All purpose comment response post

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. Thank you for everyone who has commented during my absence. To save time, I'm going to respond to everything in one post:

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Seeda-straight
Yahsahr - One way
?????? - The other way (I want to say yameen)
Walkoff - Stop

Also, these guys do not necessarily restrict their interests to women. One of my neighbors was a "happy guy" and entertained quite a few taxi drivers. One taxi driver found I was in my mid-20s and not married and immediately got *_WAY_* too friendly with me. That trip came to an early end and I ended up in a different taxi. They are also fond of asking about your salary.

I never had any experiences with a taxi driver acting out like you describe brn (ie how much he hated America etc).

When you get your car you will find your defensive driving skills improve immensley.

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Posted by Marcus Aurelius

Yep, been asked the salary question a few times, but never got hit on (should I be offended? What, am I not attractive enough for the gay taxi drivers of Al Ain?)

I keep meaning to make a post about driving in the roundabouts here. Maybe this week

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Hi,
I stumbled across your blog while researching on the UAE. I lived in Al Ain back in the early 80s when my parents worked at Tawam hospital (my dad was the Chief Tech of the lab) when it opened.
So much has changed in the UAE since then but your pictures of camels looked very familiar!
Hope you enjoy your stay there as much as we did.

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Posted by Anonymous

We like Al Ain very much, it is a great place for families. It also still has a little bit of the small town air to it too. It would have been fascinating to see it twenty or thirty years ago and see the changes since then.

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At 07 February, 2006 00:01, Dhabi Dabbler said…

Are your children learning Arabic? My son had 3 years studying and was towards the top of the class - but they didn't teach conversational Arabic, only the letters and some words, so he couldn't even ask our watchman his name or ask how much something was. This was to enable reading first and talking afterwards.

Good luck with the studying!

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At 11 February, 2006 14:56, xikita said…

I want to spend this summer in Dubai/Sharjah studying arabic, any tips?
Where are studying? How many hours?

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At 11 March, 2006 07:11, Marcus Aurelius said…

Hehehe,

When I was there I studied Tagalog. ;-)

I'm still plugging away at the Arabic. The first Intermediate class ends on Tuesday and then next week it will be the second one. Each class is about 24 hours and the sessions last about 1 1/2 hours each, so about eight weeks of classes. The kids aren't studying it except for what I try to teach them.

This reminds me, I bought a Star Trek DVD this weekend, and the menu of languages came up and I jokingly asked if everyone wanted to watch it in Arabic. So now Owen calls Star Trek "Arabic". He also calls Star Wars "Honey Loops" because a box of Honey Loops had a Star Wars toy in it.

I have no idea where you can study Arabic in Dubai or Sharjah. Any ideas from anyone else?

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Steelers win!

How are you feeling today? Hope that you're enjoying your day off!

cheers
nzm

Thanks! Well, that Monday of/after the Super Bowl I was really happy and tired (I got up at 3:00 AM to watch). It wasn't a great game, and I got more than a little tired of all the complaining about the officiating. The offensive pass interference call was not a bad call. That should be called more often. If it had been a defensive back who had pushed off, no one would say anything.

I saw a similar play to the clipping play during the regular season, in the same sort of situation. A quarterback threw an interception and then went low through a blocker to get the ball carrier. From two angles on replay, it looked like the same thing here, though one did clearly show that the QB did not commit a penalty. But the officials who saw it from the other angles called what they saw, which is what they are supposed to do.

The holding penalty was just unlucky for Seattle, but the guy did hold, just like offensive lineman do on every play. I can't remember what the other call that was supposed to be so bad.