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.