Home for the holidays

It's the weekend again (last one for November?!) after another terribly busy week of conference going and putting out fires at work.  We had U.S. Thanksgiving Day dinner with friends followed by playing Wii's Guitar Hero game.  Lots of fun!  Unfortunately my hockey team continues to lose.  Maybe it was from listening to the game online at work for the first time this season. 

Next week will be a short 1-2 day work week.  We have our ID card appt on Dec. 1 but it could take less than 30 minutes or hours.  It depends on the competence of the ID card people.  We gave up with the Post Office mailing back our barcodes since it's been over a month now.  I've not posted any stories this time about the continued ID card snafu.  It's redundant to point out the incredible mess that the media has reported and not reported.  There are some interesting blogs about people's experiences with trying to register.  All you can do is shake your head at the whole affair. 

Then we will relax at home for the UAE's National Day and EID breaks.  We're looking forward to catching up on reading, watching dvds and trying to play our dumbeks.  A lot of street and building holiday decorations were turned on today so it looks quite festive outside.  Hopefully it will dry out a little bit more so that we can leave our apartment windows open for more than just a few hours... 



Beware, snakes on our beaches

Atlantis opening sparks party fever


Abu Dhabi University aims high

Alcohol stores get stricter on licences

"I love the Emirates" campaign promotes identity and culture

Hummer driver gets ten years for murder

Hotels told pollution is excessive


QE2 arrives in Dubai to start new life

Property firms cut 600 jobs


Khalifa identifies UAE's key concerns

Corniche sunset

Miracle

no end to UAE ID card registration mess

The weather continues to cool off and dry out so night walking is more enjoyable now.  We have a hunch that either our apartment or the entire building's electrical outlets are defective.  We've had to buy a second portable vacuum cleaner, a third coffee grinder, and a second floor lamp because of electrical problems.  The motors and lamp simply shorted out and now our upright vacuum's motor was found to be defective.  Hopefully ADNOC's housing people can diagnose the problem.  Luckily our computers and stereo systems haven't been affected.  They've been plugged in using power bars although we've had those short out too. 

As usual the national ID card registration fiasco has continued with the media reporting more critical stories of the bureaucratic mess.  We're 99.99% sure that the first time that the new registration deadline for skilled expat workers was reported to the public in Arabic and English was in mid October.  The government says that it was July.  If the authorities follow through with their plans to suspend government services to over 300,000 people that logistically can't register before Dec. 31 then the UAE will be (to put it mildly) in big trouble.  See the first article below. 

So it's now been three weeks since we submitted our forms for phase one of the registration process.  We were assured that this no hassle process was to take less than one week - hence the 40 AED fee.  The good news is that the holidays are fast approaching so some of our time off from work, can be spent looking for a Plan B and Plan C. 

Otherwise life is okay - routine but never boring.  Work is hectic as usual due to juggling multiple projects because of continued staff shortages.  I will attend a two day conference in Sharjah next weekend.  We both hope to catch up more on reading our backlog of books and watching dvds during the long December break.  It's been fun downloading free iPod Touch apps including one for IMing.  We also downloaded Google's new VOIP chat and it surprisingly works for Macs (unlike Yahoo Messenger). 

At current rate, 350,000 will miss deadline

Telling it like it is.....or not

Over 75,000 ID forms distributed by UAE post offices in four weeks

Abu Dhabi to counter downturn with Western tourist

UAE takes stock of major projects

Ballooning US debt threat to Gulf economies

Price fall in prestigious developments

Surf the internet for free while you smell the roses in Abu Dhabi 


Parking free for all to be eliminated

Canadian supplier to import high end halal bison and elk

Dubai car park baffles drivers

Moon

the never ending national ID card registration saga....

Another month flew by and we're now into November.  The month got off to a good start with the election of Barack Obama.  I'm cautiously optimistic that he can make headway with issues in the Middle East.  Unfortunately the UAE's major snafu with national ID cards has worsened.  We naively thought that using the Post Office would save us time.  It did not.  Two weeks later and the bureaucrats don't know where are forms are. Hurry up and wait we've been told.  The media has become very critical of the registration process as it affects about half a million skilled expats here.  The Dec. 31 deadline looms....I've posted some stories about it below.  So we decided to cancel plans to travel to Morocco as it's too risky to be gone for half the month of December. 

My work has rearranged its bus routes so despite the pick up time being the same (6:45 am) my stop is now the first.  The good thing is I can get my own seat.  The bad news is that the ride to work takes almost one hour.  We cover about half of the city now with picking up people.  But I sleep most of the way to work.   I prefer working later in the day so I'm able to take the 8:15 am bus three times a week.  It doesn't take as long to get to work which is good.  So between working later and working out twice a week I get home every day at 6:15 pm.

We're going back to our usual spot on the Corniche public beach on Saturday as it's been three weeks since we were last there.  We'd both like to take Christmas Day off and spend the day there.  We can bring our new portable iPod speaker and play Christmas music on the beach!  The weather has cooled off and I've walked a few times outside at night.  Unfortunately it's still too humid to open the windows.


One voice to cut through confusion

Bank access could depend on ID card
 
Identity card chaos makes deadline an impossibility
 
ID card registration strain
 
UAE tops league of wasteful countries
 
Measuring the family footprint
 
Mega-mall opens with high hopes
 
Taxi call centre opens in Abu Dhabi

Ban on old cars to improve air quality significantly

Increasing number converting to Islam

Date changed for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The frustration of being a bidoon