Marriage stories – Chapter 1:

Ok I know this post sounds like a typical girl's post, but honestly I find it interesting how each one of my friends has his own marriage story. I will try to write a story or 2 in each post (hopefully). Don’t hate me if I write this one then stop =P

Friend one: A. T. Al-H:

A.T. loved a girl who was with him in collage so much that he proposed when he was in his 3rd year! Off course the girl's family asked him to wait till the girl graduates then propose again.

A year later, the girl's father passed away (Allah yra7moh). In his well, he mentioned that he wants his daughter to marry her cousin. The girl felt torn between her family and the man she loves. She couldn’t go against her family and chose her cousin. A.T. was devastated but respected the girl’s choice.

During the last 2 years in collage, A.T. came across many girls inside and outside collage, but none of them was even close to his lost love. Till one day, he participated in this exhibition arranged by the university. He was struck by this girl he worked with. Beautiful, sweet but have a strong personality and ambitious. Knowing that she and his cousin study in the same department, he started his investigation. She turns out to be the girl of his dreams. He liked everything about her, and she was a far relative. He told his parents and they promised him to think about it and proceed with it later on.

I met A.T. on his graduation day. His father was there to attend and we had this small conversation:

- Me: Assalamu Alaikum Abu Salim. Kaif el 7al? esh el a5bar? 6aybeen? Etc.
(Hi Abu Salim. How are you? Hope you are great, etc)

- The father: al7amdulilah, ma nishki baas, ma shay 3loom min 9obkum?
(replying to my questions and asking me the same)

- Me: el laila lailet A.T. mashallah 5ireej. 3uqbal el zoga el 9al7a.
(tonight is A.T’s night. He is a graduate. Next thing he gets a good wife).

- The father: inshallah. A. hadiyyat ta5arrujak fil bait. La tit2a5ar
(If Allah wishes.*Turns to his son* A, your graduation gift is at home. Don’t be late)

- A.T: Inshallah Aboy (Ok Father).


2 days later, A.T. Called me and told me that his wedding gift was that his family were all prepared to go to his fiancé-to-be family’s house to ask for her hand the day after he graduated =D

He is now happily married and have a 1 year-old son ;)

Next are the marriage stories of:
- A.S. Al-W: the young shock!
- N.S. Al-A: Depression followed by a relief.
- K.S. Al-H: typical.
- T.S. Al-A: persistence.


End of Blog entry.

Bureaucracy

I have been hearing this word a lot but I never found myself dealing with it till recently.

Ever since we took over this new project, 80% of the time we spend is in dealing with bureaucracy issues because they are the main reason the project is WAY behind schedule. it exists to make whatever possible impossible.

no matter how much I explain, you guys won't understand how bureaucracy is involved in every single aspect we deal with. I once read this quote about bureaucracy which was funny but somehow true (Sharr Al Baliyyah ma yu'97ik)
“I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D".














you think that's funny, here is a story that happened at work yesterday. We occupied a new office space and we are sharing it with 2 other companies. I was really tired and stressed and needed some tea to straighten up my mind. I call the tea boy to ask him to make me tea and this is his reply: "Sorry sir, I can't make you tea without my boss's permission, I need you to submit a letter requesting my service and it needs the signature from the project manager and must be signed by the developer"

Blank...

.
.
.
.
.
.


Still in shock...

.
.
.
.
.
.

having a "WTF" moment.

.
.
.
.
.
.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!!!!!!

I used to get tea everyday when I used to be a visitor. now that I'm an employee, I can't?! Anyway my colleague handled it the old cowboy way: "no need for any letter, you bring us tea and whatever we require and if your boss has a problem let him deal with me"

The reason why this project came back to life after a messy state is because our CEO is the biggest enemy of bureaucracy. he follows a simple way of dealing with it:" I would rather apologize later than ask for permission."

I'm sure many of you deal with bureaucracy everyday in work and school. you know that when "paper work increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing." <<< Gotta love that quote.



End Of Blog Entry...

R.E.O shuts down operations

I’m back! (but maybe not for a long while)

I have been super busy lately. I feel I have no life anymore xD

For months I and my colleagues got the vibe that the company is not doing well. After getting this big project 4 months ago we forgot how bad the situation is and got caught up in work.

September 16, 2009: early Eid gift: The Mexican resigns after giving up on the directors in Dubai. They have been so unsupportive, so negative, so stingy, and worst thing: they keep lying over and over again.

September 26, 2009: The board of directors gets into a very long meeting discussing the resignation of the Mexican and the situation of the company. 3 possible solutions were proposed:

Appointing the COO to be the new CEO.

Appointing a new CEO from Dubai.

Closing down the company.

(Last option is the most likely option they will pick)

October 3, 2009: The directors send an auditor to check all company’s accounts and files. (can it get any more obvious??)

October 4, 2009: CFO flies down from Dubai to give us the hit: R.E.O decides to shut down all its operation due to negative liquidity and insufficient funds. This means that all employees are to be terminated from their jobs!

The news of the company shutting down operations wasn’t as shocking as the fact that the board decided to give us a pity amount as compensation. To be thrown in the streets jobless with so little money isn’t pleasant at all …

Thank god I saved enough money to survive and I have my family to back me up, but what about the others?? Some of my colleagues support 3 families, have couple of loans, and are struggling after the salaries cut. Is it humane to throw them in the street with only a month notice?

October 10, 2009: Chairman Sh. A.M. is back in Oman after a long business trip, TOTALLY unsatisfied with the compensation the directors gave to the employees. He got them to pay us 3 times what they previously promised us. I (and I’m sure all the employees) can’t thank him enough for his support =)

October 10, 2009 – present: Serving my notice period of 1 month, finalizing everything.

I think I can start a whole blog about this closure, probably make a movie out of it, but just wanted to share this part with whoever reads this blog.

I have already received 2 job offers that I need to study and will hopefully start by beginning of November.

End of blog entry…

and I was called "David"

another post related to my recent work change.

There was this somehow-old couple who were inspecting their new house before moving in. They have spent nearly 19 years Oman and the guy could even speak Omani (yup, not just arabic, but the Omani accent of it).

They were very pleased with the amount of work done in the last month, and being the only guy with construction group wearing a Dishdasha , the two were very friendly and the guy spoke with me in Arabic.

I was wondering around with my camera taking several photos here and there, and they asked me politely to take couple of photos of the house and the view in general.

a month later, the wife came with a friend to inspect another house, and the 1st thing she said when she arrived was: "Oh I can see you still have your camera with you"
"Always", I replied being Formal and friendly at the same time.

During the 1st couple of minutes of inspection, she referred to me as "Camera guy".
"What do you think, camera guy?"
"beautiful view isnt it, camera guy?"

she never asked for my name, and for some reason, I never gave my name either.

I think after a while, she felt like she doesnt want to call me "camera guy" anymore, but she never asked for my name. She decided to call me "David", like the famous photographer. ;)

in the rest hour or so of the inspection, she would refer to me as "David". She asked me if I mind that and I told her I don't.

The inspection was done, and we got an "Ok, Thank you Carl, Thank you Marry, and thank you David for your time, hope to see you all soon".

"Who's David??" asked Carl, the troubleshooter with a REALLY BIG question mark over his cowboy hat that he wears 24/7. (which was soooo typical of him, he gets so busy with his work he looses touch with the surroundings. That's why he never noticed that the lady was calling me David this past hour.)

"Oh I called him David, like the famous photographer"

now every now and then Carl would call me "David", along with "Buddy", "difficult", "MTV omani" and couple of other names he has for me :P

The funny thing is, I had couple of conversations, emails, SMS's with the lady's husband regarding financing/payments issues, but I don't think he and her know that I am "David" xD

So that's how I was called David.


End of Blog Entry ...

People are so different

Throughout my job, and being around one of my friends, I got to meet many homeowners from different backgrounds, different personalities, different perspectives, etc.

It’s really interesting in so many ways. I met people who had lousy jobs but inherited lots of money. Some started from scratch and now have become millionaires and some started normally, found a connection, and then built their empire based on that connection.

People are also different in how they treat each other. We met some people who seem to be born with stand-up comedians' character, and some that are just too cold you would yawn in the middle of the day just talking to them.


I'm not being biased here, but honestly, amongst the many homeowners that i have met, the Arabs were the best (generally). I'm not saying all the non-Arabs were bad and the Arabs were great, but that's in general. Most of them were very understanding, talk politely and they were open and easy going.


I will post some good and bad examples.

Special features in the house
- Good: one guy was really upset that he ordered some extra stuff for his house but they weren’t there. He just asked the construction manager politely to check if those stuff can be added or not. A second after that he was throwing jokes about his assistant having an iPhone which is "a joke" to him.
- Bad: one guy found out that he does not have a big back-yard (even though its size is standard in that complex) and kept bitching about it for the whole hour of inspection! :S

Material used in toilets:
- Good: one guy was complaining that the material used in toilets were bad in quality, but when he was told that the same material used in all the houses, he accepted it.
- Bad: one guy replied saying: "well I don't care if all the other owners were dumb enough to accept these materials, I'm not paying till you change them all"

Treating the workers:
- Good: one guy shock hands with all the construction workers and at the end apologized to them if he have taken some of their time during the inspection.
- Bad: one guy told one of the workers: hey, stop what you are doing and leave the house, and he asked the construction manager to take all the workers to wait outside (in the sun) during his inspection (which lasted a little bit over an hour).

I can go on and on but these are just few examples of how people can be so different.

It makes me wonder, those owners must be dealing with many companies and have several properties, so how do they view us (or view me). Sometimes it's easy when you get a pat in the shoulder and a "great job" said to you, or maybe get an email that says that. However, most of the time, people don't show that.

I think giving a little bit of time and thought while doing your work (which is not a very hard thing to do), gives you some comfort that at least other people appreciate you and know that your better than most of the other people they have dealt with.


Let us all make that small extra effort to be better than "most" people ;)

(or you can follow what this poster says) xD

A man I admired

I was with one of my friends who is working in a big residential project.

It was a day where one of the units owner is coming to check his house for final touches before the handover.
Neither I nor my friend have seen the owner. We just knew he is a wealthy businessman from Jordan. I expected to see a guy with an Armani suit, long hair styled with lots of gel.


When the guy came, we were all shocked. We saw a guy with a slightly-over-average beard wearing a normal short jalabiya (Arabic dress men wear in Jordan) and a simple red cap. We greeted each other and exchanged names. He was walking around the house and admiring the finishes, the material used and the design. All the workers there were appraised for their work. He was always smiling and had a simple, very polite way of talking to everyone. Even when there were some obvious flaws, he asked the supervisor to correct them without showing any sign of ingratitude or un-satisfaction.


Just when I thought I can’t admire him more, I was proven wrong. He was discussing the rental agreement (that his house will be rented by a hotel for 11 months, and he’ll be using it for 1 month). The agreement states that when the hotel rents the room for him, he gets 60% of the profit and the hotel gets 40%. He then asked an interesting question: “will these 60% applies only to the room charges? Or will I also get profit from the food and beverages (F&B) the guests order? “

Now I thought that he asked because if the profit includes the F&B, he’ll make more profit. It turns out; he doesn’t want to get profit from the F&B because he doesn’t want to make profit if the guests orders alcohol or pork. Then I admired him even more for having such way of thinking =)



God bless him, his family and may we have more people like him.


End of Blog entry.

Why Dubai??

wow been a long time since I last posted.

and while checking other people's blogs, i though of posting something.

but what???

hmmmmmm

Cars! (i soooo saw that coming)

no I'm actually going to talk in general about why people go to Dubai for shopping.

there are many reasons, but for me, they can be included in these points:
- Prices of goods (unfortunately that's not always the case these days)
- availability of goods (big time)
- variety of options.
- DESCENT malls and shops.

sometimes I wounder why we dont have some of the goods that are sold in Dubai, even though the demand for them is high here.

Both City Centers here (Muscat & Qurm) get soooo crowded during the weekend, couple of extra malls will surely make profit if they open.

I Cant wait for the new malls to open, specially Muscat Grand Mall (because it's goin to be big and close to home)



===================================

ok since i'm talking about Dubai, i'm going to represent a counter argument by giving an example of a trip to dubai, a FAILURE trip if i may say.

I went with my brothers to Dubai for 2 reasons:
- get myself new tires
- Get my bro's Audi TT from the garage it's getting fixed at.

I checked around 7 tires shops, they were either closed or didnt have the tires i wanted -__-
In the end, i found the tires at the dealer, but for a price that needs at least 2 months' salaries =)

my bro went to get his car and went into a huge storm of switching from place to place, everyone blaming the other and nobody knows what's its problem.
I call it: "The curious case of Ayz's TT" -__-

and throughout this Dubai trip, my shirt was stolen at Wild Wadi (who the hell steals a sweaty shirt??) and I lost my new Ray Ban shades that i got from my father =(

BAD trip indeed.


End of blog entry ...

My 1st lecture!

I gave my 1st lecture :D

Date: May 6th, 10 am
students: CEO, COO, Marketing manager.
Subject: Simple interest, compound interest, and their calculations.

the lecture lasted for around 45 mins, and included:
- introduction to interest: definition and history.
- simple interest: definition and calculations.
- compound interest: definition and calculations.

I was nervous at the beginning, you know when you feel like: "SHITT! I cant remember all the slides! the presentation is not set well! is my zipper open??!! (oh wait im wearing a dishdasha)


but as soon as i started talking, everything was going as planned ;)

the above post is not that interesting, what was important to me is the feedback i got from the students :P

since it's I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E for the CEO to compliment me in my face, he just said: well done Amarant, good lecture"

BUT (and it's A BIG HUGE BUT, kinda like the kung fu panda butt)



Oops, BACK TO TOPIC:


our marketing manager came to me after the lecture and told me what the CEO told her after the lecture, and here it is:

" I was surprised, the lecture was really good and Amarant went way above my expectations. He is smart (mashallah) and he knows what he's doing, I cant wait for his next lecture"


it was a nice start of the coming weekend =D


end of blog entry.

I Really don’t understand Mexicans.

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009: Officially the worst day I ever had at work (yet).

A day before, the CEO asked me for some numbers to be submitted, and I did my analysis, calculations, got him the numbers, and I also gave him the formula on how to get the numbers next time.
This was his reply: Great job Amarant! More than what I expected, and the numbers now explain the analysis ;)

His words lifted me up a little.


The next day (May 5th):
CEO calls me to his office, and gave me the longest, rudest lecture I have ever got during my working life!

It seems he was upset for some reason, because whatever he was saying, was not making sense at all (he does that when he’s upset).

- He mentioned the days that I didn’t stay late in the office (which are few), and forgot how many weekends/extra hours I have spent in the office.

- He used one example of me not doing my work, and forgot, that SINGLE analysis was not done because they forgot to bring me the data I had to work on (even though I told him it was not my mistake, laken la 7ayat lee man tunadi) he was not listening.

- He read an email I sent him 4 times asking me to find my mistake, and in that 3 pages email, my ONLY mistake is that I wrote “we should” instead of “should we”! WTH?? (Even though I got positive responses from the directors in Dubai).


I can’t really write all what he said, but here are 2 quotes from his lecture:

“If any employee gets laid off from this company, I want YOU to feel guilty, because you should!”

“Please, never again tell me that you were sick, because here’s something you should know, I DON’T CARE! I want work done whenever I want to!”


I don’t know if he did what he did to motivate me, but it was wrong, rude, inappropriate, and defiantly had the opposite effect. I couldn’t work for the next couple of hours as I was completely in a shock, felt so demotivated and not in a mood to work at all. The rest of my day was crappy because I was still affected by what happened and couldn’t take my mind off it.

Anyway, don’t want to bore you all with the details of that horrible day, but Alhamdulilah things were better later on.


End of Blog Entry.

THE new office

Finally!

we've been hearing about this office for god knows how long.

Here are the Advantages and disadvantages of the new office:

ADVANTAGES:
- I GOT MY OWN OFFICE! with a nice desk, cupboard, and my OWN A/C.
- Better Location.
- Better view.
- It has the office feel (not working in a villa anymore)
- Moooooore cars parking.
- 1 floor less than the old office =P

DISADVANTAGES:
- Less Rooms and less toilets (aham shay el toilets).
- The parking is not shaded.
- Smaller kitchen (no more birthday parties).
- It has the office feel (yes this is an advantage and a disadvantage).
- Still no wireless internet connection.
- No "afternoon-nap" room.


I will start bringing my camera to take pictures of cars crossing the red light xD

Is it the Evil eye??

Yes i do believe in 7asad (the Envy/Evil eye) but i'm not the kind that would relate anything bad happening to me to the envy eye. (Some people do)



here is what happened to me in the past 2 weeks: I got pretty good comments on my baby Roxy couple of times in those 2 weeks.


but what happened right after these comments? here it goes:
1. I hit another car's rim slightly, which resulted in a small dent in my front bumper =(

2. For some reason, my car started hitting every road bump i go over (and I'm sure it's not the lowering springs since my car was going through those bumps smoothly a month ago. Something is wrong under the car)

3. I hit a small side walk and my rear left rim got a scratch.

4. friday morning, the construction workers on our house roof spilled some LIQUID CEMENT on my Roxy!!!!!! WTH??!!!! :@ :@


I cant believe all of that happened in such a short period, I'm sooo pissed off right now, will take Roxy to get poilished tomorrow, then dropping her at the service center to check what's wrong under.

Is it the Envy eye? maybe yes, maybe no, but i hate all of this ...


End of Blog Entry.

Product Review: Sony Ericsson G900

I got this phone when i started working, for business purposes.





I needed something a little bit more sophisticated than normal phones and a little bit less complicated than an I-mate or a Nokia communicator.





I got it when it was first launched for 215 Rials ($560) and it was a really good price as other places asked for at least 10-15 rials more. (and i got a free 1 GB Card for free)





I got the phone, and really really liked it, it was better than what I expected.



easy to use, very elegant, all applications are a touch away.





here are the pros/cons:



PROS:
- MANY shortcuts.


- Comes with a nice hands-free set. (i love the fact that if you press "answer" in the phone, you use the phone speaker, and if you press answer in the headset, you use the headset)


- easy to use.


- Track ID is so awesome!


- sleek design and light-weight.


- Loving the idea that you can choose between using the buttons and the touchscreen for almost everything.






CONS:
- Not for people who dont like touchscreen phones xD


- the MMS takes a long time and sometimes get stuck.


- Arabic handwriting-recognition is AWEFUL, and something is wrong with the arabic language, i cant type arabic words unless i use the hand recognition.


- BAD resale value. (SE + touchscreen = bad). -__-



the phone had a strange problem, where it would suddenly stop recieving messages and phone calls (and the problem is, sometimes you get the message, but it doesnt give you ANY sign or notification that you got a new message)


and because it's the phone i use for work, i couldnt tolerate this problem and had to sell it eventually =(

End of blog entry...

Devilish Me

I found out a side of me i never knew it existed.


Yesterday at work something really bad happened and pissed me off BIG TIME.

I was not angry at anybody, I was just angry at the whole situation.

I left work, went home really pissed, and i was so close to get into 2 accidents on the way...

I did stuff I never knew i would ever do (that includes yelling at people who has nothing to do with work,hit a tree so hard and so many time i let my hands bleed, and walking for around 5 km with no idea where i'm heading).

a simple way of explaining it is: I became someone else that i dont know, and couldnt control ...

the "Devilish me" if I may say...

i got a call from one of the guys at work explaining stuff to me and promising me that things will get fixed tomorrow.

now this is the normal me talking, Devilish me doesnt even know how to blog =p


-----

the Lyrics of this AMAZING song by 3 days grace: "Animal i have become" are PERFECT to talk about me yesterday ;)

I can't escape this hell
So many times i've tried
But i'm still caged inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself

So what if you can see the dark inside of me
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal


I can't escape myself
So many times i've lied
But there's still rage inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself


Somebody wake me from this nightmare
I can't escape this hell...


End of Blog Entry...

we got Tiesto-ed !

i've been trying to attend a concert by a great DJ for a long time, but there's always something that stops me: work, short-notice, or special family occassions...

this time i did it!

i tagged along with Mike and his friends to attend Tiesto's Concert in Dubai, March 13th, 2009 =D

- left in the morning, arrived at around 1 PM, we went for a cruise till the hotel check in finishes.

- we had our nap (we needed it to attend a 6 hrs concert =P)

- lunch at Emarates mall, and then we went straight to Festival city, where the concert it.

- we arrived early, and got there beform the warm up starts (by DJ fredlux).

- I cant remember when was the last time i enjoyed my time THAT much!!! the music was amazing, the beats were great, and Tiesto didnt even start!

- at 12 am, Tiesto entered the stage!! wohooooo people couldnt stop screaming his name and dancing at the same time xD

- The opening song was by Rank 1, which we all LOVED (mike downloaded it later).

- my favorite during the concert were: Dance 4 life, Traffic, Elements of life, he's a pirate, and off course Just Be (where all the crowd started singing with it) =D

- one-hell of an experience!!!

- Concert ended at 3.30, we had dinner at BK, went to the hotel, and slept at 4.30 am.

- i woke up at 7, got ready, picked my family and went straight to muscat, Work -__-











































End of blog entry...

Weekend in Sohar

Thanks Ayz For arranging the Trip =D

having an extra day off 2 weeks ago, My Brother booked us 3 rooms in Crowne Plaza hotel, Sohar.

I like these trips we have with our cousins when there are only guys, and we make our own schedual and activities plan ;)

The hotel is really nice, it's new and have many facilities.

most of the time we were in the swimming pool and at the ping pong tables :P

bowling, softball and Sona were also nice to experience ;)

the only problem was that the hotel is isolated from the city, we have to drive around 40 km just to be in the center of Sohar.


it was an unforgetable, enjoyable weekend ;)

here are some pics taken there:















































End of blog entry . . .

My Silver Jubilee

This post is kind of late :P

I completed 25 years of my life last tuesday (wow i feel old), and it was a really nice experience.

here how it went:

- 2 days before my actual birthday, i started getting birthday wishes from some of my friends(thank you facebook -__-).

- on the night before my birthday, ppl were giving me wishes throughout facebook, MSN, and a thread was opened on ES (thanks MissKindy!) :D

- some of my friends called me at EXACTLY at 12 am (that's so sweet, they didnt sleep till they wished me a happy birthday) =D

- got few texts from my friends/cousins.

- I had a nice lunch with one of my friends (which wasnt about my birthday but he just got lucky xD)

- after lunch, i went back to work, and found out that the employees organized a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!! :O
that was shocking, everyone was there, even the CEO.
and the cake was SO YUMMY (Thanks Maryam).

- I left work, went home, and there i had another birthday cake made by my friend.
I shared the cake with my brothers and cousins, and it was REALLY REALLY great (Thanks kaza) =D

- i had dinner with my brothers and cousins in b+f in Bareeq Al Shatti.
and my bro told them it was my birthday, so the staff brought some chocolate pudding with vanilla ice cream, and sang "happy birthday" for me, GOD it was embaressing as everyone was looking at me -__-.

- i had a nice BOSS wallet and key chain from my Friend =D

and that's it, went to sleep early as i was going to Sohar the next day.


- my parents wished me a happy birthday 4 days later -__-


here are some "cropped" pics from the party at work :P



















end of blog entry...

Eat, Sleep and Jeep

lol i see that quote written on many Jeeps.

So here it goes:

My 2 cousins bought 2 wrangles last week, and everyone is so excited about that cuz now we have off-road cars on call whenever we need them :P

so last Thursday their Jeeps were put to the test for the 1st time.

and the result was amaaazing, it's really nice to see how easy those 2 Jeeps climb up the sand dunes, like it's a walk in the park.

sweeeeeet!

the Sahara Edition also has nice features inside, navigation/DVD screen, USB reader, AUX port, and a 20GB hard disk to put songs in.

and the soft top is a nice feature as well ;)

Mabroooooookeeeen Cousins, allah ya36eekum el 5air oo yekfeekum el sharr =D

here are some pics i took:









































































































End of Blog Entry...

1 Down, 3 to go!

My older brother had his wedding yesterday! =D

ohhhhh after a hectic month, finally the ceremony came, and it was nice! =D

i never felt how big this thing is, till I entered the hall with my bro, the feeling was priceless!! (and it wasnt even my wedding xD)

we walked and the guests gave us a path and started clapping (sometimes it's nice to be the center of attention)

and i couldnt stop smiling cuz in that place at that time, all the family was happy.
i cant remember when was the last time I saw my grani that happy =D

the photographer took like a thousand pics of us, then we had a small meal before heading home.

Congratulations Bro! el 3aroos lel 3arees oo el baqi lel mata3ees (aka us xD)

(oh and Congrats Mike for having your own room now :P)

(everyone was shouting at me: ur next Amarant!!) =$

1 out of the 4 of us got married, 3 more to go ;)


End of blog entry

My photos (part 1)

new series in my Blog =D

will post pictures i took every now and then, they can be pictures of anything xD

here is part 1, some pics I took at the car show happened few months ago:

Roxy Goes alllll Black & White

I know I know,

I know I said I'm going to have a small break from Modifying my Baby Roxy.

But I didn’t plan for this step, the circumstances (refer to this blog entry) gave me and my bro an idea of what we can do for Roxy next.


I'm going to follow a Black/White theme with Roxy.

So right now, Roxy has these colors on her: White, Black, Silver, Chrome and Red.

I decided to take the Silver and Chrome out (since I still want my taillights to look clean)

Here is what I wanted the Garage paint specialist to do for me:
- Fix & paint the front bumper (since it was damaged).
- Paint the Rims in Gloss black color.
- Paint the rear Spoiler in Gloss black.
- Paint the front kidney grill in Matt black.

It took the Garage around a week to finish up the job, and I LOVED it =D

Here are pics of Roxy AFTER the paint job:









































End of Blog Entry...

Product Review: Nokia N95

so i have this idea of starting a series of reviews of products that i have tested, or even better, owned...

i wont waste time talking about all the features this phone has, just the general, simple ones which i used:

- 5 mpix camera.

- stereo speakers.

- 1 GB card included (i switched to 2).

- Wi-Fi.

- DVD Quality video recording.

now here's what i think of the phone:

B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T !!!!

- it's so practical, long lasting, easy to use, and pro phone.

- i had to format it once, because it had software problems.

- it fell from me around 4 times.

- it ate dust when i had it in my pocket while riding an ATV bike.

- i used the camera so many times in so many places, and it is a nice camera.

I have owned many phones, but this was the 1st to complete a full year with me (actually 18 months so far).

End of blog entry...

BMW Nizwa Drive

ANOTHER car event!!!!

this event was to celebrate a whole year since oman bimmer club was launched.

we met next to Burj Al Sahwa.

left to Nizwa in 5 teams:
team 1: BMWs lead by Omran Al Muqbali
team 2: classic bikes
team 3: BMWs lead by Amarant Coral
team 4: Super bikes
Team 5: BMWs lead by (dont remember xD)







I really liked my team, consists of cars that i really like:
- My baby Roxy (alpine White)
- E82 135i (Crimson Red)
- E92 335i (Electric red)
- E46 M3 (pheonix yellow)
- 2 nicely modefied E39 540i (Dark Blue)
- 1 nicely modefied E36 325i (Dark Blue)

-------------------------------------------------------------











in this event, the number of cameras used exceeded the number of members xD

everyone was taking pictures, and the photography effort by our Captain and Mr.Salim Al Wardi were much more then any other event (including rolling shots, shots from the bridge, videos, etc)

we arrived at Nizwa, after stopping in Izki.

Nizwa members were so kind to invite us to have lunch in the Sabla in Wadi al Ain, Mandiiiiiiiiiii :P

after lunch, Uncle Saif had the honor to cut the cake,and we all ate .

we arranged ourselves, and head to Nizwa Suq, to take group pics there.

we left Nizwa at around 5 pm.


the drive was nice, and we couldnt stop chatting about everything! xD







Here are some pics from the Event (taken by Salim Al Wardi)

End of blog entry

Graduation and the rehersals

Our Graduation took place last November.


So 6 months after we graduated from SQU, it's time for the graduation ceremony!!!!

now im sure anyone who has been to SQU, realize that it's more of a military place, the an academic place xD

there were all these rules on how to look in the ceremony, the timing, the rehersals (you wont be allowed to enter the ceremony if you havent done the rehersals)

the rehersal was nice, very informal, and we got a nice dinner meal after it was done (lucky us CCE guys, we were the 1st collage so we were the 1st to attack the food) =p




---------------------------------



now time for the big deal, the ACTUAL GRADUATION.

i got there at around 3.30, took my pics.

was at the stage at around 4 (they told us we MUST be there at 4, or we would not enter)



**what disappointed me the most, is that i didnt give any of my relatives/friends tickets to come, since i didnt want them to stay for 4.5 hrs there, and later i found out that some visitors entered the place at around 6.15!!) that really pissed me off...**




other than that, it was an amazing day, meeting my friends, joking around, getting the certificate =D

time for me to stop being a consumption machine, and start producing ;)

wish everyone all the best with thier studies...




end of blog entry...

A Race to remember

Date: 2 weeks ago
Time: around 9 pm
Place: Share3 al shabab
Event: Stage II GTI VS. Stock EVO X
















VS.



















for the people following my blog, you all know that my bro went to Dubai to get the REVO software for his car: (mentioned here)

around 2 weeks ago, a guy with a new EVO X wanted to measure the difference in acceleration between his car and a stage II GTI, and he arranged the race with my bro.


Here are the specs of the 2 cars:

- EVO X: 2.0L Turbo, I4, 295 hp, All-Wheels drive.
- GTI stage II: 2.0L, Turbo, I4, ~285 hp, Front-wheels drive.



Race starting from 60 km/h

Honk, Honk, Honk

and GO !!!!!!!


the 2 cars were neck to neck at the beginning, but the GTI pulls away slowly,,,,,, by the end of the race, the GTI had the EVO by a small distance!


GTI FTW !!!!!! The Turbo Bunny Had some Rice and Sushi for dinner!

i never thought the GTI would win, but i'm glad i was proven wrong =D


this race will be remembered, when few modifications on a normal sport car has beaten a built-up race car, that costs double the price ;)



End of blog entry...