Saturday, June 26, 2010

And some more updates...

Thursday

Today was also quite busy as we had some meetings and stuff to do. The new warehouse is coming in a little behind schedule but it is starting to look really good. I haven’t gone up to the new offices in a week or two so I can’t really report on them. However, my desk is looking a little better as I am adding some pictures and stuff to my wall so it’s not completely desolate and depressing. Although the walls are still blank.

Tonight held in store haircuts and a good workout session for me and Joe. We went over to the gym for our usual game of ping pong. I am starting to get quite good I might add. I even have my own paddle (watch out). Then we went out for a good haircut. As I said before, the haircuts here are awesome. They wash your hair, cut it, wash it again, then gel it…if your getting a shave its even better. However my ability to control facial hair is the same as a 12 year old boy so I am pretty much screwed. After that we went out to a bar on the beach to enjoy the night and grab some food. It was a good atmosphere as there were loads of people, the world cup and good music. Then we hit the sack for our road trip to Oman on Friday.

Friday

Today was our road trip to Oman. I needed to go to Oman to renew my visa. Otherwise we were going to have to pay a good amount of money that neither one of us really have the money to pay for. The day started off early, I mean early in the sense that today was our day off, but we woke up and got ready to leave the house around 10. We picked up Waleed and headed for Oman. I will compare driving to Oman like driving thorough southeastern Ohio mixed with the Appalachians….only think a lot of sand. There was a stretch of nothing but sand dunes followed by a stretch of nothing but mountains. It was absolutely amazing to see. I mean I’m not used to seeing this type of landscape and it was truly one to experience. I took along my sunflower seeds, some crackers and a red bull and we hit the Oman boarder. I really didn’t get to see much in Oman as the nearest town with anything in it is another hour away so we turned around and came back. That night was the USA game so we needed to find a place to watch it. What better place to watch it then right in our own backyard. So we stayed at the house and watched the US play. We contemplated going out to a club but then realized we were way to tired to do much of anything so Joe hit the sack and I chilled back and watched the England game.

Saturday

Yesterday, I got in a way another day off as I had to stay at the house to wait for the Air Conditioning guys to come. This is becoming a regular Saturday habit for me the past two weeks. I watched a movie or two, when the AC guys came I thought ok, cool I can now go to work but then I realized they didn’t fix anything so I had to call them back. So that took another three hours so I went and swam for a bit and laid out, then they came and tried to fix it, then left and came back and finally they fixed it. A major relief for me and Joe as we finally had a cool room. We relaxed and watched a movie when he got back and then headed to the gym. We had a good workout, took some showers and then headed out to our place of choice in the Lighthouse. We had some good food and relaxation before heading back to the house to watch some more soccer and end the weekend.

Still updating...

Monday

Today held in store another surprise. Joe received a call around 9:15AM telling him he had won 5 VIP passes to last night’s festivities at the Barasti Beach Stadium. So in literally one week we had won two radio competitions. We started jumping up and down in the office and it really lightened the mood to what at the point had been a pretty rough morning. Yesterday we got to put in some shipments and update the trackers and stuff and I had to continue to put together some ideas for the brochure. We also had a couple of meetings that seemed to take up a large portion of the day as well. We also walked through the new warehouse to check and see how the construction there is going and by what I can tell (not a construction worker), it’s looking pretty good.

So last night Me, Joseph, and Eddy went to Barasti to sit in the VIP lounge. Eddy is a soccer player from Canada who is on my summer league team. This lounge had really sick bean bag chairs a little bar and carpet and lighting and the whole bit. Not only that but it over looked the general area and the two bars in the dome so we had the best seats in the house. We got ten free drinks and a platter of food, which by the way was pretty darn good. We watched the entire game of Italy vs. Paraguay and then called it a night. I have to say I could get used to this whole VIP thing, if only I could ever really afford it lol.

Tuesday

It’s pretty much beginning to be the same old, same old around here with work and all. The wake-up alarm in the morning is getting harder and harder to get up to. I blame that mostly on the world cup because the late night games are starting to take their toll on me. Work was, well it was work today and we have been real busy with shipments and receipts of goods over the past week. Still work for me continues to drag on during the day. We still haven’t gotten anything for the office so it’s kind of bland with all white walls and stuff. Tonight was pretty relaxed night. I and Joe went to the gym to get our ping pong on, and then I played some soccer in the gym while Joe went and worked out. I would rather play some soccer than lift weights any day. After that we went back out to our usual hangout at the Lighthouse to grab some food and some soccer. Once again we were up till 12:30, but hey its world cup time so we have to deal with it I guess.

Wednesday

It was rather busy today as we were filling out reports and going to meetings. There have been some changes in the procedures around here so we had some meetings today to go over all of them. Still our jobs done really change they just are tweaked ever so slightly in the way we fill out things or who we forward them to. We all went out for lunch today which was pretty good we had some hummus and faroush with some pita bread. Also there was some chicken on top of the hummus which made for some good eating. I am still working on the brochure along with some stuff for Jesuit in the fall. I mix it in every now and then when I have some lay time which has been frequent the past couple days.

Tonight was Wednesday night which meant football. I was excited to play with the world cup and everything going on and it was the final two weeks of this section of the summer season so I was running on energy hoping we could top the league with a couple of victories. That didn’t seem to happen. Our defense got ripped apart tonight and we gave up a lot more than we scored. There wasn’t much I could do about it as there were a lot of breakaways and chances from point blank range that they just fired in. The best I could do was dive and hope I could get a tip on it. Some of them I did…but we still lost. After, I meet Joe and Rami at Freddo’s to get some food and watch France get beat by Mexico. I had a good laugh at France loosing. I guess karma is coming back to bite them in the butt.

Still updating

Friday

Now obviously after a night like we had, the next morning usually doesn’t feel too good. To my disbelief, I woke up around 9:00AM and if I had one wish it would have been some eggs and pancakes but you have to struggle to find those over here and I really didn’t feel like driving. I got some chocolate milk and I laid back down. Around noon I went out by the pool to try and make my pasty white self a little darker on the skin tone and that worked for awhile till I realized it was around 105 degrees so I jumped in the pool and then went back inside before I had the chance to be a tomato. We headed to the mall because we had to pay a bill or two and then had some food and headed back to Barasti for the opening kickoff. Needless to say the place was absolutely crazy and it was packed with South African and Mexico fans. I, really not caring who won decided to cheer for South Africa because they had some good looking girls there and hey it was worth a shot. After that game me and Joe meet up one of the guys we work with and went to a restaurant to get some food and watch the French take on Uruguay and man did that game bore the crap out of me. Anyway, it was all in all a good start to the world cup.

Saturday

Saturday was actually a pretty boring day for me. I was really just super excited for the US England match that night so I really didn’t pay attention to much of anything that happened that day. I know we went to lift after work and I ended up playing some more soccer in the gym with a group of guys for about an hour and then we headed back to the apartment. We watched the game and it was a game of ups and downs for those of you who watched it you know what I’m talking about. We showed some flashes of brilliance, but only managed a draw thanks to an awful mistake by the England keeper. After the game I was completely dead so I hit the hay.

Sunday

It was a rather boring day at work, keeping in mind it is the Arabic version of a Monday, so it is supposed to be busy. We only had one or two trucks going in and out today so it was just another day to work on some catch up stuff. I got to talk to the family today during my work hours so that was good. Caught up on the stuff that was happening back in OHIO, and that was like maybe two or three new things. Haha just kidding, but seriously. Over the past week there have been many changes that have taken place in the company so it was a very hectic week and I hope this week starts a slide toward normalcy again.

The highlight of Sunday was my soccer practice actually. It really was a special night. We are driving to the compound to have practice and when we are approaching I realized our compound was in the middle of a labor camp. Now in the Middle east labor camps are all to common and to me are all to disturbing but tonight was a special night. I walked onto the field and the lights were still warming up so they had yet to come on and while I was putting on my boots and socks the lights clicked on so I looked around at the field and thought alright lets play some football. However, within about 5-10 minutes there were literally around 500 Pakistanis, Indians, and phillipinos who crowded around the field. Here I am thinking it is just practice, which it was but to them it was a beautiful game. They have no T.V’s, no radios. Most of them live in a room with as many as ten other people but for tonight they were all fans of the most beautiful game, and they made sure to let us know exactly how they felt. They were cheering, clapping, laughing and watching us play soccer. The most amazing thing was right in the middle the prayers started coming out of the mosques and so it was like the true Middle Eastern experience of hearing the Muslim prayers broadcasted throughout the entire neighborhood and playing soccer at the same time. For what was only an hour, this practice seemed to last an entire night and man was it awesome.

Updating from a long time...

Tuesday

Not really much happened today at the office. We did move into our new offices which was a nice change of pace, yet the offices are still bare. We really have to do something about them because I’m not sure if I can stare at blank wall for two more months I might go clinically insane. We got stuck with another task at work to coordinate all outbound shipments and have a daily update tracker on where everything is going, where it is at, and approximately when it will be there, while having all the details about the shipment up to date and available. In crude lamen terms that means it’s a heck of a lot of work and if something isn’t updated in the system well then it’s a major pain. To this day it hasn’t gone smoothly for one complete day but there is still hope. After work we headed out to the gym to get a little workout in. I also got to play a little bit of soccer in the gym with a group of guys who were playing pick up so I had a pretty good time.

Wednesday

I received my first official task of my own I guess you could say and it is something I have never done before so it should be fun. I was put in charge of designing and constructing a business brochure for the company complete with information, photos and the other things that go into a brochure. So I had to get on the internet and take a crash course in the language and structure behind marketing and advertising, something I know nothing about. However, I thought it was a very educational day as I spent all 8 hours looking over other companies brochures gathering ideas and mapping out a couple of things. The day wore on as usual and I couldn’t wait to play some soccer that night.
The time came to pack up and head out for the night and I was ready to play some football however the weather was not. It was absolutely dreadful outside with the temperature hovering around the low 90’s and the humidity as bad as it could be. I mean our first game was at 8:45 and I was still sweating putting my boots on. After the first game my shirt was so completely soaked that it looked like I had just taken a bath in it. We won the first game and lost the second one to a pretty darn good team. We did just enough to remain in the Top group of the league as this last section was an elimination section where two groups fall down a league.

Thursday

Today was all about waiting for the night. As I previously stated in my blog I won two tickets to a grand opening VIP party and we couldn’t wait to go. Free drinks, food, prizes and more awaited us at the brand new Barasti Beach stadium at 8:00PM. The only problem was it was at 8PM and we had to go through a full day of work. So we worked, and as our luck would have it the day was busier than a wal-mart on black Friday. We were back and forth and up and down and I was trying to get a draft finished for the brochure, Joe was trying to finish reports and take report tests and man was it a mess. I did finish my draft of the brochure around the afternoon and from then on it was ok but the first half of the day did more than make up for it. We left the office around 6 to get home shower and get ready. Before the party we hit up the mall to get some USA shirts so that we could show our pride against what were mostly England fans.
We got to the party and man was that stadium awesome. It holds around 1,200 people and is air conditioned. Also it houses two bars and a 13.5 meter screen with HD capabilities. Immediately I knew where I would be watching the entire world cup. We walked in and there were Carlsberg cheerleaders and enough beer to make a small country drunk and then the music started and so did the party. We were there till around 1030 when it opened to the public and then the place just got too packed for our liking so we left. I did however, get some free stuff and I took third place in a dance competition so all in all it was a good night.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Barasti Beach

OK...so here was the best thing to happen to us while I have been here. Every morning we listen to the Chris and Chad show on Virgin Radio Dubai and they have been talking about this Barasti Beach Stadium that is being constructed for the world cup. It is an indoor stadium on the beach that houses 1200 people and they are throwing a VIP Cocktail Party on the 10th to open it up. The only way to get a Golden Ball (VIP pass) is to win one off the radio competitions.

So here is the story, every morning they have a thing where you text barasti to the station and then they call the first person and they win a golden ball. So when I woke up this morning I was like well let's try it for the 10th time and I got called around 9:30...Imagine my face in the office haha. Anyway I won two tickets to the VIP party and a free t-shirt. Even better is the drawing. Out of the 60 golden balls given away, 30 will get unlimited access, drinks, and a supporters package for the entire world cup. We are talking about a month's worth of FREE BEER. Carlesberg if you want to know. So on thursday me and Joe will depart for the stadium in hopes of winning this prize.

This was a great day, not to mention Barasti Beach Bar is on the list of the top 100 Bars in the world....so cool. I will definetly post on this after thursday so keep your eyes open.

Not wet but wild

So I left off when I blogged about the end of the week so Saturday was my first day away and man was saturday an experience. As usual it was casual day at work and it was a rather light and boring day. Not much going on just getting things ready for Sunday. As the day wore on we decided we would go to the marketplace after work and try and find some USA jerseys for a little less than the 80$ they were selling for in the Nike store. It was a little over a half an hour drive to the other side of Dubai and we actually got luck by having minimal traffic however when we got down to the Market place it was a legit chaotic mess. In crude lamen terms it was the slums or ghetto of Dubai. It looks like you were picked up and dropped into an arabic version of like Chinatown. If anyone has seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire thats exactly what it looks like. Which if you haven't you should definetely go see it as it is a great movie. Anyway, we parked and walked and we spent around two and a half hours just exploring all the shops and sights and smells (not all of them good) but it was an awesome experience. If you didn't know you were in Dubai you would have thought you were in India. Minus the mosques and arabic language a majority of the people were either Indian, Pakistani, or Phillipino.
We walked through the gold market, and that was a lot of gold, then we got some Baskin Robbins, it was after all like 110 degrees. That was almost like tasting heaven. Then we made the almost impossible trek of trying to find the car again. That was a great day.
Sunday, well Sunday seemed like it lasted forever. Work is getting really busy now and we felt the brunt of it. New procedures and processes are seeming to stack up but we are handling it. Sunday night was a chill one, me and Joe headed down to the Marina and had a sick dinner and stuff on the Marina and it was nice and relaxing, something we needed. Today was much of the same. It was a slow day but tomorrow will speed up as we have meetings and we are now taking on the duties of the billing and transactions which means we have our crash course in that section tomorrow morning. We also ended today with a heck of a workout on the beach. Now I am completely dead and ready for bed, so goodnight from Dubai.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Weeks Time

Well I haven't wrote for a week and it does feel like forever since I blogged and to tell you the truth this week has been somewhat of a blur. I need to start writing in here more often so I can remember some stuff.
Anyway there were some good experiences this week I got to drive a little bit here in Dubai and that was a blast. Fast, crazy, city driving and I was right in the middle of it. In soccer we won both of our games on Wednesday and yours truly pitched two shutouts in the net. I had a couple good runs on the beach and had some pretty good food. Thursday night we went out to a bar called Trader Vic's. I'm not sure if i already wrote about this or not but this place is awesome. It is a tiki like bar but also has a island like theme to it. They had a live cuban band and man do i wish i could salsa because this place was hoping. Everyone was dancing and singing and although the songs were in spanish i did my best to keep up. I met one of the guys off the summer team and we had a good time. Today was a pretty lax day. I woke up and laid out by the pool for a while then me and joe whent to festival city to IKEA to pick up some stuff for the apartment. That store has everything in case you didn't know. Then we drove around a little bit before meeting his family for dinner and some drinks and now we are back in the house. I am still trying to figure out how to upload some pictures and video here so when I do look out.
Until then happy reading.