I got lost yesterday, and learned several valuable lessons in the process. First, I learned that City Center Mall is nowhere near the "City Center" to which road signs point...the signs will take you to the center of downtown Doha, which is great if you're looking for the souqs (private shops), but terrible if you're looking for the mall. Second, I learned that you shouldn't drive on E-Ring Road at night. Downtown Doha is laid out in somewhat of a semicircular arrangement, with "ring roads" running parallel to each other around the semicircle...the one closest to the bay is A-Ring Road, the next is B-Ring Road, and so on. E-Ring Road is currently the farthest out, and is not yet finished, so I was driving baja-style, at night, across sand and rocks in a Toyota Corolla. Streets that are under construction are not well-marked here in Doha, and the street maps tend to omit inconsequential information such as unfinished roads, roundabouts that are closed, etc.
To make a long story short, I got lost, but eventually found my way back to my villa, where the guys were waiting with the nine boxes of our stuff that we shipped before I left. Customs had gone through a couple of the boxes, but everything looked intact.
Incidentally, you rarely make left-hand turns in Doha. Most of the streets are two-way divided, and there are no left-turn lanes. If you need to get to something on the other side of the road, you drive to the next roundabout, circle around, and come back up the other direction. As soon as you come out of a roundabout, you need to look to the right, because the speed limit for that stretch of road is posted there, and usually only there. Even right-hand turns are limited, with occasional "slips" which take you off of the main road onto a secondary road with access to shops etc. This all results in much faster overall traffic flow, which is generally very nice, and I have come to appreciate roundabouts--I can honestly say that I'll miss them when I get home.
Friday morning, one of the groundskeepers at our complex rang my doorbell and asked if I wanted my car washed. When he finished and I paid him, he asked me not to tell the manager about it. Apparently these guys are supposed to work through the management to provide these sorts of services to the tenants, but if they do it "on the side" they make more money.
After church, we ate lunch at Rick's, which is an American food place downtown. Since it's Ramadan, they're not supposed to be serving food during daylight hours, so the door was locked and the sign said "Closed." We knocked on the door, and a waiter opened up, glanced around outside, then quickly ushered us in and locked the door behind us. The place was packed with hungry folks. We felt like we were entering a speak-easy. I had the "Doha Special" which consisted of two eggs (I had mine over-easy), simulated ham (actually quite good), and Texas toast. I had a side of biscuits and gravy. Good stuff.
Friday evening, we were all invited to a barbecue at the home of Abdul and Hala. Hala works at TAMU-Q and handles most of our immigration and residency paperwork, appointments, etc. Today was her birthday. They have a three-year-old son, Bader (the closest English pronunciation is "bah-del")--we'll have to get him together with my boy. They live in a beautiful home in a new and very high-class gated community in the northern part of the city. The community has tennis courts and other amenities, and is situated close to the West Bay, so the beach is a short walk away. The deed restrictions require that houses conform to traditional Qatari architecture on the exterior, so the appearance of the neighborhood will remain very traditional.
Abu Bader ("Dad of Bader") designed and built the house himself (actually two houses together--Hala's parents live on one side), and also built a fantastic barbecue grill in the back yard. He grilled red snapper, lamb chops, chicken, and kebabs, all of which were outstanding. Hala made several traditional Arab dishes, and I can't remember what any of them were called (hey, I'm a man...I remember what was on the grill) but everything was delicious. We ate in the back yard, which is beautifully landscaped. For dessert, we had a birthday cake, and a traditional Ramadan dessert that was something like a thin fried pancake wrapped pastry-style around mozzarella cheese and dipped in syrup. Their cakes are covered with a whipped frosting that is less sweet than our typical frosting, and topped with thinly-sliced fruit and a clear sugary gelatin glaze that makes the cake look like it's been shellacqued. After dinner, Hala's brother broke out a shisha (with apple-flavored tobacco) and the guys stood around talking and smoking the shisha (I'll confess that I took a few puffs). Zach and I spent a good deal of time playing with Bader and talking with Abu Bader, who lived in Minnesota for sixteen years before returning to the Middle East...he's a very interesting man, and very personable.
Danna spent a lot of time talking with Alia, who is our receptionist. She and her husband are Iraqi (Alia is always hesitant to tell Americans his name, which is Osama), and she assured Danna that virtually every Iraqi is overjoyed that America is in Iraq. The fighting, she says, is being perpetrated by Syrians and other non-Iraqi Arabs who were hired by Saddam and his loyalists to enter Iraq to stir up trouble with the Americans; however, our soldiers can't tell that it's not Iraqis fighting Iraqis out there...they just see a bunch of Arabs fighting, and they assume they're all Iraqis. If the Western media would exercise due diligence, they might uncover this sort of information themselves, but they're obviously more interested in trying to make Bush look bad than in providing accurate coverage of the situation.
Alia also informed Danna that Danna's name in Arabic means "precious one" and is the name of a rare blue jewel. In Iraq, though, "danna" means "the bomb." So she's either a precious jewel, or she's the bomb. Not bad either way.
Finally, a quick note about electrical products. There's no such thing as Underwriters Laboratories over here, so you never really know what you're getting when you buy electrical equipment. You can buy a plug strip at the store, bring it home, plug it in, and make sparks. My laptop shocked me the other day, because of some wacky ground loop in the plug strip. I'm going to have to find some higher-quality electrical gear before I start a fire or zap myself with this stuff.
Today was driver's license day. Zach, Danna, Lailah and I were picked up by a driver from the Qatar Foundation, and taken downtown to the Traffic Administration building. Lailah is Jordanian, and has lived in Qatar for two years.  You will probably notice, in looking through the pictures I've taken, that many of the buildings look pretty dated. Part of this, of course, is due to the fact that they are dated, but the intense heat in this part of the world necessitates construction techniques involving thick concrete, overhangs, insulating air spaces, walls within walls, and things of that nature that tend to make a building look rather clunky by our standards. I'll have to get some pictures of some of the unique techniques they employ to keep the interior temperatures comfortable.
At any rate, the Traffic Administration building is no exception. It's dated. It's old. Remember the pictures of Yasser Arafat's compound after the Israelis were finished with it? That's the image that springs to my mind when I think about the Traffic Administration building. It's not crumbling, but somehow it seems like it should be. After expertly navigating the large QF van through the parking lot where cars were parked pell-mell, our driver led us into the building where he located a man--an employee, I assume--who was to help us get our paperwork in order.
First, he needed to get our applications (with photos attached) stapled to copies of our passports. He had some difficulty matching our passport pictures to our other photos, and more difficulty matching any of the photos to any of us. Did you ever think that all Arabs looked alike? Well, Westerners all look alike to them. Once we had that straightened out, we went across the courtyard, up some stairs, and around a corner to get our eye exams. One door was marked "Men Entrance" and the other said "Ladies Entrance." It's not really discrimination; rather, it's more like protective separation. Their mindset, as I understand it, is sort of a mildly twisted version of 1 Peter 3:7.
Back to the eye test...when I walked in, a lady (wearing elbow-length black gloves--she's not supposed to touch men, since it's Ramadan) had me pick up a pink cardboard circle, sit down in a chair, and cover one eye at a time with the cardboard circle while she shone an eye chart up on the far wall. Once I would read a line of letters, she'd flash to a second screen of letters to see if I could read any of those. At one point, she put a new chart on the wall and I said, "Ummm..." at which point she turned off the projector, scribbled on my paperwork, handed it to me and waved me out the door. I figured I must have passed. Our guide then took us to a couple more rooms, where we did nothing but stand for a minute or two (I'm not sure what was going on there), and then it was back to the original area. He determined that they needed other paperwork from us...our medical reports (which we didn't have), copies of our current visas (fortunately they had a small copy shop across the courtyard, which entailed a 10x10' room with an archaic copier at one side), and, from Lailah, a copy of her husband's passport. In order to reside in Qatar, you must have a local sponsor. Our sponsor is the Qatar Foundation, but Lailah's sponsor is her husband. So, she was out of luck, and would have to come back another day with a copy of her husband's passport.
After numerous run-arounds, once it looked like we had hit an impasse, I finally pulled out my mobile phone and called Hala back at our office, then handed the phone to Danna and told her what to do. I then went to stand in "line" to turn in my paperwork. Around here, a "line" is just a group of people clustered around a window, and your place in "line" is determined by whether or not you are the first one to shove your paperwork across the counter when the previous person is finished. There's very little concept of "taking turns" here; you're all in it together, and you just have to stay alert and move quickly. But it's all done very amiably...if someone elbows in front of you, and you tell them that you were there first, they'll almost always back off very politely. Once I got my paperwork shoved across, the officer informed me that I needed some other signatures from my sponsor (QF had stamped the papers, but there was no actual signature).
Meanwhile, Danna had spoken with Hala, who called Ali at the Qatar Foundation, who called back to my mobile and asked to speak with our guide. After a brief exchange in Arabic, the guide hung up, collected all of our paperwork, our license fees, and our Texas driver's licenses (!) from us, and promised that he would take care of everything and send our papers to us. Then we left. Getting things done quickly around here requires talking to the right people, and having the right connections. In Texas, we call it the "good ol' boy network." I don't know how that translates into Arabic, but you can bet your boots it does.
I was wrong about Ramadan. It didn't start this morning; it started at sundown today, since the Muslim day starts at sunset. They're on a whole different calendar, those Muslims. What an interesting day! First, Zach, Danna, myself, and a Pakistani fellow named Daoud (the Arab form of "David") were taken to get our medical tests, which are required for residency. Daoud was born and raised in Qatar, but he's not Qatari since he's not of Qatari descent. I told him that if he'd been born on American soil he'd automatically be an American, which he thought was a pretty good deal. Now, about the clinic...picture in your mind a typical construction site shack. You know, the white trailer box on cinder blocks, linoleum floor, knotty pine wood panelling, window A/C unit. Now, picture six or eight of them joined together at right angles, sitting on hot sand, with a bunch of Arabs inside. That's the clinic.
We got to go to the front of the line, since our driver informed them that we were with the Qatar Foundation. Everybody except Danna, of course...she had to go to the women's side of the clinic, and the driver couldn't go over there to get her to the front of the line. In the first room, a guy took our blood pressure. Second office, a guy had us raise our shirts, and he put a stethoscope to our chests to make sure we had heart and lungs. Third room--this one with a handwritten sign that read "SAMPLES LAB"--they drew a vial of blood. The technician asked me, "You like the needle?" When I answered in the negative, he laughed heartily...a little too heartily. Then it was off to the hospital for our chest x-rays. Danna was a few minutes behind us, but the women's side of the clinic had an x-ray machine, so she was all done.
We got to sit in the hospital for 15 minutes or so, during which I quizzed Daoud on Arabic terms and Qatari customs. I almost got us all in trouble by asking the wrong questions. First, I referred to "Sheika Moza" instead of "Her Highness" which is a big no-no in public. Then, I asked about the size of the King's family--another no-no. Daoud kept laughing nervously, looking around, and shushing me. I'm sure he thought it was funny as all get-out, this crazy Texan asking all the wrong questions. Hey, I'm a good sport. I told him that President Bush's family gets their whole life aired out in the daily papers...they can still keep secrets, but it's a lot harder to do in America. We did manage to find several interesting things we could actually talk about in public. The traditional Muslim greeting is "peace and blessings" and it sounds a lot like the Hebrew version, "shalom alechem." In Arabic (as I understand it), it's pronounced "as-salaam o alikum," and the proper response is "wa-alikum o salaam." "Shukran" means "thank you," and "minfadlik" means "please." Got that?
They finally herded about eight of us into the x-ray area, had us all take off our shirts, and one by one we stood in front of the x-ray machine and the old, tall, gray-headed, thoroughly disinterested Arab doctor said (in our respective native tongue), "Take a deep breath, hold it, now don't breathe." No shielding, no radiation badges, nada. There were a couple of nasty-looking lead-lined pads sitting next to a handwritten sign that said, "Gonad shields," but of course none of us were going to touch them, much less use them. I wish I'd worn my lead-lined underwear....
This is socialized medicine, folks. If anybody thinks they want the government to be in charge of health care in any way--and this includes Medicare, prescription drugs, the whole shootin' match--then they need to visit a few places that suffer with socialized medicine. When my wife and I were here several weeks ago, a lady in the local church had just died due to complications from gall bladder surgery. How many people in the U.S. die from gall bladder surgery? I'll take privatized, capitalist, market-driven medical care any day, thanks. The U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world, and as long as we can keep the government in its proper Constitutional role, it will remain the best. After all, where did the Qatar Foundation go to find the best medical school for their Education City project? The European Union? Canada? Anywhere in the Middle East? They came to the United States. Think about this when you tell your representatives how to vote on healthcare-related issues.
Once we got back to work, I found a way to get on top of the Cornell building to have a look around and check the line-of-sight to my house, and took a few pictures while I was up there. This evening, at the beginning of Ramadan, everybody in the country with a mobile phone got a text message saying, "Ramadan Mubarak," ("Blessed Ramadan") in both English and Arabic. It's perfectly OK to evangelize Islam over here, but not Christianity--which is the only thing that sort of torques me about the text message. Q-Tel is the state-sanctioned communications monopoly over here, and they have every right to send whatever they want over their system; even so, just imagine the uproar if AT&T, Sprint, and MCI were to send every mobile wireless customer in the U.S. a "Happy Easter" text message!
Nothing to do but love them and pray for them...and, truth be told, these folks really are quite lovable, and their culture is impressive in many ways. If you want to gain a much better understanding of Arabs and their culture, I highly recommend Understanding Arabs by Margaret Nydell and Foreign to Familiar by Sarah Lanier. Please pray for me as I attempt to build bridges in this place.
I'm still recovering from the attack of the Turkish food, but things seem to have stabilized internally. Stayed up at the office late last night, getting a little paperwork done, but mainly just being online and doing iChat with my family. It sure is nice to be able to see and hear them. I tried to stop by Landmark Mall on the way home, but Fridays are "family only" days at the mall. Pretty neat concept, unless you happen to be in gastrointestinal distress. This morning, I went on a shopping sortie, and managed to find the Lulu home center, which was sort of Sears-ish, on a smaller scale.
Trying to figure out the local version of Pepto was the number one priority. The only thing I could find was some gnarly Australian stuff called "Gastrogel" that's made from dried aluminum hydroxide. Sounds scary, looks scary, smells pepperminty. Bring me some Pepto if you come for a visit, and my guts will love you. I also visited several shops downtown, just exploring, and managed to pick up some sundries and the makings of a few spaghetti dinners. I might even be able to invite some folks to supper, once I can eat again. Got honked at by several Qataris...they really like their horns over here. Driving is definitely, shall we say, less structured than in the States. But it's really not so bad, once you get your brain around the concept of cooperative driving, which is embodied in the roundabouts. With traffic lights, a preordained order is imposed upon you as a driver...with roundabouts, you have to cooperate with the other drivers to create just enough order to get everybody around the circle in one piece. With greater freedom comes greater responsibility, all the way down to traffic control. I think our founding fathers would have preferred roundabouts. :)
I had a good visit with Mr. Omar, who is the owner's representative in our housing compound and is basically a site manager. He's from Syria, and we discussed Colin Powell's upcoming visit to Syria, and our desire to finish up the war in Iraq and get out of there as soon as possible. He has three grown children, his oldest daughter is in college. He's going to get me in touch with the owner to discuss my wishes for some improvements--primarily, a shade canopy over the back patio, and some irrigation for greenery, so my family won't fry in the sun out there and we can better utilize the space. Mr. Omar showed me around the club, too. They have a fitness trainer on staff, a gentleman from Bulgaria, and we talked about Bulgaria a little.
It turns out that I can call the reception desk anytime to schedule maintenance, house cleaning, or whatever--which is good to know. A thorough house cleaning by a two-man crew costs QR 70, or about $20. They're building a convenience store in the compound, which should be open in a month or two, inshallah (everything's "inshallah" over here--"lord willing"--basically, they understand James 4:13-17 better than most Christians, and it does tend to slow things down considerably, which can be a mixed blessing).
Mr. Omar also told me how to get up onto the roof, so I borrowed a ladder from the maintenance guys and climbed up there to check out the potential for setting up a wireless shot to Education City. In the process, I replaced the lid on the cistern up there--somebody had left it open, no telling how long ago. Nothing like a bit of sand in your water, eh? I need to get a whole-house water filter or something. I used my new broom to sweep all the sand off my front porch, so it looks a little better now. Also replaced the batteries in the doorbell, so it sounds like a doorbell now instead of a dying cat. They're coming tomorrow to replace some light bulbs and clean the house. Inshallah, I'll be able to have the house shipshape by the time my family gets here!
We flew on Qatar Airways to Dubai early Thursday morning to attend GITEX. I think that stands for "Gulf IT Expo" or some such. It's a large trade show for the computer industry; in the States we have one called COMDEX. Qatar Airways was very nice, even though they use a bunch of French-made aircraft. We figured the airplanes would automatically run away from any trouble, though, so that was a plus. Dubai is a very large city...we figure Doha may be like it in another 15 years, but I hope the Qatar government can manage it properly. The people in Doha are friendlier than the folks in Dubai, and it has more of a "hometown" atmosphere. It would be a shame to lose that in the name of "progress."
The expo was in two parts, one downtown and the other close to the airport. The one downtown was an informational expo, geared toward professionals who wanted information on the various products etc. The one close to the airport was a huge market, and it got pretty crazy in there. Wall-to-wall people, thousands of them, everybody buying stuff left and right, noise like you wouldn't believe (every speaker in the place was cranked up full volume). "Understanding Arabs" says that Westerners walk around in a bubble of personal space, but Arabs don't...they get right in each other's faces to talk, touch each other a lot (you often see men walking holding hands or with their arm around the other), and our experience at the expo certainly brought that concept home for me. That will probably take more getting used to than anything, though the idea doesn't really bother me that much--it's just very different.
We ate at a cafe in a mall somewhere. I had a margherita pizza and a seafood salad, both of which were very good. Paid about $4 for a tube of chapstick (Neutrogena was all they had), but I had to get something for my lips before they started splitting apart. After all, I love my lips. :) I got to drive just a little, from the expo market back to the airport terminal. It was about like driving in Houston...lots of traffic, construction everywhere.
On the plane ride back, a Qatari in front of us got ticked off at a stewardess for some reason, and was giving all of them a tongue-lashing. We never could figure out exactly what she did to upset him, but he was pretty hot. It was pretty funny, in an annoying sort of way. I hope the stewardess didn't get into any trouble over it. Her coworkers were doing a pretty good job of keeping her out of the direct line of fire, anyway.
When we got back to the Doha airport, we were standing in line at the passport control area, and Danna noticed that the line next to us was empty...so she unclipped the rope thingy and went through. Tim did the same thing, and then Zach held the rope for the rest of us, and he went through last and clipped the rope back in place. One of the guards saw Zach, but apparently missed the rest of us, because he told Zach to get back in the other line. Then Zach had to go through all sorts of grief to get his re-entry visa processed. It was pretty funny.
At the expo, I bought a set of speakers. The small speakers look like 5x7 picture frames, and each one has a different Van Gogh print in it. They don't sound quite as good as the Altec Lansings I have at home, but they'll do, especially given their unique appearance. I moved the desk from the study up to the landing at the top of the stairs...there's space against the wall for the desk, it's out of the way of the door, and I can put the computer & speakers up there and hear them throughout the house. Plus, it cleared out the study so that it's more of a parlor, which will be nice to have--apparently Arabs are honored when you escort them to a parlor for visiting. We'll see how my bride likes it; we can always move it around later.
At church, there were three visitors from Baghdad...all U.S. soldiers, two women and one man. They were probably in their early twenties. The girls were both MPs, and the guy worked at the recruitment office for the new Iraqi army. They've been on a four-day r&r leave, and they said it's been the best four days of their whole stay in the middle east. They don't particularly like it in Baghdad...he said that the anti-new-government Iraqis shoot at the pro-new-government Iraqis on a daily basis, and the only good thing was that Iraqis are terrible shots. Give them a rock, though, and they can bean you in the head every time...he said he's had to stand outside doing crowd control (they had a 60,000 person mob the other day) and get hit in the helmet with rocks, and not be able to fire except for warning shots. The girls have it a little better; they have shotguns with rubber bullets, but they said that if you fire a round, you have to do five pages of paperwork per round to explain why you fired, who you fired on, what they had done, etc. ad nauseam. So, they basically try not to shoot anybody, even with rubber bullets. They make regular PR sorties through town, dispensing candy to the kids from their Humvee. They're all ready to get out of there. I told them that we appreciated what they were doing, and to hang in there. We invited them to lunch, but they had to go wash clothes and get ready to go back.
We ate lunch at a Turkish restaurant, and when they asked if we wanted to sit downstairs or upstairs, we said, "Uh, upstairs, I guess." That turned out to be a good thing, since upstairs was where they had the little rooms with couches and low tables. So, we got a fairly authentic Turkish experience. There was an Arab family up there, with several little kids (maybe their dad owns or runs the place) who periodically stepped into our little room to ask us our names, how we were doing, etc. just trying out their limited English. They were very cute. Their mother figured out what they were doing, and she was mortified. She was veiled, all except her eyes, but we got to talk to her just a little, enough for her to tell us that the children had been studying English for two years. I told them that they were doing very well in their English. I think their father disciplined all of them for bothering us, and then moved us to a little bit larger room. That was sort of a shame, since we were rather enjoying the kids. At least I was; I don't know about anyone else...none of the rest of them have kids. :)
As of late Friday evening, my bowels are in an uproar over the authentic Turkish experience. I think it was probably the stuffed grape leaves that did it, but it could have been the Turkish coffee. Looks like I'll be going easy on the local cuisine for a couple days...or at least not eating much Turkish food. :)
We had a couple of meetings at work, and we're getting in the groove. Zach is our LAN administrator, which means he's in charge of the computers themselves, Mark is the nuts-and-bolts network guy, and I'm in charge of Zach and Mark. Danna (rhymes with manna) is in charge of the website, and she answers directly to Tim. Beverly is Tim's administrative assistant. And, we hired five local student workers from the University of Qatar who will be coming in to oversee and manage the lab machines and do general setup/cleanup work for us. Let me see if I can remember their names...Ali, Halel, Mohammed...no, I can't remember them yet. I'll get there.
I got some good info from Dennis today. He told me where to find a couple of hardware stores, and he gave me Omar's number. Omar is the "Director of Public Relations" for our complex. I called him today, and we're going to try to meet on Saturday. I want to ask him about building a shade over the patio and a couple other ideas.
We had lunch at Landmark Mall today, at a Turkish place in the food court (the one with the giant clown and the bungee jumping thing). I love the food here, and I'm making a point to prefer local cuisine to McDonald's and that sort of thing, just so I'll maybe figure out what my family might like best when they get here.
This evening several of us went over to the gold souq, where Rosalie needed to pick up some jewelry for herself and for some of the folks who were here last week. I'll have to check the prices a bit more, but it seems like gold is considerably less expensive here than in the States. I saw a really pretty gold and diamond heart ring that made me think of my wife, a small silver locomotive pendant that made me think of my son, and a gold horse-head pendant that made me think of Mallory. There's some really incredible jewelry down there.
We wandered over to a "Family Requirements Store" which was basically a dollar store (or 3.50QR). They have everything from dishes to towels to toys to clothes...most of it low to mid quality, but there's some good stuff, and it's all very inexpensive. I bought an alarm clock for about $1.75. Afterwards, we went to a pizza place where you can get a 10" pizza for 6QR (less than $2). I had a couple of shwarmas, which are sort of like gyros, for 3QR each.
An interesting thing happend when we were ordering supper. Everyone wanted Pepsi except Danna and me, and we asked for water...but the guy acted like he couldn't understand us. I repeated that we wanted water, but he acted like we had asked for something else. I thought maybe he didn't understand "water" and I didn't know the Arabic word for it, so I went to the drink cooler in the kitchen to show him what I meant. They had some water in there, but it was already opened--apparently it was the employees' water; they didn't have any to serve to customers. Then I figured out what was going on...he didn't have what we were asking for, so rather than offend us and embarrass himself by denying our request, he just politely ignored the request and pretended we had asked for something he could give us. He brought Danna an orange soda, and me a Pepsi, and we thanked him. Just like the book said: it's considered very rude to directly deny someone's request over here, so you have to be very careful how you ask for things, and how you criticize anyone.
Anyway, after we ate we walked next door to a bakery (it has a big windmill on the sign) and bought various kinds of baclava (or something very similar). It's very good, though mine didn't have a hair in it, so it was somewhat lacking. :) Later, Suzanne and I rode with Rosalie to the airport, and I drove home. It's not too bad, really!
I have to be at the airport in the morning by 6 AM or so to go to Dubai. Keep checking my Qatar Pics website for updates!
18 Oct 2003
The Hattaways carried us to IAH, which was a great treat. We stopped at Carl's office and he showed me around the data center...very impressive. The traffic area in front of the British Airways terminal at IAH is under construction, so it was pretty crazy until we got inside. It took just over an hour to get checked in and through security. I didn't have to remove my shoes, which was a pleasant surprise. Actually, it just made the whole process a bit less annoying. Gotta love the patronizing announcements: "Please do not accept luggage from strangers." Give me a break. I miss the days when your friends and family could see you off at the gate.
Of course, I took great pains beforehand to remove from my carry-on luggage, and from my person, terrorist weapons like tweezers, penknives and screwdrivers. Having thus voluntarily stripped myself of dangerous weaponry, I didn't really anticipate any trouble with security. Unless, of course, there's actually a terrorist on the aircraft, in which case we're all in trouble because nobody's armed, thanks to the good folks in Washington who claim to understand security. I wonder why they all fly private charter? Grr. All issues of personal comfort aside, the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that people are putting up with the nonsense. Since we're acting like mindless sheep, I suppose we should expect to be treated as such. The flight was good, food was OK, seat was reasonably comfortable, and they were able to accommodate my instrument case onboard, which was a big plus.
19 Oct 2003
Note to self: Never, ever, pack more than you can comfortably carry for at least a quarter of a mile. I lost years from my life carrying 100+ lbs. of baggage across London. British Airways changed my flight at the last minute, and I had to switch airports in London, so I couldn't simply store my bags in the airport...and I had packed with that notion in mind. Bad idea. Pain is such a rush, right?
I met a nice young couple on the train from Gatwick to Victoria Station...he's from Portsmouth, builds display cases for a department store, and makes furniture on the side. She's studying to be a nurse, and wants to specialize in midwifery. I never got their names. She was concerned for my well-being, dragging all that luggage, but I assured her that I'd survive; I figured my insanity wasn't fatal. Sure enough, I made it to the hotel: the Cranleigh Hotel, a small family-run place at Ealing Common on the west side of London. Small, comfortable room, nice shower, nice staff. Their credit card machine was on the fritz, so I paid cash (chances are they're just ducking taxes, more power to 'em). There will be a cab coming for me in the morning, because there's no way I'm dragging that luggage back through the Underground, across town to Heathrow. There's a neat shopping area about a ten-minute walk from here. The weather is fairly cool--30s at night, maybe 50 for a high--so I had a nice walk. Her majesty was able to keep up with me on my walk, too, since there are closed-circuit TV cameras mounted all over the place, indoors and out. It's sad to see such tangible proof that Brits are subjects, not citizens. May it never happen in America (but I'm not comfortable with the odds).
Spent the evening with BJ and Karen. They have three kids, Christy, 16, who's away at a private boarding school in the Black Forest, Ben, 15, and Tony, 10. Tony has a British accent (or, I should say, he's the only one in his family without an American accent). BJ gave me a lot of good practical information and advice on dealing with arabs on a day-to-day basis. Apparently the men often refer to each other as "father of (insert eldest son's name here)," and BJ said my son's name *might* give them trouble...so he tried to come up with an Arabic "nickname" that would be easier for them to pronouce. The best one was "Laith," which means "lion." I'll have to see how my boy feels about that.
The hotel, like many homes, uses hot-water radiators for heat...they didn't turn on the hot water until it got pretty nippy this evening. I left the radiator on high when I left for BJ's, and the room was toasty when I returned. I started to sleep with the window open a crack, but after feeling a few drafts thought better of it. It's cold in this place!
20 Oct 2003
Had a good night's sleep. No alarm clock (no clocks anywhere, in fact...does anybody really know what time it is?), so I set the computer to wake me up with random praise music. It started off with "Good To Me" which reminded me of Kelly and Cindy, and then "Breathe" which reminded me of Jamie and Chris. Breakfast was great...fried egg over-easy, bacon (thin-sliced ham, really; our bacon is called "strip bacon" or something like that), beans (pork-and-beans style--apparently the latest breakfast craze), toast and jam. My cab driver was a sikh from India who's been in London for 40 years and is about to retire, build a house in India, and spend just enough time in London each year to collect his pension. He's looking forward to getting his turban. He recently visited a friend of his--an old schoolmate--in India who owns a trucking company and is apparently quite wealthy. The friend owns cars in every color, and his driver's job is to keep the cars clean and in good working order, and--most important--to choose a car for any given journey based on the color of the boss' turban. So, when the guy walks out his front door, the driver has to check the turban color, and then run to the correct auto.
Check-in and security were much faster at Heathrow than in Houston, and I had a lot of time to continue reading the biography of John Adams. One consistent characteristic of Adams was his diffidence in himself whenever he was presented with a new opportunity or responsibility...he had an uncanny ability to fully understand both the scope of the situation and his own inadequacies. It is heartening to me, especially in light of current events in my life, to know that I share a least a few thoughts and feelings with such a great man of history.
London police in the terminal areas wear kevlar body armor and carry 9mm full-auto rifles with lights and laser sights. In their hands, at the ready. Martial law, anyone? Though for the most part they're friendly chaps, still it's a bit disconcerting to know that the Queen trusts these guys with those guns, but doesn't trust me with tweezers. Air travel now makes everyone a subject, I suppose--not to mention a suspect (ever notice how they all look at you sideways?). And, as always, the thing that disturbs me the most is the fact that nobody seems to understand or care about the insanity of the whole setup. Reading about Adams and the early days of the U.S. government in this setting has underscored for me the difference between the Liberty for which our forefathers fought and died, and the Apathy in which most of us live today, in our government-managed comfort.
I finally made it...Tim met me at the airport, and I paid a guy 30 QR to drag my cargo out to Tim's car (about eight bucks). Customary charge is something like 10 QR, so he got a pretty good tip, but I was in no mood to quibble. So, here I am, back in Doha! After a hot shower, it's off to bed, and I'll be at work early in the morning. Cheerio!
Click here to see the pictures.
Many Libertarians think that abortion should be legal because a government doesn't have any business "imposing morality" on its citizens. Neal Boortz caught flak for being a "Christian basher" when he espoused this view on his radio show some time ago. To Mr. Boortz, and others who share his opinion on abortion: I don't think you're Christian-bashing; I think you've forgotten what our founding documents say!
To wit: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men..." (the Declaration of Independence)
The fundamental function of the United States government, as defined in our founding documents, is to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without life, there is no way to exercise liberty or pursue happiness, so at a bare minimum the government must protect life. The concept that life is worth protecting is, at its core, a moral value based upon the sacred origins of human life; thus, any law created in that endeavor will impose a moral standard. The idea that it is "wrong" to murder, steal, rape, and lie, is a moral standard. Our laws against murder, theft, sexual assault, and perjury impose morality. In fact, I challenge the reader to find any law that does not impose some sort of morality. So, if you're going to lambast any religion that seeks to impose morality through legal channels, perhaps you should start by lambasting the good old "separation of church and state" U. S. of A.
The question is not, "Does the law impose morality?" Because all law imposes morality, the question must be, "What sort of morality does the law impose?" According to our founding documents, the morality that our law should--in fact, must--impose, is that life is sacred and should be protected. Abortion is an abridgment of the fundamental individual right to life, and as such it should be illegal in this country. To be frank, it already *is* illegal, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, unless you believe that the whim of the judiciary supersedes the foundational precepts of the Declaration of Independence.
Many people fall back on the "viability" argument, saying that life is only worth protecting once it is "able to survive outside the mother's womb." This argument is absurd. When is someone truly "viable"? An infant is arguably not "viable" because he cannot survive without constant care. A two-year-old child is arguably not "viable." Try putting a two-year-old kid out on the street, and see how long they stay alive. For that matter, try the same thing with most teenagers, or even a middle-aged couch potato. What about the disabled, the elderly, the terminally ill who require round-the-clock dedicated care to keep them alive? "Viability" is an arbitrary concept. It is not a valid determining factor for whether or not life should be protected. The only valid determining factor is whether or not the individual is human, period. Ask any honest medical professional, and they'll tell you that a human zygote is human. It's not a cow, or a horse, or a dog. It's human, and according to the foundational precepts of our nation, it should be (and in fact already is) protected by law.
The abortion issue is a perfect example of what happens when a Constitutional Republic begins to degrade into a pure Democracy. Those who practice abortion are, according to our founding documents, committing a crime. We are simply allowing them to get away with it, using an out-of-control judiciary as an excuse for the government's abdication of its primary duty to protect life. We are murdering those who cannot protect themselves, and that is a travesty for which we will all be held accountable.