Archive for the ‘video’ Category

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Rain in Dubai

March 26, 2009

Wednesday evening we had RAIN and it has been raining off and on since. It began with a spectacular lightning and thunder show. This first video is of the worst of the downpour that we were in. It involved large hail pelting the car. Watch for the guy who is riding a bicycle. By the end of the video the hail has stopped but the rain is coming down so thick that the wipers can’t possibly keep up and we are “rain blind.”
The next video is more of the same driving rain. Notice that everyone turns on their hazard lights, as if that makes it better. After every foggy day, there is an article in the newspaper telling people not to use their hazard lights while driving in fog. I’ll have to check and see if there is a similar article after this rain storm. The comment I make about maybe not going to work the next morning is because if this had kept up all night the flooding would have made it impossible to get anywhere. Notice that already there is significant puddles (less than 10 min. of rain).
This third video starts with one of the many rather spectacular puddles. Keep in mind this is within a few minutes of the start of the downpour.
Next morning, still raining, but not flooded, so we are off to work. If you compare these to the previous videos of our drive when it’s dry, you’ll see that the rain has little impact on people’s driving or pedestrian behavior. We saw a few guys who had put a plastic grocery bag on their head and tied it so that it was a sort of hat. At one point in this video I point the camera at the storm drain that is definitely not doing its job.

The next, and last, video is of the end of the drive to work. Watch for the construction workers who are perched on top of cement blocks in a puddle. They created their own stepping stones in an attempt to get across. The automatic focus of my stupid camera was focusing on the windshield, so everything outside of the car is blurry. It is not really that blurry in real life, even in the rain.

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Day at the Races

March 21, 2009

This is what I call a serious bumper.
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We spent the afternoon at the Dubai Autodrome because Paul’s boss Omran and his brother were racing and we thought it would be an interesting experience. Just driving out there was an experience in itself. It is far from the city and is surrounded by construction. We missed the turnoff due to vague signage. We had to go quite a ways to an enormous ROUNDABOUT (my favorite thing) and come back to a different turnoff. Then we wondered around driving generally toward the grandstand which we could see at that point. When we got to what looked like the entrance to the grandstand, it looked deserted except for a few cars parked out in the street and on the sidewalk. We found a parking lot, which was a significant walk away (through construction), so we decided to join the cars parked on the street right outside the entrance.

As we were walking in I saw a sign that said “Ear plugs 5 AED.” This was truly a sign as you will see if you play the videos with the sound all the way up. There was, however, no one in the ticket booths selling tickets or ear plugs. So, we just sauntered in and found a seat in the grandstand. There were only a few other people there as you will also notice in the videos. Racing hasn’t quite caught on here yet. The addage “if you build it, they will come” is taking a while to come to fruition. They built this big race track about three years ago and it’s only now that they are seeing enough racers to make it interesting. It hasn’t caught on as a spectator sport, yet. It hasn’t caught on with sponsors either, so the drivers are those who can afford to finance their own cars.

Here’s a overall view of the race track.

The bike race was first. This shows them coming in from their warm up lap, lining up and then starting the actual race.

Then the first of two car races. My camera doesn’t cope with the speed, so it looks more like stop action animation than live action.

Then the Formula One cars raced. They take their warm up lap behind a pace car staying in a particular order, then start the actual race without coming to a stop.

During that race we moved over from the grandstand side to the pit side.

Above is the back side of the pit area. Below are Omran, Crystal, Magnus and Paul chatting between races.

CentimeterCube – Omran’s architecture company and publisher of Shufflegazine. Notice the circles in the bumper. They have cut these holes to improve the speed.
Filling the gas tank – three guys, a gas can and a funnel.
We got a peek under the hood.
Even Hello Kitty gets to go to the races.
Here is Paul hanging through the gap in the fence to get pictures. The guy behind him is Magnus, doing the same.

Apparently, the day wasn’t quite exciting enough for Paul. He watched part of the second race from the fence behind the pit area near one of the curves. He also dropped his camera phone on the other side of that fence down between the tires piled there for cushion. So, after the race was over, he snuck onto the track to try to retrieve his phone, which turned out to be just out of reach. After some consulting and brainstorming for what tools might be available to reach the wayward phone, he raided the emergency kit in our rental car and found something he could use as tongs to reach it. So, snuck back onto the track a second time to grab his phone.

We had a really great time. It turned out to be nothing like what we expected, but those are usually the best experiences.

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Silly roundabouts

March 13, 2009

Here are two of my favorite silly roundabouts. In this first clip we have just turned into the Outlet Mall. We can’t turn into the parking area until after we have gone around a dead end roundabout. It was very windy that day, which is why I started recording. This is the day when we saw someone washing a car in this parking lot in this wind.

This next clip is a slip road that connects two major roadways. We take this route often. We can’t just merge onto the road at the left where we want to go. We have to first turn right, go around a roundabout, then back the way we came to where we can finally merge onto the road. The “soundtrack,” if you will, is coming from the car radio. We usually listen to an Emirati station even though we don’t understand a word (yet). This snippet seems to be the call to prayer.

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Most fun I have had in a long long time

March 8, 2009

Last Wednesday we went to a goodbye dinner party for Adrianna at her favorite restaurant, Special Ostadi (not to be confused with Ostadi Special, which is right next door). It is located in Bur Dubai (across the Creek from where we live). It didn’t take very long to drive there, but took a lot longer to find parking.

The restaurant is a “hole-in-the-wall” with real character. There are a wide variety of clocks, old cell phones, and baseball caps hanging on the wall. (The clocks don’t necessarily tell the correct time.) It was crowded and busy. We hadn’t even stepped in the door and joined our party when the waiter/owner saw Paul and said “Holly man!” Not sure if he was calling him “holy man” or “Harley man,” but once again, it’s the beard. When another of our friends arrived, an attractive young lady, the only open chairs were hard to get to and the waiter offered to carry her over everyone’s head to a chair. She was a little creeped out by that. It was late and I couldn’t eat much if I wanted to sleep, so I just had the 3 dirham soup ($0.80) and nibbled on the cucumber appetizers. After the meal comes unlimited free tea. He gave me quite a time about getting free tea when I hadn’t paid for food. (He didn’t know we are big tippers 😉 I nibbled on some of the meat others had and it was really yummy, so we will have to go back when I can manage a full meal. Additional friends kept showing up and it was a very fun evening. The teasing escalated when our Syrian/Russian friends (Rami & Sami) showed up. The waiter brought a plate to one of them, told him it was a special salad, when in reality it was the peelings from the appetizer vegetables. He brought out two small plates of dates. One had two dates — this was for four of us — the other plate was heaping with dates — it was for Adrianna only.

It was one of those evenings when your stomach muscles hurt the next day because of all the laughing.

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Amusing Toy, part three

March 7, 2009

Here’s the March edition of amusing toys.
Superman: Dream Hope Justice Courage. (Not Truth, Justice and the American Way)
Light music, fluctuant revolving, battery operated, spining colorful
Light, music, all direction tun
So wonderful 100% and the best design new thing
Superman trample the bicycle
The ideal paradise of friends
Eye contain light
Head would or so swing
Feet ministry sport
Resulting in the wheel goes forward
Bump and go action engine

(Yes, I’ve had a hair cut. Just thought I’d get that question out of the way.)

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Jackhammer video

March 7, 2009

Here’s a little taste of the jack hammering going on outside our window. This was recorded a couple of weeks ago, but it is still going on even as I write. They do, however take a break at night, so it is not as bad as it could be.

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Al Meshwar – Fujairah

March 2, 2009

To find a place to eat dinner after our bull butting disappointment and short visit to the beach we consulted the guide book. We picked Al Meshwar mainly because the guide book said “a bizarre building that looks like a cross between a set from the Flintstones and a crusader castle.” Darned if they weren’t right! — Great food, we highly recommend.

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Recommendations

February 28, 2009

For those of you who read our blog to live vicariously, you should add www.fortylove.tv to your vicarious viewing habits. Our friend Adrianna and her friend May post videos of the strange and interesting things they are encountering in their travels. Adrianna is about to embark on a trip around the Middle East – Yemen, Iran, Syria, etc. (I’m not sure of all the destinations.) I am certain that she will have a lot to share.

I would also like to plug one of Paul’s Shufflegazine blog entries – More Connected Than Ever. This is SO true for us. We have met some of the most amazing people here in Dubai solely because Paul has connected with them online. We would not have found these friends by just wandering around a city of 1.5 million or relying on my work environment.

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Driving in Dubai

February 20, 2009

We’ve been attempting to video the driving experience for you. However, we’ve determined that we must have a magic camera, because traffic is uncharacteristically easy when I have the camera on. It is when I don’t have the camera on that the most amazing things happen. So, these are three fairly mild (and maybe downright boring) versions of our drive to work.

Pulling out of the garage and the first three-four blocks are the most challenging. Not only does Daddybird have very limited visibility of oncoming traffic (due to SUVs parked along the street, but if we don’t time it just right, there are wandering crowds of construction workers due to the shift change that happens right about 7:30 am. One morning Daddybird nearly ran over a woman who was on our left and she thought it would be a good idea to walk in front of a car that whose driver was looking to the right for oncoming traffic. So, now my job is to be on pedestrian watch. It is amazing how little responsibility for their own safety pedestrians take.

Things to watch for in these videos: Pedestrians walking in the street when there is a perfectly good sidewalk on the other side of those parked cars. Cars double parked or stopping to let someone out, blocking traffic. The waltz that is the intersection where three streams of traffic come together. In one video the oncoming car flashes his lights to let us know we can go. Uncharacteristically polite! There are also bicyclists to avoid.

This third video is fairly boring until about half way through when a truck pulls in front of us without much warning and directly after that a car blocks traffic trying to change lanes. The kicker is that he doesn’t just want to move over one lane, but he wants all the way over in order to make a left turn.

The rules of the road here include:
1. Don’t move over just one lane. Move from the far right to the far left or visa versa. Cross as many lanes as possible in as little distance as possible.
2. Don’t get into the back of the line when you can move up to the front and force others to let you in.
3. If you want to change lanes, do not slow down and pull in behind the car in that lane. Speed up and pull in front of them.
4. Brakes are a strange and unnecessary feature on your vehicle.
5. After clearing a speed bump you should accelerate at top speed until you hit the next one, especially in parking lots.

There is a great blog post by someone else that documents Dubai traffic complete with pictures to prove the points. http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/dubai-driving-tips.html

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Global Village

February 14, 2009

We finally got out to Global Village to see what it was all about. It is part carnival and part international souk. There are pavilions for several countries. We went through about half of them – India, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Europe (Turkey), Egypt, Philippines, and Palestine. We hope to go back to see the other pavilions before it closes.

We bought a jar of honey in the Yemen pavilion. The man asked Paul if he is Muslim. We said “no, only bearded.” Paul may need to get a t-shirt with that on it.

Here is a short video of the hand operated merry-go-round in the India pavilion. I don’t know what the charge was (probably only a dirham or two), but these kids actually got two rides.

We bought these beautiful, handmade Tunisian serving dishes. The flower shaped one is a dip set with a center bowl and six bowls surrounding that all on a plate – eight pieces.

The seller spoke very good English (spoke English well — apparently I don’t) and we had a good chat with him. He asked where we were from. He had been to California once for an eight day fair and sold all his wares in the first four days. Now, of course, he can’t get a visa to go to the States to sell his merchandise.
CONTEST: Guess what we paid for this set of dishes. I’ll even make it multiple choice.
A. $105.00 B. $78.00 C. $254.00 D. $45.00 (Bonus question: What would they sell for in the States?)