Activites in the bay today

It is the season for water activites on the bay. Today from what I can gather was some kind of rowing. They were youngish type kids so maybe a high school competition. There were lots of boats and even a helecopter over head and police in the water watching over the competitors. The Red Bull Air Races will be here soon and lots of different kinds of boat racing competitons will take place in the next couple of months. If you zoom in you can see a lot more. LuLu Island in the backround. It will be the place to go this summer for your beach time.

I have a complaint !!!!

I love all the flowers in Abu Dhabi right now. The petunias are blooming and are all big and full right now. They are everywhere lining the streets and have lots of rich colors of pink,purple, red, white , red stripe, purple stripe, light pink and more. So your asking what is my complaint...... the way they plant them. As you can see in the photos that they plant all the white ones then the next color and so on. It's like they change colors when they run out of one color then they go to the next. Why don't they mix the flowers and have a rich colorful bed of flowers? It would be so pretty.

This is Why I am Here.....

This building is a chilled water plant, for all of you that are non engineers. This plant is a 50,000 tons plant. That doesn't mean it weighs 50,000 tons or anything like that. This plant is enough to cool (AC) 13 million square feet of buildings. Ok now think of 3,000 square feet per house, so this would cool about 4,000 homes. This is off the island of Abu Dhabi. We had a field trip today to take pictures. Sam is going to get us some passes to go and take pictures of the inside of the structure. Doesn't that sound fun. That kind of sounds like our first date... we toured the mechanical room of Yellowtail Dam in Fort Smith, Montana.http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/mt00576.htm
I know more than you would think about chilled water. It is one of those subjects I dreamed of knowing everything about.







Look at the top of the building and you can see these big round like things. This is a cooling tower. You can see 4 of the 10 from this picture.

This pipe is going to be the underground water pipe that will hold water going out of the chilling towers. It is about 1.5 meters in diameter.













This is the secuity shack, a little more up town than the last one I showed you.

Most Important...

He is "Papa" to Aubrey and Isabelle. They love to talk to him on the computer and when they can't see him they ask where did he go? (His mobile usually rings) He makes funny sounds to them and they guess the sounds and laugh. He is a good man, he works hard, he's honest,he's humble, he's faithful to his family and his beliefs, he's the most paitent person I know, he's smart, he likes tractors, old semi trucks, draglines and catipillars. I have resigned today I'm going to be here in AD for a while so .....................

Mr. Sam the Man of the Hour

Let me introduce my husband Mr. Sam(I'm Mrs. Sam). Today was a big day for him at Stanley in AD. He was flying to Ammon Jordon this afternoon and during that time the office was notified that they were awarded a job in Qater. This wasn't just any job, it was a "humungus"job. He emailed me tonight and said, don't talk me up to much the contract isn't signed yet. I won't talk him up to much yet. But I'd like to tell you a little about him.


Mr. Sam thinks, thinks, and thinks. He is watching the finals of the Stanley BB game in this picture but he's really good at thinking of lots of things at once. I'm sure he has at least 5 other things on his mind right now plus he knows who made the last basket at the BB game.

Mr. Sam got this hat for Christmas and wore it almost 24-7. It was to cover his bald head. I made him take it off in bed(he wanted to wear it) and he took it off at church. He is still thinking .......
and more thinking.....






















He does talk, mostly on the phone, it should be inplanted to his head.

Construction on 3-2 street goes air born...

I watched these guys get rides to the site across the street. There was a different guy in the bucket each time. I'm sure they had all the safty gear on that was needed.
This one is going out over the Only Women and Children Park.

Abu Dhabi "Walmart"

I needed to go to Walmart today to find an angel food cake pan. This Walmart has just about anything you could imagine. All the lastest plastics and all the outdoor cooking gear that you would ever dream of.












My friends trying to decide on which camping table to get....
















I went to the plant souk (garden center) also next to Walmart and found a genie bottle. I couldn't pass it up. My friends here gave me the best price of the day... 5 dirhams and then another 5 dirhams to Abdula on the end to carry it to the car. He needed some lunch money I think. So the lamp cost me $2.80.

I said "Happy" to them and this is all they could do for the camera...they were murmering it under their breath, happy , happy....

Security At It's Best

This struck Terri and I funny today when we saw this "SECURITY ROOM" This secure room is next to a very large school that is being built here a block from the office. I hope everyone can find the security room when there is need for security. Someone has gone to great thought in the lettering of the words security. It has some curly lettering and a fancy chair in there for the guard, when he's on duty of course. I think maybe those that have been here or lived here might find this funny, but take my word for it its comical. Please zoom in on the lettering.

And we think we have it tough!!!

This is the pit, do you see the bread stuck to the sides of the pot? zoom in on it

It looks dark in the hole but if you zoom in you can see the bread. It was hot over the top of it. I could stand there but for a second.

This is a good shot of how it sticks and bubbles up. The bread was very good. I kept thinking oh man this would be so good with some honey butter on it. I only thought it though. But this place is on the Shari Stone Internatianal Tour stops.

Jack enjoying his bread with his friends , Mohamad and Mohamad.

Bread Making at the Stinky Stores

My friend Terri found a new bread store the other day. This Afganistan man sits cross legged all day long cooking this bread. He gets the dough out on this bread board and and then bends over and slaps the board against the clay pot oven and the bread sticks to the sides of the clay pot and it cooks there in about 45 seconds and then he sticks his two sticks in there and grabs them and brings them up and and puts them on the counter. The oven is proably 800 degrees. This mans name is Mohamad.

The other cross legged man flattens out the bread for him. The younger mans name is Mohamad

This is the bread dough man. He prepares the dough. His name is Mohamad.

This is were the bread rises, I asked him if he would teach me how to make the bread. He said, YES so I think I will go and do it sometime. 8 am start time.

Camel Tales

Lady, I'm not in the mood for any more pictures please!!!

This is the robot that they put on the camels when they do a real race. They used to put smaller boys and have them do the riding but I think maybe DCFS said no more. The robots are all remote controlled and they do have whips just like a real jocky would that would whip the camel if needed. It is operated by someone in a car that goes around the track on the inside in a car.

This guy needs an attitude adjustment, he's getting ready to throw a big one at me!

Happy Trails to you!!!!

The many faces of an" Arabian Camel Jockey"

There were so many faces to take a picture of today. It is interesting to see how many of them had such happy faces. I thought this guy was a little omonoius. Sam has got such a great camera doesn't he?

He is happy and thrilled I took his picture, smiling and telling me hi as he was riding by.

This guy was posing for me and looked like he could be filled with lots of wisdom. A little James Bond pose maybe.

Love is in the air with this jockey and his camel.

My morning with the camel jockeys...

This is the start of the fun day I had today at the camel race track. It was just a practice day for them. The regualar season is through November to March. But they practice all year just at different times of the day. When it gets hotter they will practice earlier in the morning. I got the biggest kick out of the camels and the jockeys. It fun to see the interaction of everyone there and how they worked the camels. It was amazing when you think of these jockeys, this is their income to support families at home in other countries of the world. They probably don't make more than a couple hundred dirhams a month. To them that means there families in their homeland will be fed and taken care of for another month. They are very friendly and very happy to show off for us when white women come out to take pictures. They love to interact with you and learn a few words in english and work their hardest to get your phone number. Most are just a bunch of kids.

KALLAS!!!!!!!!!

Building, building and more building of furnature. I asked them if they could put the furnature together with their eyes closed and one said, "No Madame that would be dangerous. Its 6pm

Last flat to put together, they are running out of steam.

Two that are done, tired and ready to go. I asked them to look really tired in the picture and they just couldn't figure out that request for the picture.

Its 7:45 and we are done. Friendly bunch. They did me a big favor when we left... Nasat wanted a ride to town and they looked at me and I had a look of you have got to be kidding and so they put him in their truck and took him back for me. I gave them a little extra in their big tip for that one