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...

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!

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.

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...

Trip to Liwa Oasis

Click to Play

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