Over the last few days I have said goodbye many, many times. Sometimes several times to the same people. Rarely with tear-welled eyes, but sometimes. I came here for 5 months of “contract work” (that doesn’t mean assassinations) and wound up staying for 22. The work was rewarding, but websites are fleeting, and it’s really only the friendships that I care about. I have met lifelong friends here, who have changed my life in ways they’ll never fully understand. American stereotypes aside, I had no idea what I didn’t know, and now I know, and I have much more to learn. I never thought I could be changed so profoundly, but I have, and I have only these open-minded, generous, warm people from every corner of the globe to thank.

If Dubai has one virtue it is that it brings people together, albeit sometimes on an uneven playing field, for better and worse. I now count among my CLOSEST friends, British, Irish, Indians, Arabs, Polish, Spanish, Dutch, Philipinos, and jerks. I’ve shared meals and bedrooms and blood and puke and tears with these people, and they have opened me up to the world. I thank them so much for that and I will miss them all, until I see them again. Soon.

As for Dubai, I can’t say I’ll miss it very much. I owe it a lot, but the broken little things are too much for me to tolerate: restricted internet access, terrible mobile phone service, horrible taxi system, horrendous traffic, political hypocrisy, and the worst parking system ever… But, it is in a great part of the world for travel, so I guess I can say that the best part of Dubai itself has been leaving it from time to time. In the last 22 months I’ve been to 12 countries (I might even be forgetting something), including UAE (all over, of course), Jordan (Amman and Petra), Egypt (Cairo), Oman (Muscat, Mussandam), Sri Lanka (Hikkadua, Unawatuna, Gaul), Spain (Barcelona, Bilbao), Lebanon (Beirut), India (Kerala), England (London), Netherlands (Amsterdam), Hungary (Budapest), and Mexico (Zihuatanejo). My proudest accomplishment is my literally full passport.

So I guess this post is just a thank you, rather than a goodbye, to my friends, enemies, colleagues, travel buddies, and co-conspirators. Thank you so much for changing me, opening me, befriending me, kissing me, tolerating me, caring about me, and missing me. I know I’ll see you soon, somewhere…

Just probably not in Dubai…

Afterwards, I re-dressed the wound. It was a little scary but not as painful as I expected. I carefully unwound and removed the miles of gauze the hospital had applied. The exposed cut and stitches did not disappoint. Of course, I photographed the whole experience. Here is one of the better shots of my new Frankenstein toe. I love it.

I swabbed iodine on it, then applied some antibiotic ointment to the bandages. I re-wrapped the whole mess and now I can actually wear a regular flipflip, though getting it on and off is a little tricky.

Now I’m off to pick up my car at the office and then on to a special Iftar dinner. I’ll be posting photos of the rest of the healing as the week goes on. Stitches come out in a week.

I bled over most of Mike’s backyard from my new toe flap. It wasn’t a clean cut, but rather a diagonal filet, a very deep, and very bloody new hatch across the whole of my big toe. We did our best to wrap it up. Crissy being annoyingly helpful, Mike forgetting if they own tape or not. I wanted to duct tape it and call it a night, but Crissy insisted we had to go to the hospital.

So, we spent the rest of the night in the cleanest, best emergency room I’ve ever seen.

At 8:30am we emerged, $600 poorer, tetnis-shot in the ass, with 5 stitches inside and 10 stitches outside my flap, a massive gauze toe, and no shoe. So dumb.

So, thanks to Crissy for sticking with me. Sorry to Mike and Kerry for leaving more permanent stains on your stuff. Now it’s time for me to buy some open-toed shoes. At least they won’t be hard to find in this neck of the woods.

Tonight after work I made an attempt to replenish my empty cupboards and acquire the ingredients for a simple DiClerico classic recipe. I’ll go into the recipe and results in another post. Needless to say, it was one of the most infuriating, exhausting, and excruciating experiences of my life.

I’ll be honest, more than half the time in the store was spent trying to open those fucking membrane-thin plastic bags for fruits and vegetables. Seriously, opening one of those motherfucking bags takes the patience of Job and the hand of surgeon. Why can’t they have normal fucking bags, or a bucket, or anything else but clingwrap folded over on itself. “Open Here ->” my ass.

I used each of the following expressions at least once (but a few several times) over the course of an hour and 15 minute excursion.

“Do you have to stop there? Really?”
“Do you even KNOW what celery is? No, not ‘ceruly’.”
“Everyone in a purple shirt get the fuck out of my way!”
“Do you know how to work this plastic bag?”
“Tuna isn’t that color sir.”
“Please stop touching me.”
“It doesn’t need a signature. I wrote ‘Check ID’ so you would look at my identification.”
“If you don’t take this credit card I am going to leave this basket here and let the food rot. Go ahead, get the fucking manager.”
“Happy Ramadan jackhole.”

So, yeah, a great evening.

Regarding the credit card: I don’t sign my credit cards. Haven’t for years. I write CHECK ID in sharpie marker on the back so that vendors see it and ask for ID. They rarely even notice, but when they do, they ask for ID, make sure it’s me, and are done with it. Tonight the jackass at the register insisted the card isn’t valid unless signed. Technically that may be correct, but it is completely asinine to enforce. I asked if I could sign it right there in front of him and he said yes. WTF? How does that make any sense. I made them get 2 different managers and explained clearly and succinctly what I had done and why. I showed 3 forms of ID and another credit card with my name on it. No good. So fucking dumb. In the end I took and pen and made a squiggle on the card. The smartass manager says, “Well now the signature on the paper has to match that.” I said “Fuck you retard,” as I made an identical and meaningless squiggle on the paper. She actually said to me, “We HAVE to follow the procedure.”

Yeah, I know, exactly like all the other mindless drones going nowhere in Dubai. Welcome the hoard you fucking useless robot.

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like the lower-torso area of a pregnant porn star? (Squint your eyes a little.)

Best. Logo. Ever.

A one-legged father-of-78 is preparing for his next two marriages as he closes in on his target of having 100 children by 2015. UAE national Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman, 60, has already had 15 brides, though he divorces wives to make way for new ones in order to stay within the legal limit of four. His youngest child, Tariq, is 20 days old and his oldest, Ayoob, is 36. And he has more babies on the way from two of his three current wives.”

Have a look.

This guy has got 78 kids, 49 grandkids, 15 wives (4 current, 2 dead), 15 houses, and one leg. There is no punchline. I bet each member of his family feels very special.

[thanks marta.]

As you might imagine, being the parking for the lowest level of people in the company, they are not too bright, and their organizational and parking skills are abysmal. So every morning, the parking lot is in a completely different configuration, made up on the fly by the first dimwits to arrive. More space is wasted than used, cars are blocked in, and frequently it takes 20 minutes of driving around to find a spot, only to have to walk about a half mile to the building, in the dust/sand, making your shoes filthy, in 105 degree heat, and smelling like a combination of rotten tuna and a giant shit. Honestly, it is like Mad Max.

Bottom line, a nightmare.

For the last few months my fury has been boiling over in into car kicking, rearview mirror destroying, and a driving-style witnesses might describe as “homicidal.” It hasn’t helped.

I have been more recently threatening to print out notices to put under the windshield wipers of cars that have parked particularly badly – either taking up two spaces, blocking an aisle, or boxing someone in, basically telling them that they fucking suck.

But, it turns out that somebody beat me to it. The guys over at youparklikeanasshole.com have really outdone even my best ideas for how to deal with this problem. I won’t ruin the surprise.

Open this PDF, print about 10 copies, cut them in half, and keep them in your glove compartments in case you ever encounter anything like my parking lot from hell.

I’ve started dropping them already. I can’t even tell you how satisfying it is.

Enjoy.

So as you know Skype and Flickr, two very important sites to my internet well-being, have been blocked for months and months. Add to that a host of other random sites that would just make me rather happier, plus 90% of the bittorrent trackers out there. Now, for some unknown reason, many, many, many other random sites are slowly no longer able to connect. You don’t get the standard BLOCKED webpage, but somehow I think this is Etisalat’s cute way of blocking without blocking.

So, as of today, I can only sporadically access GMail, no access to YouTube at all, no access to about 50% of the blogs I normally read, most of which are service hosted such as “blogs.” or “.typepad.”. No Engadget. Facebook is dodgy at best. I can’t access blog.del.icio.us in order to get that sweet new del.icio.us Facebook app called Facehugger. No Egotastic and no swissmiss. Luckily I’ve still got BoingBoing and Kottke.

Add that to 3 English TV stations, construction outside my window all night, cement trucks every morning, no cellphone signal anywhere in my apartment except with my head literally leaning against the window, a washer/dryer that electrocutes me every time I touch a towel, an ant infestation, and the most ridiculous traffic this side of Dubai Creek, and you’ve got a simple recipe for coming home early.

No need to be alarmed Clare. Just ranting.

But how I long for unrestricted internet access, TV stations, magazines, salami, and basil. Funny how you miss simple things.

That’s right, “Nut Walker” brand honey peanuts. Sweet. Here’s a little photoshop action to make them even better.

I’m eating them right now, by the way.

At the airshow…

Sunset over Dubai Marina…

Ibuprofen…

Seriously, this Brufen Retard is not Photoshop and not a joke. This is a real product. Worked great by the way.

Before:

After:

I don’t know if this is interesting at all. I am not going to post anymore photos like these for a while.

Deira Dhow

More Deira Dhow

Last show of the Dhow…

Car unloads at an Omani port

OK, enough of these for a while. I want shoot some new ones with cars and traffic. Before that I think I will start messing around with HDR.

What do you think?

Dubai Creek (this one might be on flickr but I can’t check…)

Another of Dubai Creek (this one might also be on flickr…)

Burj Al Arab

Jumeirah Beach Hotel

Burj Dubai Construction (Will eventually be the world’s tallest building. Currently over 90 stories…)

I have millions more, but no way to post them easily. (But I am working on the new site with fury, so hopefully soon…)