Western Arab

Here we are again, Ramadan 2010. Ramadan Kareem to all.

Yes a post after weeks of being away. Away getting to know. Away for 3 weeks in Lebanon, which I will post pictures from later maybe. And away from a small trip to New York. Well that is all for now, this is more a push to resume posting and also to wish everyone a blessed Ramadan.

Spent the weekend working hard with my Dad. We decided to put it new grass on the side where it had all died up and to look at some brick paver edgers to see if we pick them up and do that as well.

We started Saturday measuring in the morning calculated we needed 75 pieces of sod. We first stopped by at Home Depot and picked up 35 pieces of the brick paver edgers. Loaded them in the two carts we had and unloaded them in the mini van. Okay this wasn’t so bad so far. Then it was Lowes for the grass, we picked up 50 pieces of sod figured we can get more if we need. I loaded 50 pieces of sod on a flat bed cart. Not an easy task. Good thing we got 50 instead of 75, the cart was heavy and difficult to move but I pushed it to the cashier and to the mini van. Now I had to load the 50 pieces again from the cart to the back of car. At this point I realize I am going to have to unload these again when I get home.

At home we first placed out the edgers to see how they will look. Dad tied a rope to a spike in the dirt and ran it so we would line them up straight. We proceeded with setting up the dirt below each paver and adjusting it in position. Dad mostly did this as he likes to be precise with it while I helped carry over the pavers. After it was time to unload the sod. I suggested we back the mini van up from my neighbor’s driveway and into my lawn. My Dad liked that idea and he backed up the van and I unloaded the 50 pieces. I then proceeded to start laying out the grass. The edgers came in very handy as they created a border and the pieces of sod fit in perfectly after we found the best way to lay them out so we did not have to cut the sod up. Great!

We laid out the 50 pieces and measured what was left and we did need 25 more pieces. I headed back to Lowes. My hands were all black from the dirt I had been loading and unloading and placing. I stopped for gas at a BP on the way and a nice guy let me pay for my gas before him, maybe because he saw I was so dirty and looked tired. And then back to Lowes to do it all again but with 25 pieces this time. My back was aching from all that bending over loading and unloading. I got back to the house and backed up the mini van same way and unloaded the sod and proceeded to lay them out. This was around 5:30 now and I had spent the day on 5-8 bottles of water and without food. I used the hose to water the new sod and with my back aching, me filthy and hungry, I glanced over the end result and felt great about the work we did. It was worth it and felt rewarding. I showered, took a few pictures of the result and went back in and had food!

Later that evening I showed my Dad the pictures I took and he had an idea to pick up some 12×12 pavers for stepping stones to lay them out from the front of the house to the back leading to the screen door for the patio in the back. I was sold and suggested we lay them out as diamonds instead of squares and we agreed. We had a new plan. And that was today. Same as Saturday, stepped out and measured and looked around and Dad suggested to maybe get more sod to fill up some more in the back and all the grass we will cut out for the stepping stones combined we can fill up further to the back with the sod. And off we went.

First stop Home Depot. We picked up 30 pieces of the stepping stones and another 20 paver edgers to fill to the back of the house along the new sod. We headed back home to unload them. But this time we picked up some gloves at Home Depot to use both for the stepping stones and the sod. After 75 pieces of sod, I finally had gloves! I told my Dad I will go to Lowes and pick up the sod while he can work on the paver edgers. Alas I was prepared with gloves and loaded up mini van the sod. I looked like a pro next to some noob and his girlfriend who picked up 8 pieces of sod while I loaded my 25 pieces! When I returned I backed up the mini van on my lawn instead because my neighbor had sealed his driveway pavers.

When I got back, my Dad had finished up the edgers and I proceed to lay out the new sod and then we laid out the first stepping stone followed by a second and shuffled them around a few times until we found a good distance between them and using the same rope we made a line to keep them aligned in the middle. We ended up putting them closer than we first had in mind which meant we would be short a few steps. After all were lined up, we saw we need 3 more steps so we figured we will get 5 more. Again we had spent the day without food and bottles of water. I told my Dad I will get go the 5 stepping stones and pick up some Boston Market for us and he can start cutting the grass under the steps and dropping the steps in place of the grass. I entered the garden area of Home Depot for the 3rd time today and the cashiers all greeted me knowing I was back yet again, but this time it was quick.

I headed to Boston Market where the parking lot was full. For whatever reason that Boston Market is always packed on Sunday, with old people. While waiting on line, this time less dirty as the gloves kept my hands clean below the wrist. Above the wrist was another story. Someone behind me tapped me on my shoulder. A nice man offered me a coupon for $2 off $10 purchase after he asked me if I was buying two meals. Great! I ordered 2 quarter white chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy for each, and a side of corn for my dad and stuffing for mine. The guy working asked me if I wanted another side for another dollar, I already spent $4 on the 4 sides but I said sure I will try the spinach out. And to the mini van parked further away in BEALLS parking lot.

Got back and my dad had cut out and placed the first eight or so steps. We had our lunch and headed back to work. I began to vigorously and rapidly cut the grass with a kitchen knife like repo-men. I would stop after 2 or 3 stones to break and Dad would work on the next 2 and then I would get the next 2 or 3 and so on. With my sweat dropping all over my glasses and on the stones, blurring my vision as it rolled down the lenses of my glasses, I proceeded. I wanted to be done so I kept going. It wasn’t only cutting the grass and fitting in the step, but also carrying the cut out pieces of sod and working on a puzzle in the back fitting the new cut pieces as needed. The last piece of grass I cut was the hardest, the knife was so dull and I was exhausted. After that we finished up the remaining pieces of sod in the back. Got 5 bags of mulch and placed them in the back were there was still dead grass area. We have 2 fig trees in that spot. We emptied out all that mulch and spread it and it was dark, we have a 6th bag of mulch which we will fill in any thin areas with during the day when we can see. But we were done, it was too dark for pictures, I watered all the new grass along with the steps and the mulch. I showered and my legs are sore and my back and I am sure I will feel it in the morning like I felt my lower back this morning when I woke up.

It was a great weekend with hard work and quality time and a great result to show for it. Tomorrow it is raining which is great to soak up the new grass some more. And now I must sleep to rest and because I have to wake up early for a blood exam. I will post some pictures of the weekend project later. I didn’t do a before picture, but I may have an old picture from before showing that area. Looking forward to the next weekend project, just not next weekend or the one after or after or after but eventually! I need a massage, a brookstone visit is indeed needed!

It has been maybe 2 weeks of cold weather and it is finally warming up. The cold weather isn’t gone exactly, but at least during the day it is nice weather, while indoors at home is colder than it is outside. The nights have not been as cold as the past 2 weeks were. With a forecast of 53 being the lowest in the next few days, and high of mid 70s, I think the weather is going to be great. I hate when my hands are freezing while I am trying to type. I wear socks and my feet are fine but my hands freeze when it is cold! Go back to NY cold where I left you 5 years ago!

California. Beautiful state. I love it. I have been here 4 days and it is wonderful. In that time I have visited Las Vegas, Nevada, the Hoover Dam in Nevada/Phoenix and San Diego California. With beautiful clear blue skies and impressive mountain views, California is quiet possibly the most attractive state I have visited.

Driving on the winding roads through the mountains and just the overall mountain views is a nice reminder of Lebanon. Lebanon has those winding roads in the mountains minus the guard rails and much thinner roads with beeping cars around each bend warning everyone that they are coming around the bend.

I have taken plenty of pictures and there will be plenty more to take. I will post some later.

I had a fun long weekend traveling from Fort Lauderdale west to Naples and North to Tampa and on to Port Richey, then east to Orlando and south back down to West Palm Beach.

It all started with Bakugan.

Bakugan Tournament

Nearly 300 miles away was a Bakugan Tournament at Gulf View Square Mall, and that was our excuse to take the trip knowing that the tournament would be at most an hour event, but the kids would love it. My nephews that is. =)

Kids were excited and had a great time. They got t-shirts, wrist bands and got to be official bakugan battle brawlers with a card with their picture certifying it! COOL!

Following the bakugan tournament, we headed to Olive Garden for breakfast/lunch. We did wake up at 6am just to be in time for the bakugan tournament so we were pretty hungry. After we found a place called stop and play which was just an arcade and after that headed to Orlando.

We arrived in Orlando and found a Radisson Hotel to stay in. It wasn’t as good as we had expected, but not bad overall but next time staying in a Holiday Inn would probably be the better choice. And from the hotel it was out to Old Town where there is an amusement park. We bought tickets for the kids to play on the rides and were convinced that any adult can ride with any kid on the ride. After smashing and bumping the cars on the race track around which they threaten to kick you out if you do so, we learned that they want kids of certain height to go on rides alone and won’t let an adult go with them unless they pay for the ride again. Alright so we broke their policy of no refunds and got our refund and then just bought individual tickets for the rides. Silly of them, we ended up spending much less.

But the amusement park gave me good opportunities to take shots with slower shutter speeds to achieve cool effects.

Old Town

Do not bump, Do not push

Double Ferris Wheel

I also found a waterfall finally … well kinda.

Waterfall at the Radisson

The next morning we headed to the waffle house, when you are in Orlando, there is some rule that you have to have breakfast at the waffle house. Had pecan and chocolate waffles, eggs, hash browns and orange juice.

Waffle House

Pecan Waffle

And finally from the waffle house, we started the trip to Nasa Kennedy Space Center. If you want to feel very little, this is where you go and see how gigantic things are and the great things that man can build.

Shuttle Dock

Space Stuff

Work Area Viewing

a single ring. caller id says restricted. who is calling me with a restricted number? i haven’t seen a restricted number in a long time.

the call reminds me of a few years ago when i received a restricted call that was one of many to follow. perhaps the call that opened the door.

why was it a single ring? it gives me the impression that someone called and quickly chickened out. the restricted call from a few years back came with a short conversation with an anonymous person, which led to another restricted call, on that same day, that revealed the identification of the caller, and lasted more than 40 minutes. this new call came in yesterday at 8:58pm. will that one lead to another? is this an opener yet again? but an opener to what? or is this just a random call that will fade away never to be thought of again? perhaps i will never know.

note: this post was intentionally written in all lower case letters, i do not know the reason for this but i felt like it should be in this format.

What has become of “our” people. Are they our people anymore?

Many of our people are getting lost. They have rapidly changed. I look at them and what do I see? Young girls dressed scantily. Women dressed scantily. Women with fake blond hair. Women with tattooed eyebrows. Women with nose jobs. Women trying hard to appear as if they were younger.

What happened to our ideals? What happened to our culture? What has happened to our people?

Who are these people now? How do I distinguish them from everyone else? There is only one thing that still connects us. We both speak Arabic.

City Place

Decided to go to city place last night, walk around and take some pictures and so I did. There was a band playing music and a lot of people which made it great. The parking garage was packed and when I was going in I saw the line of cars trying to get out. I figured it would be better when I was leaving but it wasn’t. Still I had fun walking around taking my pictures. I got some good shots which I will include in this post. Of course I had a smoothie from the smoothie king with my request of not including the protein in the drink, I had pineapple surf or pineapple plus. I forgot the name.

The most interesting incident of the night was perhaps me being clawed. That’s right I got clawed. While I was walking a group of 4 girls was walking towards me. They were split in twos and one of the girls in the closer two glanced over at me, rushed back to one of the girls in the second two and told her something, turned her back to me pointing me out to her friend and then dashed at me and grabbed my arm. She then asks me if I can take their picture. I am holding my big camera strapped around my neck and I respond in a wtf tone with “with my camera???”. At which I get that cute extended “nooooooooo” and I am offered one of their point and shoot cameras with no view finder, rather a large LCD. I bring up the camera to my face before realizing I don’t have a choice but to use the LCD to take the shot. I took a single shot of them, and I will never know if it really came out good or not. I got thanked by one girl and then I believe the one that grabbed me said “thank you very much” smiling at me, eating me up with her eyes.

I said it was no problem and walked off. It was then that I realized she had actually dug her nails into me when she grabbed me. Like she was afraid of me getting away, which I can understand how would want me to slip away from their fingers . With that in mind, while her behavior was inappropriate, it was also harmless. She didn’t intentionally claw me, that was all out of her hands … erm well at least out of her control.

Here are a few shots.

nicely lit fountain with ugly wet floor signs around

nice arch

nice building to live in

electric guitar

Yay. Tomorrow is Eid al Fitr. Today is the last day of Ramadan. It was a long month. In a couple of hours I will break my fast for the final day of Ramadan. So to everyone congratulations on completing the month of Ramadan. Have a wonderful holiday and let us all start stuffing ourselves again tomorrow.

May Allah accept our fasting and grant us good health and happiness for many years to come.

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.