Hey Blog readers!
Hope all is well out there in Blogland, wherever in Blogland you may find yourself. Blogland is an interesting place to live - you can say what you want, when you want, pay no taxes and have most of the world completely ignore you. This is not a bad thing at all because when the world is ignoring you, they stop sending spam to your mailbox!
Over the past 2 months, I have been spammed 3 ways, namely hard, fast and continuously. Every morning my junk mail folder is full of adverts - predominantly for Viagra, Cialis (as if I need them...) cheap branded watches (Rolex probably spelled Roll-X), downloadable software and dates with Eastern European women. I spend the first 10 minutes of each day adding spammers to my blocked mail list. Trouble is I can't just go and delete the contents of the Junk Email folder because Outlook, in its inscrutable wisdom, tosses a few genuine emails in with the junk, so I actually have to go through them. I'm on the lookout for a good, free spam filter.
Jacquie, our SA friend, has come and gone and it was magic having her with us. I only got to spend time with her in the evenings and it was great hearing all the news from Hillcrest. All sorts of interesting stuff happening, it would appear. Janene & Jacquie spent the days shopping, touring, shopping, chatting, shopping etc. They were on the go from early 'till late and seemed to have had an great, if not exhausting, time. I think having Jacquie around did Janene a power of good.
We went on a desert safari which included dune driving and dinner at a desert camp under the stars, complete with a belly dancer. And what a pretty belly she had. And other things too. We got dressed up in Arab gear and Janene & Jacquie had henna painting done. It was a great evening.
The next night we went on a dhow dinner cruise on the Creek. Also magic. A nice buffet on a traditional Dhow (albeit with added air conditioning) as we cruised around in circles on the Creek. In order to try to relieve the traffic congestion on the bridges that cross the creek from Dubai to Bur Dubai, the authorities in their inimitable fashion have built a floating bridge across the Creek. A section of the bridge lifts up after hours to allow marine traffic up the Creek. They only do this at 10:00 pm. No reasonable person wants to eat dinner at 10:00 pm, so the dhow dinner cruises start at around 8:00. They then sail up to the floating bridge and have to turn around. This action is repeated 3 or 4 times during the cruise. You could say the dhows are up the creek without a paddle. (And you would be correct as they have that most amazing of inventions, an engine!)
We have a nice spare room and all of you are welcome to come and visit. The food is good, the a/c cool and the fees modest!
The kids have been in SA for a couple of weeks now and sound like they're enjoying themselves. We've been having fun too - going out, eating out, shopping, eating out - oh, I forgot - eating out is about the only thing to do in Dubai. We also getto watch the movies we want to see.
Thousands of expat wives and kids go home to cooler climates for the summer, so Dubai is quieter, traffic is better and you can get into restaurants and shops. Apart from the heat, this is probably the best time of year here. I dread the return of the hordes towards the end of August/early September.
The same authorities of floating bridge fame have also installed a toll system at 2 points on Sheikh Zayed Road, the main drag through town. The toll system is called Salik, which is Arabic for smooth. It is anything but. They switched in on on 3 July, before they had enough stock of the RFID tag one is supposed to adhere to one's vehicle. The result was thousands of people without tags amassing fines. They still don't have enough and they haven't supplied one to the rental company for the car we rent for Janene. Fines are building and we've let them know we're not paying. Their bum!
The Burj Dubai is now officially the tallest building on earth. It is not yet completed but it currently stands at 512 m, 4 m taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101. Next to it they are building the world's biggest mall. With all the emphasis on biggest and tallest, methinks the Arabs doth overcompensate for some other area in which they lacketh.
Work continues to suck and I've become a weekender - I live for the weekend. I also live for 5:00 PM every day - going home time. I guess that makes me an "eveninger" too. We've had 4 of our UK directors over for a week - we'll wait to see if there is any change. I hope there is.
I got a call today from another company who want me and are currently writing a job description for me, so this is serious. They will be making me an offer within 2 weeks, so I'll need to decide. This is your cue to commence praying fervently.
The guy Janene works for is on 2 weeks leave, so she is at a loose end st home at the moment. The lazybones only deigned to get out of bed at 8:30 this morning. She deserves it though - she is usually up at 5:30 making breakfast and lunches and then she drops the kids off and goes to work. She picks the kids up in the afternoon and continues to rush around. So I think she deserves a couple of weeks of sleeping in. As long as she makes my lunch the night before.
That's about all the bloggering around I have time for, so I'm going to blogger off. Have fun all and drop me an email to let me know that you've read the blog. If you don't, I'll think no-one cares and eventually pour my creative energies into an alternative pursuit, such as sulking.
Bye for now.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Hi Dudes & Dudettes.
It's 8th July and the kids have gone to South Africa for 5 weeks or so to stay with the grannies and aunties and sundry friends. They went from a hot Dubai to a freezing SA. We dropped them at Abu Dhabi airport at midnight Wednesday night, where they caught an Etihad flight to SA. Flying them on Etihad from Abu Dhabi saved us around AED 2,000 (R4,000). Abu Dhabi is 1 1/2 hours from Dubai, so J and I checked into a hotel after the drop off. Good thing we did that because the flight was at 02h25 and th drive back to Dubai would have been difficult. As it is, we got horribly lost from the airport to the hotel - we arrived at 03h00.
So we are now kid free (missing them though) and able to do all sorts of stuff. We had a good weekend - quite relaxing. We saw Die Hard 4.0, went out for a couple of meals and went to a Russian restaurant for a friend's birthday on Friday night. I had Borscht to start (excellent) followed by "lamb in the pot" - supposedly stewed lamb with all sorts of goodies. It tasted a bit funny and only after I'd eaten a third of it did the waitress announce that she had got the orders mixed up. I was, to my horror, eating tongue in the pot. Now there are various places in which it is acceptable to find a tongue - for example in the cow's mouth, licking whatever cow's lick, shaping the timbre of a particular moo or in someone else's dinner. Not mine. Absolutely not. No way. Needless to say the tongue was returned and that ended my main meal. It wasn't so much the taste as the knowledge that I was eating part of a cow which, in most civilised countries, would be chucked away or, at least, turned into polony. (Did you know that polony is Italian for "includes everything from the cow that we can sell, even though modern man would consider its component parts vulgar"?) Somewhat later, I ventured to order a dessert of cranberries, walnuts and honey. What I got was a mound of cranberries so sour that on placing the initial spoonful in my mouth, my eyes watered, my facial hair retracted into my face, my tongue went all corrugated and my stomach threatened my oesophagus with unprintable things should it even consider transporting the vile cargo down below.
Suffice to say that I'm off Russian food for a while. The girls in the Russian dancing which ensued after the meal were another story altogether. I suspect the Russian mafia (clearly the proprietors fell into this category) had hit on an amazing scheme - serve them rubbish, charge them the earth and then send on some hot looking singers and dancers and they'll forget the aforegoing. Well - its seemed to work. Until now.
I started Friday by arising from my slumbers at 04h55, climbing into my heavily armoured motorcycle protective gear (J says I look like superman), leaping astride my trusty Dakar and hurtling off to meet some friends for a magical 2 hour ride through various desert landscapes in the relative cool of the morning. Had a great breakfast afterwards at a hotel managed by one of the guys. Good start to a nice day.
Our friend Jacqui from SA arrives shortly and we're looking forward to doing all sorts of good stuff with her - desert dune bashing, dhow cruise etc. We've been saving these things up so that we can do them with a friend and we're looking forward to it. It will also be good to have a friendly face around for a few days.
We're planning a couple of movies and a whole lot of eating out while the kids are away. In Dubai, contrary to advertising, there is very little to actually do and the only thing you can do regularly is go out for dinner at the veritable plethora of restaurants. We'll diet when the kids get back. Diet is die with a t.
Work is still unpleasant but I'm hoping the UK guys will help to sort things out. In the meantime I'm hanging in, although I have an interview on Wednesday with a local developer. Not sure if I want the job (director of FM) but I will go along and have a chat with them anyway.
Cheers and blessings
It's 8th July and the kids have gone to South Africa for 5 weeks or so to stay with the grannies and aunties and sundry friends. They went from a hot Dubai to a freezing SA. We dropped them at Abu Dhabi airport at midnight Wednesday night, where they caught an Etihad flight to SA. Flying them on Etihad from Abu Dhabi saved us around AED 2,000 (R4,000). Abu Dhabi is 1 1/2 hours from Dubai, so J and I checked into a hotel after the drop off. Good thing we did that because the flight was at 02h25 and th drive back to Dubai would have been difficult. As it is, we got horribly lost from the airport to the hotel - we arrived at 03h00.
So we are now kid free (missing them though) and able to do all sorts of stuff. We had a good weekend - quite relaxing. We saw Die Hard 4.0, went out for a couple of meals and went to a Russian restaurant for a friend's birthday on Friday night. I had Borscht to start (excellent) followed by "lamb in the pot" - supposedly stewed lamb with all sorts of goodies. It tasted a bit funny and only after I'd eaten a third of it did the waitress announce that she had got the orders mixed up. I was, to my horror, eating tongue in the pot. Now there are various places in which it is acceptable to find a tongue - for example in the cow's mouth, licking whatever cow's lick, shaping the timbre of a particular moo or in someone else's dinner. Not mine. Absolutely not. No way. Needless to say the tongue was returned and that ended my main meal. It wasn't so much the taste as the knowledge that I was eating part of a cow which, in most civilised countries, would be chucked away or, at least, turned into polony. (Did you know that polony is Italian for "includes everything from the cow that we can sell, even though modern man would consider its component parts vulgar"?) Somewhat later, I ventured to order a dessert of cranberries, walnuts and honey. What I got was a mound of cranberries so sour that on placing the initial spoonful in my mouth, my eyes watered, my facial hair retracted into my face, my tongue went all corrugated and my stomach threatened my oesophagus with unprintable things should it even consider transporting the vile cargo down below.
Suffice to say that I'm off Russian food for a while. The girls in the Russian dancing which ensued after the meal were another story altogether. I suspect the Russian mafia (clearly the proprietors fell into this category) had hit on an amazing scheme - serve them rubbish, charge them the earth and then send on some hot looking singers and dancers and they'll forget the aforegoing. Well - its seemed to work. Until now.
I started Friday by arising from my slumbers at 04h55, climbing into my heavily armoured motorcycle protective gear (J says I look like superman), leaping astride my trusty Dakar and hurtling off to meet some friends for a magical 2 hour ride through various desert landscapes in the relative cool of the morning. Had a great breakfast afterwards at a hotel managed by one of the guys. Good start to a nice day.
Our friend Jacqui from SA arrives shortly and we're looking forward to doing all sorts of good stuff with her - desert dune bashing, dhow cruise etc. We've been saving these things up so that we can do them with a friend and we're looking forward to it. It will also be good to have a friendly face around for a few days.
We're planning a couple of movies and a whole lot of eating out while the kids are away. In Dubai, contrary to advertising, there is very little to actually do and the only thing you can do regularly is go out for dinner at the veritable plethora of restaurants. We'll diet when the kids get back. Diet is die with a t.
Work is still unpleasant but I'm hoping the UK guys will help to sort things out. In the meantime I'm hanging in, although I have an interview on Wednesday with a local developer. Not sure if I want the job (director of FM) but I will go along and have a chat with them anyway.
Cheers and blessings
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