity has been unusually low of late which has been refreshing. There's a building close to us that is about to be torn down. We're hoping the demolition will occur when we're gone! Below are photos of the PI dinner party from a couple of weeks ago and a recent photo of me wearing my new Pierre Cardin shirt. I'll be sure to wear it on St. Patrick's Day next year! So this may be our last posting for a while. But we'll bring our laptop so we may have time to post an entry or two with some photos. Au revoir...

Friday, June 15, 2007

A gift for Darcy

On Thursday June 7 The Petroleum Institute hosted its annual Family Gathering Dinner Party. It was held this year at the remodeled InterContinental Hotel. I had been working only a few days when it was held a year ago so I didn't go. It was free of charge and was a chance for us to meet other people so we decided to go. Attire was formal so I wore a suit and Darcy looked stunning as usual. It was the first time that I had worn my Jose Banks jacket that I had bought at my brother's store in Denver last year. Many people came and each employee got a free 1 GB flash drive with the PI's name on it. It's the identical one that I bought a year ago before leaving Florida. The price has come down dramatically and Darcy recently bought a 2 GB drive that is half the size of mine for about the same price. Dinner was a buffet and it was delicious. There were local men that danced a traditional style of circular line dancing while holding each other's arms. They also did rythmic foot stomping so it interesting to watch. However, we were sitting at the last table in the hall so we couldn't see up close. There was a drummer and a man in a kilt playing the bagpipes! The bagpipe sound is apparently commonly heard in the music but I don't think that kilts are normally worn. Many photos were taken so I'll post more in our next entry.

After dinner the giveaways began and my name was the first drawn. I wasn't paying attention thinking they would not call my name. So I ran way up to the front of the room and picked a prize number. It ended up being a Krups Espresso maker! Darcy's Starbucks Espresso maker that I got her is in storage so this was a great gift since I don't drink coffee related beverages. Below is me receiving the espresso machine. Work was very busy for me last week with managing the free ejournals that come with my library's print subscription. I'm also trying to get the records from full-text journals from the EBSCO database loaded into our online catalog. There are close to 5,000 ejournals that we can add to the catalog. This would make their accessibility easier for students and faculty. Here's an example of one test journal record called Chemical Week that has a record for the electronic version and a merged print an electronic format record. Our librarian friends likely know what I'm talking about but this whole issue is difficult because we don't have an electronic resource management system. This will change in the next year or so Inshallah. In the meantime I, and staff in Technical Services, have to rely on maintaining countless excel spreadsheets. I'm becoming a Jack of all Trades librarian as we don't have a Systems and Acquisitions librarian.

Darcy was also busy at work as she made road trips to attend training sessions. She's also had to complete paperwork for her new three year full-time position. Darcy was very busy with her play rehearsals and the three live performances. I attended the four one act plays on June 14 with friends from work. They were quite good and I took video of Darcy's performance. Watch for it in an upcoming posting!

The recent events in the Gaza Strip are arguably one of the most significant since the Six Day War. The victory of the Shite Islamic Hamas Party in Gaza over the more secular Sunni Fatah Party was not predicted. So there now appear to be two separate Palestinian regions: Shite Gaza and Sunni West Bank. Hopefully there won't be sectarian violence in both places like what Iraq is experiencing.

The humidity is rising as the windows tend to collect condensation on the outside. Evenings are worst to be outside. We've both seemed to fought off our colds and I went on my bike for a 45 minute indoor ride. Hopefully we won't get sick on the flight to Canada. Only two weeks until we leave!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Odds and ends

We recently learned of the Global Peace Index from the association called Vision of Humanity. Apparently it is the first ever attempt to measure nations' and regions' positions of peace. We were pleased to see Canada rated 8th, the UAE was 38th and the USA ranked 96th out of 121. I'm not sure how much the results will influence public opinion and foreign policy of nations I think that the data will be studied by in the fields of academica and think tanks.

Despite my undergraduate degree being in History I did not know much about the Six Day War in June 1967. It's been interesting to read about it from an Arabic perspective this week due to the battle's 40th anniversary . The Israeli-Palestinian problems stem largely from the aftermath of the short battle which is why you hear the phrase of regions returning to pre-1967 borders mentioned a lot by the Palestinians. I believe that solving that problem is a key to defusing the flames of war and rhetoric that have engulfed the Middle East.

Other regional news is that the UAE has the highest country Internet connectivity measure ranking in the Arab world. Meanwhile the latest reports state that Cyclone Gonu killed 35 people.

We went to the mall today and I bought a 49 litre Samsonite carry-on bag, 5 Pierre Cardin dress shirts, 5 Cardin ties, and an Apple international power adaptor for our laptop all for just under 1,400 AED or about $380 USD. I hadn't bought a new tie in over 7 years. They are pretty phat (slang for cool) plus they are fatter/wider and stiffer than my old ones. Maybe ties soften up over time after being tied so many times.

I was looking at a neat book called Earthcam that had images taken from the same NASA satellite that took the photo of Cyclone Gon. On page 150 of the book was a satellite image of Hurricane Wilma's eye passing over south-east Florida on October 24, 2005. What an eerie reminder of being in the center of that terrible storm!

Below are photos of some of the things that I bought at Sharjah's Blue Souk a few weeks ago. The two darker colored kilims are from Afghanistan the lighter brown one is from Iran. The incense burners are traditional Middle Eastern design but are surprisingly hard to find. The post modern ones are more rounded in shape. Darcy and I are still sick. I'm stuffed up and achy while poor Darcy is constantly coughing. Hopefully she will recuperate for the play next week.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Cyclone Gonu

One of the main reasons that we left Florida was because of the increasing number of destructive hurricanes. But guess what? The biggest cyclone to hit the Arabian peninsula (since records began being kept in 1945) will narrowilly miss hitting Abu Dhabi. There's only a couple of news stories about the category 4 Cyclone Gonu due to tightly controlled media in the region.

NASA's Aqua satellite took a photo of Gonu. The front page of today's Gulf News brought back memories of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in Florida! The weather is calm in Abu Dhabi but the skies are hazy. The storm is likely a culprit of climate change but I hope that no more will hit near here. Although the same can't be said for other parts of the world.

I'm very sick and should not have gone to work today. But there's only one more day until the weekend. Darcy's also been very sick in the midst of rehearsing for her play. Tomorrow (Thursday) is my workplace's annual free dinner. It's supposed to be an extravagant affair with many prizes to give away. But it's also a dry event. The countdown to beginning our summer vacation now stands at 24 days...

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Trip to Liwa Oasis

A montage of clips and photos from our trip to the Liwa Oasis and Liwa Hotel in March 2007.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Happy Anniversary!

Darcy and I arrived in Abu Dhabi one year ago on June 2. I made dinner reservations at a posh restaurant called Finz which is at the Beach Rotana Hotel where we lived for six weeks last summer. We both feel pretty run down at the moment and I hope that we'll feel better by tomorrow night. Darcy has been very busy with bellydance classes and her play rehearsals at The Club. The two plays that she is in will run from June 13 to the 15th. After that many date Western expats leave the city for the summer.

We can't wait for our vacation to start. Darcy has seldom left the city in the last year and I have only taken one day off since we arrived here. Two librarians will be leaving late this summer so I will be really busy in the new academic year. Four positions will be posted: Associate Librarian; Acquisitions Librarian; Systems Librarian and Information Services Librarian. I also realized that I'm the only person at the library who has not taken an extended vacation in the last year. So I definitely need a break!

I went for an hour and a half bike ride with two friends last weekend and I was pretty tired afterwards. We followed a loop three times in a residential area at the outer edge of one of the corners of Abu Dhabi City island. I've never had much stamina for long cardiovascular endurances. So I lagged behind them most of the time but at the last open stretch of road I pushed myself to the limit until I could pedal no more.

My indoor bike is working out well too and I try and use it once a week. I've been going to the school's gym twice a week (Sunday and Thursday) for the past five weeks. It's felt good to be lifting weights on a regular basis. I hadn't done that since we left Florida.

My mom and stepdad moved to Saanichton, B.C. earlier this week. Darcy and I look forward to visiting their place in mid July. So my family is even more dispersed now. But I guess that's common with many families now.

I went with two friends last weekend to Sharjah's Central Market or Blue Souk. I bought three kilims (can be hung on a wall or placed on a floor) that had shades of brown. Two are from Afghanistan and one is from Iran. We're planning to go back there on June 22.

Darcy got me hooked on using the del.icio.us website to save and tag favorite sites. I've known about it for a couple of years but I didn't make it a priority to see what it was all about. So I'm going through my dozens of bookmarked webites that I've collected over the years. I've been adding several boxed dvd sets like all of the Star Trek series and Looney Tunes. I don't know how many I would buy when I visit Canada. Darcy and I have several dvds that we have yet to watch. We've told ourselves that we need to take a week or two off and relax in our apartment and watch our movies.

May 30 was the third anniversary of my proposal to Darcy. Sadly the Everglades Park Hotel where we stayed has not reopened since the devastating hurricane season in 2005.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

library stories

With spring in full force now the temperatures and humidity are rising. I have stopped walking outside at night and cycling on weekends. I've used my new bike trainer a few times and the adjustments are pretty good now. The first few times I had the resistance wheel too tight (despite what the bike store staff told me). It was shaving off rubber from the bike's rear tire and leaving rubber powder on the floor. I've moved the bike by a window so I can see outside plus I can listen to my iPod. I could also move the bike by the television so I could watch the Al Jazeera English news station. I don't think any North American stations have picked it up but it's worth viewing. One certainly gets a different perspective of the news and especially in the Middle East!

Abu Dhabi has been in the news lately as Vice-President Dick Cheney visited here and then made a bombastic comment from the safety of a U.S. aircraft Carrier about 20 miles off the coast of where we live. Then the following day Iran's President visited the city! I think that it was a shrewd move by His Highness Shaikh Khalifa to host those two in short succession. The UAE is definitely a moderate country in the Gulf. I learned that the UAE is Iran's biggest trading partner. Also read in the Gulf News about the tiny, exotic Iranian island called Kish. I wouldn't mind visiting it for a weekend and Kish Airlines has a direct flight from Abu Dhabi. The island is in the Arabian Gulf so it would be a very short flight. It's a popular destination for Iranian tourists and UAE tourists who want to renew their travel visas.

Today I discovered a very interesting online diary from Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive. He was recently interviewed by the American Library Association and his comments about daily life in Baghdad are sobering. The war/occupation there is bad enough but also the Middle Eastern bureaucracy is incredible! I know a bit what that's like with my proposal of creating a blog and a RSS feed for my library meeting resistance from our IT Department.

Darcy is busy with her bellydance class and rehearsals for two plays. Meanwhile I'm trying to maintain my twice a week workout at my school's new gym. So far my wonky back is holding up with the weight lifting. My Chinese accupuncture and massages are probably helping.

The last bit of news is that we have registered this blog with a RSS (Real Simple Syndicate) feed. Notice the orange icon near the top right of the blog's home page. What this means is that you can subscribe and receive blog entries in your feed that may be connected through your email account. This also means that I don't have to pester everyone with emailing updates! You don't have to remember the URL for our blog and just simply check your RSS feed for our blog.

So I think this will be the last time that we will notify people of a new posting by email!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

ParticipACTION

After almost one year of relative inactivity I'm finally back to having a somewhat regular work out schedule. A week ago a friend convinced me to use my work place's new gym. It opened in December but the university has not promoted it too much. I had known about the new building since December but procrastinated with walking to it after work. For some reason I had thought that it was much farther than it was. I went twice with a friend who had his car and today I walked over after work and caught the late bus home.

I'm done work at 3:30 and can be in the gym warming up within 15 minutes. My work out lasted just over one hour before I walked back to the library to catch the 5:30 bus home. It makes for a long day but I already feel better and have more energy after just three work outs. The place is practically deserted so there is no waiting to use machines. Unfortunately there is no pool but that may come in phase two of the expansion project.

Darcy and I were watching episodes from season three of the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas and one show featured a parody of the old 1980s ParticipACTION Do It tv ads. I hadn't heard the catchy theme music in about twenty years so naturally I had to check online for the ads. The University of Saskatchewan has a great archive of them.

Yesterday I got up at 7am and drove to Dubai to the country's only decent bike store to buy an indoor bike trainer. The mark up is about $50 USD more but it's worth it with not having to worry about having it shipped overseas. It's getting pretty warm outside now so my days of walking on the corniche are coming to an end. But now I can cycle inside in my exercise sanctuary room.

I paid for the last of our plane tickets for our summer vacation in Canada. It's not cheap flying domestically in Canada and the money that we had left over from our travel allowance with flying home from Abu Dhabi is used up. We leave in two months!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Adventures in the Arabian Desert

We travelled to the second highest mountain in the UAE and then took a half day safari to the desert.

Friday, February 16, 2007

2007 Abu Dhabi Terry Fox Run

Annual Terry Fox Run in Abu Dhabi on February 16, 2007. It's approximately 7 kilometres that follows part of the Corniche. This year had about 8,000 participants and a majority were not Canadian expats.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

more news...

As I write this (11:00 pm) the UAE has just defeated Saudi Arabia in the semi-final game of the 18th biannual Arabian Gulf Cup. The celebrations are reminescent of National Day in December. Cars honking and engines reving and backfiring. I can see that traffic on the Corniche is backed up too. The host team (UAE) was an underdog going into the tournament and they barely squeaked into the playoffs. The UAE has never wone the cup so the country is pumped up for the final. I don't know who they play though. The defeat of defending cup champions Saudi Arabia is obviously cause for celebration. Despite the loud celebrations it nice to know that virtually none of it is alcohol induced. Just good, clean fun unlike professional sports victories in the West!

I forgot to mention that we just started subscribing to the Gulf News newspaper. It reputed to be the best English language daily newspaper in the UAE. It features several articles from the New York Times along with good European and Arab coverage. It only cost about $100 USD for the year so it's pretty cheap.

That's all for now. I better get to bed as tomorrow's Sunday and back to work. I have to get up at 5:15 am....

Friday, January 26, 2007

What's New....

We've been busy digitizing our music CD collection since we bought a 500 GB hard drive. It cost about $300 USD and is more space than we need at the moment. But over time I'm sure that we'll take advantage of the storage capacity. The first bit of news is that there will be a Formula I race here on February 3. It's not an official F1 event but is organized by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. However, the cars will be barreling down the Corniche so we'll have front row seats. So we'll try and take some video of it.

A friend lent us his dvds of the Canadian television sitcom called Corner Gas. It's pretty funny and the character of Hank seems like a younger Joe Pecsi. The latest new Canadian sitcom is the CBC produced Little Mosque on the Prairie. At the moment it's blocked in the UAE due to it's "controversial" content. The first episode is at Google Video. It's generated a lot of news in the U.S. as it's the first television comedy about Muslims.

A couple of weeks ago we bought a sofa bed for the spare room. I also put one of our carpets from the Caucuses in there so the room looks a bit more comfortable.

Darcy cooked a delicious picnic dinner that we had on living floor. This was before we moved our two carpets to our guest rooms. We turned out the lights and burned a bunch of candles so it really felt like being in a Bedouin tent in the Arabian desert. Below are some photos of the dinner.

I found an interesting article published in the New Statesman...a special report on the world's top ten dictators. I was a little surprised to find that Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum was on the list! You can read their analysis of the "Ceo of Dubai, Inc" on this page

Now that Darcy is working we decided to split doing chores. I now sweep and wash the floors and will also try and cook dinner sometimes. We bought our plane tickets last week. We depart on June 29 and return here August 12. We also booked three nights at Alpine Village in Jasper (our secluded honeymoon site). Unbelievably they only had the one room cabins left for that date. The site just began accepting reservations at the beginning of the month so it's good that we reserved now! That's all for now.....

Friday, January 19, 2007

Friday Muslim Call To Prayer

A twelve minute recording of the Friday Call To Prayer taken from our apartment bedroom window.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Update!

Well, not long after I wrote my last blog post, I got an email from the HCT asking me if I could start work Monday. So, I guess I have the job! I still don't know much about it, and I'm feeling nervous and a little out of my depth at the moment, but I just keep telling myself that they know they are getting someone with no experience and that I will pick things up and do fine.

Now I need to go clothes shopping! And fast! I got rid of most of my old worn-out work clothes before we moved and have not done much clothes shopping since we got here. Plus I will have to adjust to working again...it seems so strange but I've been unemployed for almost a year now. 2006 as a whole went by so fast it seems a blur.

More news next week on how things go.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Post holiday

Sorry it's taken so long for me to upload our Christmas photos and post them...they are on my flickr account now so you can take a look at what our Christmas was like by clicking here!

We are slowly getting back to normal after the holiday season. We ended up quite busy through the holidays with Christmas and New Year parties, so after all the eating and drinking and socializing it's time to get back to a more moderate routine! We are going to take our Christmas tree down this weekend. Late to have it up still, I know, but with few of the regular "holiday season" markers--weather, street decorations, and so forth--we feel like we just put it up!

I have spent a lot of the post-Christmas time taking care of pets and plants for people who are currently on vacation. Some better behaved than others! My friend Rachel's tomcat is a real hellion and is even learning how to open doors himself, so that one has been quite a "challenge". My Arabic conversation class has also started up again, so I am in the middle of learning how to say "hello, how are you" and count to 20. I have also started doing the exercises in the Henna Page's Index of henna pattern elements in an attempt to improve both my skills and my atttempts at creating original patterns. It would be nice to get proficient enough that I could do henna as a part time independent business someday.

I have also had a few developments on the job front. I met some people at the Higher Colleges of Technology Library this week, and actually ended up in an impromptu interview due to their critical need for new staff. The job is in Acquisitions, Cataloguing, and Technical Services. I really have little to no practical experience in those areas but it sounds like they are looking for a willingness to jump in and learn the job as much as prior experience, so I think my chances there are good if our previously planned vacations for this year don't get in the way (the contract is a temporary one for six months, so I'm not sure what the vacation rules are like). I also met the Dean at the Zayed University library this week, and while they don't have a specific opening right now, she encouraged me to send in a resume for their files in case of future vacancies. I would really ideally prefer something part time, but if I don't start working soon I will have a lot of difficulty getting back into the field, so I am starting to feel like in the short term at least I should take what I can get. Especially if, as in the case of the HCT job, it will provide me with a lot of new skills and experience I would be unlikely to acquire elsewhere!

Monday, January 01, 2007

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2007! To back track a bit, we had an ejoyable Christmas as I had the day off unofficially. Officially I was on call but no Christians or very few came to work on Christmas Day. I managed to make my Mother's French Breakfast Puffs and my Grandfather's Sin Fizz drink. They were delicious but quite filling. Darcy spoiled me with buying lots of nice gifts including the new iPod Shuffle. I spent my four day New Years and EID long weekend copying old Napster songs to iTunes. The songs weren't recognized by the software so I had to search many in Google to get the names.

I also got books from Darcy and her parents. One is called The Middle East From Space. Another title is a revised edition by HVF Winstone called Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankahmun. We took some photos on Christmas Day and Darcy will shortly post a link to them. We spent New Years Eve at a friends place and it was a fun time. So this was our first holidays spent outside of North America and it was an interesting experience celebrating the season in a Muslim country. We hope that the new year wil be full of happiness and good health for everyone!