So, it's been awhile...

I haven't been so diligent lately. Sorry, work's been crazy, my break was crazy, everything is just crazy right now. I finally got to bust out the new camera and take some photos of Doha properly... Me and Russ went down and just took pictures of cool buildings and other random stuff...

Here's a taste...

The Doha Skyline. From the park in front of the Emir's palace.


I have yet to find the Jawas that left their Sandcrawler in the middle of Doha


One of my favorite buildings


My favorite building


I have a lot more that I'll put into more posts. Like I said this gives you an idea of some of the neat buildings around.

23 days is too long...

I wish I was on my way home... of course I also hosed myself by taking my leave a week later than I should have. So in case you hadn't guessed things are still very crazy around here, and getting crazier all the time. The amount of responsibilities they're asking me to take on is growing. That's a good thing(usually), but it means I don't get a lot of time to do much but work and sleep(the reason I haven't been putting much in here).

I miss you all lots... Just 23 more days...

Another day another dollar...

Made it through another wild and crazy week out here. Deadlines and random questions and training classes... Just when I thought I was getting a handle on things it bumped up another notch out here. Oh and it just keeps getting hotter. The humidity stays up and the heat just keeps climbing. I don't know what I have planned for tomorrow(obviously not much). That's ok I need a break from the craziness anyway.

Miss you guys lots.

Is it the 26th of August yet?

....How about now?

It's getting to be the ugly time of year. Today hit 115, but the humidity was down. Of course so was the wind. Now I'm wondering how this compares to the Air Base. We're right on the coast here, but the base is a little further inland.

I still can't get over the different types of food here. You can't even say "arabic" food. The spices are all different, the cuts of meat are different(especially the asian fare and their idea of "chicken".... I think they grow a mutant species of chicken that have extra bones... or maybe they just take frozen chicken and cut them up with a band saw... It drives me crazy). I'm also trying to figure out the mechanics of "beef bacon" I mean it tastes a lot like real bacon, similar texture, looks the same... How does that work?? I also need to figure out how to make Naan bread. It's a flat bread and often filled with cheese or topped with sesame seeds(or both)... There are bakeries everywhere here. They make all kinds of bread too. Everything you'd expect to see... lots of fancy coffee shop type places...

I don't know, not much else is happening(I'll say this though Kel, In a couple of weeks I may have something to share that won't make you real happy, hehe).

I almost shouldn't have booked my flight... now I'm constantly thinking about it.

Miss you all lots.

Mmmmm breakfast...

I had my first real breakfast here today. We went down to Doha and ate at a place called Ric's kountry kitchen. Despite the interesting spelling the food was probably the most American I've had since I've been been here. Biscuits and gravy, breakfast steak, bacon(beef, but still tasted like bacon...), potatoes, scrambled eggs. Of course it just makes me miss home more. I dunno. I think the last couple of days have probably been the toughest so far. Knowing I'm coming home in a month... and then coming back for another round of this craziness. It's nice to know that there are people back home who care how I'm doing.

Have I ever mentioned I miss you guys?

Heat...

It was a balmy 110 yesterday and the humidity finally dropped back below 50%. It's good thing we're mostly working inside right now so we can at least escape the humidity(until the window shaker craps out). You know it's hot outside when you step outside and your glasses fog up instantly. It's not like they just get a little cloudy either. You can't see until they warm back up. I'm not looking for to loop checks...

Oh and to go with the heat shopping gets to be somewhat miserable. Lots of little shops are crammed with people(most of whom don't wear deodorant or bathe regularly). There's a definite funk in the air in those places. Not pleasant.

The malls are pretty cool though. Huge beyond belief. I'll do a picture update with some of the stuff I've seen in the malls. Seriously though, space-wise the malls are immense. You could easily get three or four floors into some of these places and could land large airplanes in some of the halls. The sad part is that most of these places don't have many shops. Imagine Park Meadows with a quarter of the number of shops. And an eighth of the parking. You can just tell that most of this stuff was designed for show and not function. Of course I've also never been to a mall where your "food court" consisted of a series of really fancy restaurants(TGI Fridays and Macaroni Grill being the lower end of the spectrum there). It's just nuts...

Still miss you guys.

JR

The joys of driving...

So I haven't talked much about driving. I've made brief mentions of it, but haven't really elaborated anything. The truth of the matter is that driving here sucks. If you are not aware of everything going on around you something bad will probably happen. That's pretty much common sense when you're driving here, but here you have to be on a different level. You also have to be able to keep your emotions in check at all times. People will cut you off. People will crawl right up your tailpipe in order to remove you from their way.

There are 3 types of drivers here:

The Indians and Pakistanis(one groups), the big shots, and everyone else.

If you've ever seen scenes of driving in India you can imagine how the Indians drive here. If you haven't here's the easiest way to explain it: they have little regard for lanes, signs, or other cars. They go where they want, when they want, and if you get in their way you will get an earful of horn(or as the custom here is an eyeful of high beam... because you can get ticketed for using your horn without discretion). Oh yeah, they also like to cut across empty fields and lots just because the road is inconvenient and will park in any spot that they can get into and still crawl out their window from.

The next category are the big shots. They are always in a hurry and they will always flash you from a half mile off expecting you to get out of their way or to not get in their way. They drive what you'd expect: big SUVs, luxury sedans, and sports cars. The worst offenders are of course the sports cars... Of course the one group of people you don't mess with are the ones with 2, 3, or 4 digit license plate numbers. The fewer the numbers the closer to the Emir(ruler here) by blood they are. If you see them behind you, it's best to get out of their way.

The last category is the rest of us. These folks include less aggressive westerners and native Qataris. Mostly they all just go with the flow and it works out alright.

One of the biggest problems you have around here is the store to parking ratio. They designed this place to be like Europe... it's the only explanation I can come up with for why the roads are so narrow with so many buildings packed together and so few parking spaces... Of course there's no mass transit system here so it's pretty ugly around here, especially with 1.4 million people packed into 1 city that's smaller(spacewise) than Aurora. So the parking makes the traffic worse around the major shopping areas... and then trying to get an actual parking spot can turn into a game of chicken or who has a smaller vehicle. That's ok though because even though you may spend 30-45 minutes looking for a spot the gas is only about 75 cents a gallon here so it's not as painful as it could be.

Oh yeah... the roundabouts... Have you ever seen a roundabout with traffic lights before? Well they exist. There are only a few but they are the most assinine setup I've ever seen. You basically have a light at the entrance to the roundabout and then a stoplight before each exit. They might as well just pave through it and put in regular old traffic lights. In general they aren't too bad though(especially if you're driving in something large). It's pretty easy to pick up the flow of traffic. Again though, you absolutely have to be in full surrounding awareness mode...

So, yeah. It's crazy. Russell and Richard make me drive everywhere because I don't mind driving and neither of them is big on it.

Oh well I should probably get back to work.

Miss you all lots.

I looked out my window this morning...

... and saw grey instead of tan. It was confusing. Mornings here are usually one of two colors: Blue(sometimes) and Tan/Yellowish(most days). I haven't talked much about the weather because mostly it's pretty predicatble. Hot, humid, slightly breezy. So far it's been about 50/50 between dusty/clear days. This morning when I looked at the window and saw gray light I had to look outside and figure out what was going on(the windows were all covered in condensation). What I saw... wasn't much of anything... fog had descended on the sleepy community of Al Khor. This was the good stuff(or bad if you prefer). Visibility was about 20 yards. Of course once the sun started beating down it cleared out in a hurry. The temperatures aren't really as bad as they could be but we're just now coming to the hottest part of the year. We average probably somwhere between 110 and 115 around here.

When the humidity is relatively high here stepping outside usually fogs my glasses up a little. Today stepping from the dry air conditioned trailers out into the world makes it impossible to see out my glasses within seconds. Very obnoxious.

In other news I have an official itinerary for my rotation home: August 26 - September 4. It's gonna be a hell of a flight home... I leave here at 1AM and arrive in Denver at 4 pm(big asterisk here for assuming that everything goes like the flights are supposed to). I guess that means I'll see you guys soon.

I miss you all lots.

Major pic update

Pics from my two trips to Doha(I've made more actual trips but these are all from the two trips I had my camera).




Oh look it's vegetation...


...or maybe it's just a mirage...


That looks more like a desert. This is the entrance to Al Khor(or the exit in this case).


Here are a couple of highway signs. The numbers above are the arabic characters. Unlike the rest of arabic writing they read left to right(like us).


All the intersections in Doha that have traffic signals(as oppossed to the roundabouts) have red light cameras.


It's the Po-lice! They all drive SUVs over here.


You'll see lots of these little trucks over here. Every Japanese car maker has them. 4 door tiny little trucks... Never seen anything like them.


You'll also see lots of vans like this.


Even a few of these...


Hey look it's all black. I bet that gets a little warm to drive during the day...


That looks familiar.


So does that... sort of...


Inside the Villagio Mall's food court. TGI Friday's, Macaroni Grill, Krispy Kreme donuts, and a really fancy steak place next to it(I'll get into the malls in another post, once I have some more shots)...


I haven't seen one of those in the states in a long time, but there apparently a few of them around here.


Mmmmm ice cream.....


You know a country is entering the western world when Toys R Us shows up...


Want an expensive car? They sell lots of them here(and you'll even see them on the roads), especially Mercedes and BMWs.


Carrefour: Europe's Wal Mart


That's all for now. I have lots of pictures and plan to take even more before I come back. Also I finally have an address that I know how to ship to. I've had a couple of people ask, so if you need or want to send me anything just send me an email(jr_g_2006@yahoo.com).

As promised...

Pictures...

They made me sing...

The photographer must have thought this would be a funny shot...

Tony turns Champagne Supernova into a duet...

I still think this is one of the coolest villas I've seen out here.

There'll be more through the day... I'm having formatting issues right now.

The start of another week...

Well, I'm still here. I swear I'm going to get pictures up from Doha one of these days. I just need to find a time that the internet will cooperate with me. I got a bunch more pictures Yesterday though. I also took some video of the inside of the Villagio mall. It's pretty crazy. The goal with many of the buildings here is to impress. If someone from the States had designed that mall(or any of the malls around here honestly) they could have packed probably 3 or 4 times the number of stores that are actually there. Of course it's probably beter that they didn't. There's limited parking as it is.

Random thoughts...

I think I've figured out that I speak a different language than most people around here. While that seems obvious on the surface(there are something like 33 different nationalities on site here) I'm talking about the people who speak English as their first language. I say things that, to me, make perfect sense but I tend to get blank looks in response. I try rearranging the words and still get blank looks. I frequently have to resort to drawing pictures to communicate ideas. I'm not used to it. It's really frustrating when I have a good idea and can't get people to track what I'm saying(or when I'm warning people of a potential problem). Blah.

Anyway, like I said before things are settling down here. What I should have said is that I'm learning to manage the chaos better. There are never fewer than three things that I should/could be doing at any time but I'm starting to develop the skill of prioritizing and being productive with constant interruptions and meetings... It's pretty counterintuitive for me. I'm used to dropping everything to help someone. If I did that I'd never get anything done here.

We had Turkish for dinner. I really like Turkish food. Also just in case you were wondering the people around here don't know how to cut chicken right... or they use mutant chickens that have bones around here. I haven't decided which.

Oh well. I should probably get back to work now.

I miss you guys.

JR

Sometimes life comes at you fast...

Well... So much for taking a picture of the office down in Doha. Apparently there was a diversion in the way.

I personally think the first floor of the building is a front operation for some super spy type stuff. I mean who puts a fancy furniture/oriental rug store underneath a regular office building?

They have lots of entertaining traffic laws here and lots of entertaining traffic signs. "Diversion" is their word for "detour". They also have "Deep Excavation" signs up anywhere there are holes deeper than 2 feet.

Of course if you've had enough navagating their insane traffic and crazy roads you could always stop to have your hair cut at the nearest saloon. Nope, not a typo. Well it is... but they don't realize it. It's about 50/50 whether you see a Salon or a Saloon. It drives me nuts to see the English language butchered like that.

I tried to get more pictures up by my internet is being lame right now. I'll be back with more regular updates starting now. Things are finally settling into a routine... Let's just say the last few weeks have been full of sadness, happiness, and pure insanity. Good thing I'm a pretty stable person... This place could drive a man to drink... Of course you'd have to drive a long way for a drink.

I still miss you all lots.

I'm getting used to it now...

I'll make this a short one. We had a flat tire the other day and when we went to change it, we found out that the spare was flat as well. We sat around the villa for an extra hour and a half. It was nice. Now if only I could get my license.

Everything else is going pretty well. I'm definitely starting to get the routine of the place. On Friday we went to the mall just to see what was out there. It reminded me of the big mall in Houston(whose name escapes me at the moment) except for the giant ice rink in the center(which is pretty cool(er... no pun intended...). I'll definitely be out there sometime after I get my license.

I definitely still miss you all.

PS: Zach, I don't care how many fans you have in Rock Band. Once I get back I'll fix that.

Well...

Things are very interesting around here right now. I suspect I'm just going to have to get used to some of my work related issues. It's very chaotic and fluid as it stands... the biggest problem is that I have too many "bosses" too close at hand. Any time someone has a question they just pull me aside at their leisure to get the inside scoop.

Time for more adventures in Doha.

So the last thing I have to do in Doha is get my drivers license. No big deal. I go in, get an eye exam, hand over my paper work with my picture and they pass it all along and a couple of days later a license shows up magically here in the office and I can legally drive. The morning started off alright, I got dehydrated the dy before and still had a lingering headache from that but I just needed to get rehydrated which is easy enough around the office... they have water stations everywhere. About 8:30 the guy comes and gets me saying "You're ride is here to go get your eye test" I pack up and head out.

We get down to Doha and wait around for an hour while they figure out who's going where and how to get them there. We had 5 people. Our driver was from India, we had a 65 year old American, a 37 year old Filipino(I would have sworn he was my age if not for his greying hair...) and a 29 year old Egyptian. Quite the crew. All three of them needed to do the medical(see my earlier post dealing with this part).

I thought it would be no big deal as it took me about 45 minutes to get through it all, en shala. No en shala this time... Me and the driver sat around for awhile in the air conditioned Accord trying to make small talk. This worked for awhile until the language barrier frustrated us into silence. At this point I looked at the clock... 1 hour and counting. I pulled out my book. The driver decided to try to take a short nap. My head was still pounding and the longer we sat there the worse the A/C in the car was working. Not only was my head hurting I hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime the previous day(monday for those of you still trying to keep track) I kept checking the clock...

hour and a half...

two hours...

What was going on? Finally after sitting for 3 hours in the car they came out. It turns out they were sitting in line when the call to pray came up...

and then the staff decided to take lunch...

We were all hungry(I was dying really... I was surprised I didn't just waste away in the car). We decided to get KFC for lunch. Of everything I've had here the KFC is the closest to how it is back home. Makes sense... how hard is it to make fried chicken? The only difference is they don't do Original Recipe. You get crispy or spicy. The spicy has a little kick to it...

After lunch we head back to the office for another 20 minutes of waiting. When the manager at the office notices that one of the guys who got the medical didn't get his chest x-ray... No one told him what he had to do so he didn't know. It's not very straightforward unless someone tells you(or you speak the language), so I understood. We swung back by there... he still didn't get it. They told him to come back at three and they'd take care of it.

Finally, time for the eye exam... easy. Go in, read a line on the wall, in, out, no problem...

*cough*

No problem, right?

Right?!?

Ah, this is Qatar. Nothing is easy in Qatar. I go in and the examiner looks at my picture and then at me and asks "You need your glasses to see?" I replied affirmative. He proceeded to tell me that I needed to have my glasses on in my picture for my license then.

I was not happy. I got my pictures taken the second day I was here. They never told me what they were for and so I just kind of went along for the ride. It was a regular photo studio so when I went in they suggested I take off my glasses...

So now it's 3 o'clock and I need to get a picture taken. Easy. In, picture taken and developed, out. Sure thing this time, eh? Haha, no. Everything closes in the middle of the day... makes sense in the desert. Unfortunately it meant we'd need to wait an hour just to have the picture taken... let alone processed. So we went back to Al Khor...

There was no way I was going back to work for an hour so I had the driver drop me off back at the apartment.

A wasted day and I still have to go back to Doha tomorrow for a stupid lousy picture... If the guy suggests I take off my glasses it might come to blows.

*Cough*

I wish I could take some pictures out here at the site to give you guys an idea what the sand is like... Visibility is under half a mile and the stuff gets into your nose and lungs and it's pretty unpleasant.

Some google map updates...

This is Al Ghariyah.

View Larger Map

The resort condos are lined up in the middle of the map. Ours was the farthest one to the west. It's pretty much in a straight line down from the jetty(that's what I was calling it whether I was right or not...)/breakwater to the north(also where we swam out to watch the sunrise).


This is the site(aka Qatargas CSP).

View Larger Map

Technically it's just the office. If you drag the map to the northeast along the road you eventually land at the berth where we're building this thing. The pictures are definitely awhile ago since there's a real building out at the berth(it's huge). There should also be several smaller trailers near the two big buildings in the initial picture(they would be in the parking area to the southwest). If you zoom out you can see the whole area, the city is called Ras Laffan Industrial City. Plenty industrial, not much city.


Last one: This is Al Kohr.

View Larger Map

Just ignore the fact that Google spells it wrong. All of the road signs here show Al Khor so that's what I go with. Directly to the left of the word Al Khawr is the soccer field. Somewhere west of there is the villa. I'm not oriented well enough yet to have any idea where it exactly is.

Still missing you guys. I'll update again soon.

PS These people don't know how to make a proper pizza.

En Shala

I'm spelling that phonetically because I have no idea how to spell it in Arabic. Basically it means "If God wills it." It's typically used in a "There's nothing I can do now but wait" fashion. It's very appropriate for how I'm feeling about work right now. Within a two day span I managed to create and then avert my first major catastrophe here(I'm not exaggerating either. It would have been a serious problem if it had gone undetected). I guess technically I didn't create it. I was just the messenger, but that didn't stop me from take the brunt of the shouting and scrutiny. Let me tell you it is a very different experience when you make a mistake in the office vs when you make one during work out in the field. Let's just say I had people very high up in the company very interested in the details of my job and how I was doing it. It's a very uncomfortable situation. Lessons learned and time to move on.

It's Friday. Friday is basically Sunday here and it's our only day off. I may or may not go into Doha today. Unfortunately with the way work's been going I haven't had any time to take more pictures. I can't wait till I get my driver's license so I can go out and explore a bit on my own(with my camera for sure).

The temperature since I arrived has averaged about 115-116. What's surprised me though is how comfortable I've felt with it even getting off the plane. Of course the last few days the wind has kicked up some pretty fierce sandstorms. It was cool though watching the sand snake across the road just like powdery snow. Of course the difference here was that the temperature was much higher and I was driving through a desert with Arabic music blasting on the radio... Definitely reminded me that I'm not home right now. The other big thing that reminds me that I'm not in Colorado anymore is the tan colored skies in the morning... or any time the wind is blowing... No blue to be seen. Eerie.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Major picture update

Here are some shots of the area around the villa.












And some inside shots



This is my room. It's definitely big enough.




This is the staircase leading up to my room. My room is on the third floor of the building(which you can't see from the shots I posted yesterday.




Here is the dining room. To the right in this shot is the front door.




This is the living room. Those chairs are insanely comfortable.




And this is our cat... she stays outside. I can't recall her name at the moment.

Up next: some outdoor shots.

Turkish food, medical exams, and a few pics

I'm still having trouble adjusting to the time change over here... It's pretty rough. I'm so disoriented I keep having to figure out what day it is....


Todays adventures began with a trip to Doha to get pictures taken and blood types determined and eventually led to the wild part of the day: the "medical exam". The medical exam consisted of drawing vial of blood and a chest x-ray. Pretty easy, takes about 15 minutes.... Except for the check in process. Now normally if you go to check in to get this kind of stuff done it works pretty much like a bank line. You have some windows or partitions and the people taking care of you would be set up there and everyone would be lined up and waiting for their turn. Ah, but this is Qatar. I'm quickly learning that things are never that simple around here. So the way it really works there are 6 windows(only between 2 and 4 are open at any given moment) and about 15 rows of chairs set up three wide. There's a man speaking fast and angry arabic at the front directing people to the windows. Basically as one line gets down to about 3 people he'll call the next row up(each line had 6 people at most) and either send them all to one line or randomly send them to different lines(it was quite strange). Sometimes he'd go yell at one of the people checking people in and other times one of them would yell at him. The craziness happened as he'd call a row up... There was always someone who would try to advance their spot... and sometimes succeeded. It's a twisted form of musical chairs... As one person I talked to put it "It's a very mercenary society." Basically every man for himself (this doesn't translate well to driving but it's how they operate anyway... more on driving later).

So once I got through check in and got my receipt(which included having a picture taken so they can verify that the person with the receipt is the person they are checking) I proceeded to the line to have my blood drawn. Yes, line. It's a pretty efficient assembly line they have set up... the first lady looks at your paperwork and hands it off to the second who stamps it. You have two people in the room drawing blood at a time. It felt like being in one of those Visa commercials where everyone is very efficiently and happily passing through the line until that one guy comes along and messes the whole thing up. That guy is sharply rebuked in Arabic and quickly tries to get to the next point before further embarrassing himself. The blood draw was probably the least harrowing part of the ordeal. I didn't even have time to look away before he stuck me but it didn't hurt and I don't have a giant bruise so he obviously has a clue what he's doing(makes sense when you're a basically a robot sticking 50 people an hour). After that was the chest x-ray. Imagine a room not unlike a department store dressing room with stalls... and 10-15 sweaty men of rather varied nationalities(Egyptian, Indian, English, Filipino just to name the ones I could figure out right off) without shirts standing in a line front of a door where a very gruff, dark skinned man looks out the door and yells "Next" turns back inside and then yells at the person because he's holding up the line. Inside there are always two people 1 waiting behind the partition and one getting x-rayed. The part that concerned me was that there was nothing between me and the machine... I was touching my chest to something that was never sterilized and had already been touched by 150-200 people, just today... I'd better not break out in some kind of crazy rash or I'm going to be angry.

Once the insanity for the day was over we went out for lunch. The Romanians(3) outnumber the Americans(2) in the car so we went for Turkish food(not that we put up a fight... wouldn't have mattered since me and the other guy had no idea what they were talking about until they told us what they decided). I like Turkish food. Lots of meat. Lots of pita bread and some crazy spreads for the pita bread. I had kababs and some other craziness that I have no hope of ever getting the names right so I'm not going to try. All that matters is that it was good. I ate way too much though. And it looks like we're going to have a huge dinner too. One of the guys in the house is making spaghetti with homemade meatballs, eggplant parmesan, and roasted chicken(we're going to be eating a lot of chicken around here for awhile...)

Now for some pictures...














This is our front gate















This is the front of the Villa















Another shot of the Villa with the pool

More later.

Still missing you all. Bye for now.

Well I'm here...

It's been a tumultuous first couple of days since I landed. Getting in to Doha was easy. In fact getting to everything has been easy. Everyone's taken very good care of me. The flight in was pretty much awesome. The seats reclined all the way back so you could actually lay down and sleep. I took advantage of this. I also talked to the person next to me a little. He was a president of some semiconductor company in India. As a sidenote Bollywood movies are very strange watching with subtitles and without being able to hear it(not sure it would be easier if I could hear it).

Basically since yesterday morning I've been home for about 15 minutes. I went to work on Thursday morning and went through a 12 hour day there and then turned around and came back to get ready for a party they were throwing... Some sort of annual thing. It was fun. I met a guy about my age from England named Matt who is pretty cool. He keeps telling me how boring American Football is and how much better Rugby and Soccer are. I'll convert him in time(hopefully). Honestly though everyone I've met or talked to has been very friendly and interesting. It's a very diverse group out here. I cant even keep track of the number of nationalities... The party was right on the Gulf Me and Matt stayed up talking about stuff and swam out past a small jetty to watch the sunrise... It was pretty much amazing. So far the craziest food I've had was some kind of spicy Filipino chicken. It didn't bring tears to the eyes but it was very strong. Good stuff.

The villa I'm staying in is pretty cool. It's got about 7 people in it and my roommates are friendly. They're definitely a group of troublemakers though, I can already tell.

Hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon(wish I'd had my camera at the party). I miss you all and will keep this updated as often as I can.

JR