My first wedding here......

We were invited to one of the guys at the office wedding. I went at 8pm to the ladies party and wedding ceremony. If you would like to know more about that let me know and I will write you a privite email. No photography was allowed there. Sam then came at 10pm for this combined part where I took a few photos with the zoom, we were in the back of a huge ballroom at the hotel.

This is a Palistinian traditional wedding. I haven't been to a Emerate wedding but I think they are a little different.

The bride was just beautiful.

Lots of dancing and singing and drums and bag pipes, after a while lots of people were up dancing.

Just about done for the day

I think the sign needs to be bigger. What do you think?

This is a site of one of the holes going to other direction. The orange fencing is the barrier.

One more site, I was riding in the front seat by now trying to not take my eyes off the road. Feeling pretty unsettled.

I thought well I'm hungry, lets eat. We went to a Somalia resteraunt. One big dish with numerous piles inside. Yes Sam is eating with his hands. It had really good flavor and there was no unknown meat and I think it might have been really healthy. The dish rag type thing was made of a whole wheat powder. Kind of like a crepe. But not greasy at all. My stomach was ok for a little while , no learching.

One of the 8 holes

It"s not just a little hole either.

The depth, picture a 50 meter swimming pool with a little left over. Thats how deep they will be.

And it will be dug out one bucket at a time, like this one.

Amazing.....

Outside of the moon site

They really like their decrative side walks, I'm so glad.

Sam running to the car, trying to not fry his bald head.

Another site office that will be moving to another place soon. they are a bit crowded here, this is only half of them.

This site is something else, just invison this one. Eight holes, 28-40 meters deep that will connect them all together cross ways, next to a busy high speeding traffic road and only barracade is the construction fence around the hole. HUmmm

The new Doha office site

We try to get picture of the sign were ever we go.

This is the first phase of workers that are on site now in Doha. They were all excited to have Sam there to tour the offices. When Sam walked in they all stood up, I was like whoooo wait a minute, sit down guys its not a big deal. Just 35 more employees to go.

One of the wings of the offices. All pretty engineering like.

This is the site idea plan of were the treatment plant will be. Zoom in on it and you will see what they will have around it. Pretty fun stuff. It might make it not so moon like there.

The humungus waste water treatment work

This is the start of the miles and miles of pipes that are going to be layed. We headed out to the site ......

or are we on the moon.

35 klm later we arrive at the

landing site.

This is the build up ... trip to the moon

If you have noticed Doha is not green like AD. This is the local truck stop during prayer time.

We are headed out the the next site that I can show you. Not much out here. This is the country side of town.

Someones summer home in the country.

Funny moment

During our two hour side trip that I can't talk about...... we were in the heat and seeing things. Just invision 2000 workers and all of a sudden a woman appears. Holy cow. I had this smurk on my face, it was kind of a funny thought to bad I wasn't about 20 and something to look at . We were really hot and Sam was sweating so bad his suit pants and his white shirt were completley soaked with sweat. Sweat was running down the other guys faces and they were wiping with their towels that you carry with you, they were soaked. I was ok a little flushed and started to sweat around the hard hat I was wearing backwards because it was getting in my way of photography. We walked into this room that held something that needed AC in it. There was this little worker about the size of a peanut and he had his worker jump suit undone and getting him self cooled off if you know what I mean. Then in comes the main head boss with a woman and a couple of men. That poor little guy I'm sure wet his pants on the spot. There was a couple of words yelled and the little kid ran like he stole something. Of all his luck. I asked later how many woman have been on site and the boss said,"Oh just one , you madame".

Random shots of Doha

They do have a couple of really nice malls there...... a big plus.

There was an little old lady that walked a crooked mile........

I need to tell you a quick story about how I felt when I saw these two buildings. I had gotten up that morning in AD and thought man I don't really feel very well, I'd like to throw up. I didn't and got on an airplane and went to Doha and Sam and the driver Jajues picked me up at the airport. I got in the back seat with Sam and we drove all over and I was snapping shots from the window as fast as I could thinking, man I feel like I might throw up. Every so often we would stop and get out and the motion would stop. Since I wasn't thinking clearly I would have thought, Holy &*^%$%%^ am I having morning sickness? Knowing what I know and knowing what isn't possible I thought I have the flu. When we drove up to these building on the road I was so close to loosing it I asked Sam are those building crooked or am I seeing things? He said they are crooked. No worries. It was like my stomach was learching with the wave. I got three shots in before I had to stop. I felt like my head was spinning just looking at them.

Some one got paid to think like this and tell them to build it.

We stopped for a couple of hours after this shot. I can't discuss the shots I took after this but it was fun to see. Got you all curious don't I?

I am back.................

I arrived in our fair city after and long day and half on the plane and delays in Atlanta due to the thunder and lighting storm they had as I arrived there. The airport was closed for two and half hours and so the gates moved around and I'm thinking I'm sure my bags are following me NOT. The beasty long flight to Dubai was with out incident and I had an empty seat next to me, which never happens. I had a pretty good legg rest on the table in the middle and watched the latest movies for the next 15 hours. I can usually get 6 movies in with any problem. It really is eaiserto watch them on the plane than take the time to get Sam to go to a movie. I get to watch what I want to it works out great. My bags didn't make it though. I was 2 1/2 hours late into Dubai and then another 2 hours waiting in line at the baggage services with all the irrate americans that didn't get their luggage either. I finally told them look guys I know some of you this is the first time to this place and let me tell you getting mad at them isnt't going to do a thing. Its the airline and they don't have a representive here so write them a letter. All we can do here tonight is help them get us through with out more problems. I told them more than likely our bags will show up on Sunday night or monday night. They all came unglued. I said yes I know its a prolblem. But they can't do anything about it. Lets just get through the lines without having to wait for each one of us to yell at them. So this other guy and I helped get the numbers of everyone on the flight and get us through in the 2 hours to make our claims to where they will send the luggage when they find it. Lucky enough they found mine and it was delivered three days later on sunday night at 10:30pm. It was wet and damp and all the boxes had been torn and opened but everything was there and I only had one broken glass on a picture frame. So to my surprise Sam had me scheduled to go to Doha Qatar with him the day before and since I didn't have any luggage I had to stay and wait till it came. I then went to Doha the next morning and met Sam there. I kind of call it , I'm on assignment with Stanley. I got to take pictures of all the sites that they are working on. Some I can't show due to restrictions from the contractors but they liked what I gave them. If anyone is interested in the sites I can't post I might be able to send some to your emails. Pretty interesting stuff and I guess it might only be interesting to me since I lived through the proposals, the interviews, the first year of stress in design. I actually knew what was what for the most part. The picture above is the West Bay of Doha. They have lots of construction going on also. Can you count the cranes?

This is the mascot for the 2006 Asian Games that was held in Doha. They applied for the 2016 Olympics but didn't get in the last round but they are planning on the 2020 bids.

More construction

More.....

Day at the zoo with Grandma

I had the girls for two nights before I left. We visited cousins, had a picnic, went shopping for uncle Bobbie, giggled at and jumped on the silly boys beds (uncle bobbies roomates), took a bath in uncle bobbies bath tub after Grandma cleaned it of course and went to the zoo. They thought they were really big girls and were somewhat put out at me that I made them ride in the stroller. I got it for them so they would have easy out and in on their own. they had gone to sleep really late and I knew if I didn't have something I was going to be carrying the two of them and that wasn't going to happen so they rode in the stroller for babies for Grandma.

They love to pose, you don't even have to say anything and they just say "cheese"

This tiger just got in the water right in front of us. It was pretty cool. They were more concerned about the dirty water.

One hot and tired kitty.