Western Arab

Well it happened again. I had my blood withdrawn for my blood test today. I felt a little light headed after the first tube, and the second tube just must of sealed the deal. After it was all done, I started thinking about things, things I can’t remember now. And somewhere between the thinking, I heard a thump.

I woke up not knowing where I was and I saw two women walking in this strange room. I did not recognize them and not knowing where I was, I was on the verge of panicking, but I quickly remembered who the woman was and I realized what had happened. Yes indeed, it happened again. I passed out or as I like to say I took a small nap.

I woke up shortly after I passed out. It took me a few seconds to realize what happened and where I was and I was energized and alert. I tried telling the nurse this but she insisted on putting those strips below my nostrils to wake me up as I tried to shove the away telling her I was fine. They wouldn’t let me sit up and insisted I stay laying down, which was fine. I was very sweaty and they were taking care of me. One of them joked that I do this on purpose so I get all that pampering they were doing . Now they will insist I lay down for any other blood test I take as this was the second time this happened and they want me to remind them, not that they will need to be reminded after this. I am pretty well known at my doctor’s office. For this incident, the one before it among other things I suppose. But I woke up from my little nap energized, and the nurse insisted I eat the piece of candy she shoved into my mouth.

Well just been tired the past few days. Waking up early to eat before sunrise and going back to bed. Feeling lazy and tired. But I go outside and keep myself busy taking pictures of whatever I find. Here are some of the good ones the past 2 days. I am glad I bought the camera, I am enjoying my time with it.

Wasp Landing

Sneaky Squirrel

Red and white plane

The moon

Well a few weeks ago I found a gecko hanging out on a pine tree in my backyard. I accidentally spotted him as he either fell from a higher branch or jumped down, but he looked like he was falling. This was the first time in four years in Florida that I have seen a gecko in my backyard. I have seen large iguanas in Florida before but not in my yard, but I don’t think I have seen any geckos anywhere in Florida before this.

So today I spotted two of them on the tree in the backyard. At first I didn’t bother them, but then I went in and got my camera. I wasn’t able to find them where I saw them sit last and I moved the tree branches around trying to find them or get some movement from them, but nothing. I almost gave up when I spotted the tail of one of them. And this is when I made my discovery.

The two geckos were mating and I probably disturbed the action they were having. What I do know is that I snapped up pictures of what I can, but not having a zoom lens on hand, I couldn’t get closer than I had. I now know there is more national geographic stuff going on in my backyard than I had thought. And this is the month of Ramadan, the geckos were not fasting!

Gecko a few weeks ago

Gecko Action Today

Today is the first day of Ramadan. I went to bed around 10 pm last night so that I can awake around 5 am today to eat a little before sunrise. I don’t know what time I fell asleep but amazingly it did not take too long. I did wake up around 3 am. I am used to sleeping 5 hours, but I managed to go back to sleep and was up around 5 am. I had my tea, some string cheese and strawberries! So welcome Ramadan.

Have a happy and blessed Ramadan.

I don’t know why.

As Arabs, every now and then, we all get that call. A call we sometimes don’t answer, the phone rings and rings until the answering machine picks it up. And other times we answer. The manner may be different but the end result is the same.

“Hi we are coming over to see you.”

And with what are we supposed to respond?

“Ahlan wa sahlan”

A simple welcome. Sometimes I just accept it. Alright so and so is coming over, whether we had plans or not. But other times it can be very irritating. Sometimes I am busy or just not in the mood, it does not mean I don’t like you or that you are not welcome over.

The rule should be, you can invite people over or they can invite you over. Inviting yourself is a big NO NO!

… if this rule does not work, perhaps we should start responding differently to that call and to those that are uninvited.

Ramadan Kareem

Well Ramadan 2009 is coming up in a 3 days or 4 …. or 5. Yes of course it is that great time of the year when the Muslims and Arabs all have to be reminded of how divided we are. We can’t even agree on the first day of the month of Ramadan. And the reasons for this is all political, all the leaders in these countries want division. So thank you for the friendly reminder once again this year, perhaps 50 years from now we won’t have this reminder and we will have achieved a stronger identity and maybe will be united.

Have a blessed Ramadan.

My green parakeet

This is just one of the pictures I took today of my green parakeet. Ever since the blue one got his tail feathers, he has been harder to get to sit on my finger where as the green one has been easier to do so, while she used to be the hard one to do so. The picture was taken with my new awesome rebel xs . I have been having fun with it taking various shots out in the yard, but the yard is limited and I have run out of subjects to shoot.

Looking forward to a good trip/event to shoot some pictures, but at least I am getting a lot of practice with the manual settings. I do have an indoor event this weekend that I will be taking a lot of shots. Should be fun.

Watchmen

I watched Watchmen finally with iTunes. I like watching movies in HD but I don’t have a high definition television. I don’t watch TV much, rather I use the computer a lot and watch dvds, movies, tv shows all on the computer, like ABC’s LOST in HD. ABC has done an outstanding job with their HD program online. So I tried out iTunes with some hesitation as their HD movies are 720 instead of 1080 which is understandable for the file size. After downloading Watchmen, I was pleased with the quality at 720, it is not a huge noticeable difference.

V for Vendetta

Watchmen was an interesting movie. I enjoyed the dark and weird film. I had wanted to see the movie early this year when it was at IMAX but ended up missing it. It is not a movie for everyone, but I thought Jackie Haley who I never heard of before did an awesome job as Walter Kovacs aka Rorschach. Continuing the dark films I went ahead and also purchased V for Vendetta on iTunes and watched that as well and enjoyed it. This movie was even weirder than Watchmen. Natalie Portman played her part well. So it looks like iTunes will be my online movie rental / movie store for now anyway. It will be nice when movies are in full HD resolution which looks great on my 24″ monitor .

I bought both of these movies rather than rent. Watchmen because it isn’t available to rent yet, and V for Vendetta’s rental price was $3 while to buy it was $10. Being so close in price I bought it, which is worth it in some cases. Watchmen was $15. At these prices it is the price of going to the movie theater to watch them but I can re-watch when and if I want to. iTunes is not a replacement for “going to the movies” but rather a movie viewing option.