Western Arab

I like this video. I like the nasheed and I like the speech and this speaker.

Here is Khalid Yasin – خالد ياسين

The nasheed is Ghoraba (Strangers) – نشيد غرباء

Two shots I took at the beach last Saturday. Both were shot in RAW and post processed to give them the colors they have. I have cropped them to 1920×1080 to be used as wallpapers.

Like A Bonsai

The Beach

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.

I got a new cage for my birds. It is more than twice the size of the previous one so now the birds can enjoy the space and I don’t have to let them out in the screened patio much if any, since they insisted on tearing the screen multiple holes. Dad made a pole to hook the cage on so it is suspended and away from the screen as well. Now the cage has some free movement, but Dad added a metal hanger to the top so the cage doesn’t bounce around so much every time they jump in it. And I think their new home is perfect! They were excited once it was all setup and they were exploring and congratulating each other on their new home! Here are some shots.

New bird house

Celebrating the new house

happy birds

front view

I found another wetlands that is very close to my house as well. The first one I went to was the Wakodahatchee Wetlands and this new one is a single main road further and is much bigger. This was the Green Cay Wetlands. The Green Cay Wetlands has a board walk with 2 paths. One path is one mile long while the other is half a mile. I walked the one mile and then did the half mile as well, the half mile actually loops back through part of the one mile path. I like this wetlands more, because of it’s size.

So here are some shots I took today in 1920×1080 size to be used for wallpapers.

A little Stroll

A little too much to drink

Close-up of a bird

Last Drop

Look at my Teeth

Look at my Teeth 2

Well this doesn’t need much explanation. Funny videos. I have seen maybe 70% of these and yes of course boxxy made the list!

It seems the top 100 missed the numa numa guy, he definitely deserved to be on the list.

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.

Taylor Swift

Thanks to Kanye West, I now know who Taylor Swift is. I don’t really keep up with these music “artists” anymore. Seems like every day a new “artist” is born. While I happen to listen to all kinds of music, country music isn’t near the top of the categories of music I listen to either.

I have heard the name Kanye West before on the radio stations but I have no idea who he is and I still don’t. This morning I saw the video of him with Taylor at the VMAs and his dumb outburst. Again I don’t know Kanye but now I know he is an idiot. I also discovered he had another outburst a few years ago when he didn’t win an award, so this wasn’t his first time. I also didn’t know Taylor Swift but now I know she is a country singer and have even looked up her music on youtube and googled her. So maybe Kanye helped her out after all. I read that another singer whom I don’t know as well, Katy Perry, went off on Kanye as well. Katy Perry said “F u Kanye. It’s like you stepped on a kitten”. I though her kitten comment was cute and the poor inexperienced kitten Taylor was shocked and did not how to respond.

Beyonce Knowles

But the star of this incident is Beyonce Knowles. Beyonce won video of the year and invited Taylor Swift to the stage so she can give her acceptance speech again and uninterrupted. Congratulations to Beyonce and Taylor on their awards.