Otter's adventures in Lebanon

Another chapter in the chronicles of Distructo the contractor

2007-03-11T22:07:00.000+02:00

It appears that life has taken no swerves this time…
Yup
It just kept chugging along clicking through the usual routines…

Routine it doesn’t sell newspapers and doesn’t make for great reading on blogs. Sorry there isn’t much to report.

Well other than the fact that I have been tearing down the balloon framed walls in the apartment.

Pardon my evil cackle but it was brilliant tearing apart the dry-walling and the paper thin aluminum studs (they call them bridges here in Lebanon). SOME BRIDGE! they don’t hold anything up and they are only thick enough to run penny screws through. You have to hope it holds the drywall without backing, insulation.

Yup you got it EL CHEAPO Construction AGAIN!!!

So what did OTTER get up to?
I had them put in TWO IRON beams… FLOOR to CEILING!!!
Which of course meant cutting the board…FLOOR TO CEILING (GRIN GRIN)
So there was welding… which was hilarious because HE DIDN’T HAVE A MASK. Every time he’d go to bond the metal he would CLOSE his eyes and put his hand in front of his face…
YES troops…. BLIND WELDING… apparently it’s done often in the Middle East. Having witnessed the resulting mess and ooze where there should be smooth connected ripples I was disappointed to say the least.

After the welding was done and the mess on my floor became quite apparent; the “engineer” (as they are known in Arabic) then pushed in bolts to hold both of these metal studs into the floor and ceiling. This of course do to an allergy to measuring tapes and exact design specs came with the usual wiggling and giggling of the Arab world.
NO NOT BELLY DANCING… although this Kerish(MAN GUT) did do a lat of wobbling… The wiggling and giggling is so that it all comes out MUZBOOT (I know it’s TH in Iraq but the jobsite was in Lebanon). Of course the Arabic language allows one to zubutah meaning to make it muzboot…

Then came the other welding project of getting the actual bars to hold the bike up in place… That was in itself almost as entertaining as watching the poor guy cut into the drywall with his jeans and long sleeve jumper come out looking like he was the Pillsbury dough boy.

Of course we had to cut holes in the two planks of drywall we had ripped out but all in all the entire operation was part three ring circus… part engineering make do cause it’s all we got nightmare… and part fancy dress Halloween masquerade ball.

Oh, and that NOTHING seems to have solved the situation of the seeping fistula…. rusty pipes above my bathroom.

Yes I have attempted to contact my plumbing wasta ( WASTA (pl. WASTAAT) def. = vile Italian mobster style connection that always seems to have a slithery way around whatever problem you face) but the dude isn’t exactly your regular cell phone carrying kinda guy.

Then come the bike cleanings… My poor Natoor seems to be obsessing about getting out on the bike with me. Poor guy doesn’t realize I’m going to end up cranking him over for a good hour ride of climbs within the city and then toss him back into the apartment building gasping for breath… What the hell maybe I’ll spring for some spinning shoes for him just to witness the whole affair!

Hmmm bike discussions…
Enter the monkey society theorem…. No this isn’t an Otter special… this is someone else spouting off about the behavior in this country…
I would put it at a more polite PRIMA DONNA IT IS as to the Lebanese condition but this dude posited the perspective that Lebanese behave like self centered monkeys. No rules apply concerning their own values… ME first then a long and distance second come those related by blood… followed by those related to me through religion/politics( the two are sooo messily stuck together in Lebanon it’s impossible to have the populous see they are two different things) and then of course that is all… The rest of us who don’t make it into those circles can go screw ourselves.
He stated that Lebanon was a Ghetto…
It’s the Arab 50 cent…
You don’t like my opinion… me and my homies are more in number than yours…
(Because MORE obviously = RIGHT)
and I got me a gun
and I’m going to shoot you cause you don’t agree with me…
I am right cause I said so…
Yup
Democracy…
Or the furthest thing from it..
The point he pinned it all on
was that Civilization is not based upon education or even construction…
It is based upon selflessness for the greater good…
The Lebanese he claims are cripples in this aspect…
I was shocked….
I disagreed because it felt wrong… but then I remembered a table scene…
I was surrounded by Lebanese and they were all grabbing the food… They all went for the BITS they enjoyed FIRST…
It was grab what I like screw it if other people like those parts too…
So basically your beloved author ended up eating chicken spine and dry breast meat… They didn’t bother wasting the precious oxygen which appears to be in short supply in Lebanon to ask…
It didn’t cross their minds…
It was a grab fest… scary and sad…

The political situation appears disgustingly similar… There is no compromise… NONE it is merely repeat the party line… Horrific…

Then of course there are the streets
and the driving…

The fact that there is a time when it is good to be Arab and another time when it isn’t and because I can I will hop back and forth between the two ensuring they maintain their own personal benefit.

I clammed up… As NASTY and as CAUSTIC as it was… There was a truth behind it…

I know this remark will raise the bristles of many a Lebanese hedgehog
but guys
PLEASE…
For the good of yourselves….
STOP THINKING ABOUT ONLY YOURSELVES FIRST!!!!
I know it is hard… It may ache like that first day at the gym… but it will be refreshing…eventually.

So from the coffee shop here on Hamra where the only fresh air you find is from the filter end of a cigarette thanks to the horrific situation and lack of non-smoking sections your beloved author who now smells like a smoked salmon… Has decided to sign off…COUGH… COUGH… GASP...

Politics of the Playground

2007-02-12T11:50:00.000+02:00

No he crossed onto my side of the line...
No he hit me first....
Oh Yeah well he lit that on fire...
But He was the one hitting me first...
I didn't do it
He did

No I didn't
Yeah he still crossed the line
No I did NOT
Yeah You did
your finger crossed it right there

Well pretty soon the kids start poking in one another'e eyes...
and then we all know how it ends
.....
MAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
Both in tears....
Both showing off their scars and wounds....
Boo boo's a blazing someone else has to come in and judge what these two have done to themselves.

I wonder if it'll ever get beyond this in the Middle East.

Here in the Ottery end of the universe current democratic processes have left your author SEVERELY LACKING SLEEP!

The idea of democracy is YES to make your opinion known...but...
WHY
OH WHY
does that ALWAYS involve car horns here?
Every political faction has their specific beep routine...
Yesterday's pre rally festival made me truly regret the invention of the contraption called a horn.

Why had humanity decided this was the best way to alert people to a possible automobile accident? Does beeping the horn prepare one in any possible way for the more gritty scrape, shudder, and whine of metal rubbing on metal?

No I didn't think so either....

When twined with youths that ride 3 to a moped tooting in unison
I can only wonder how much of a laugh the angels are having staring at us idiots with free will.

It seems to have been written in to the conciousness here in the Furtile Crescent... The parades and noise seems to be part of human history... I guess it's been here all along .
so I'm surprised that the eviction from the garden of Eden story doesn't contain a beeping horn and "parade loop" part as Adam protests his plight...

Maybe that's just a given for those who copied the bible...

Onward to another day...
Hopefully this one doesn't appear so similar in it's protests as this on the 14th of February. I can understand wanting to mourn your political Guru but stopping the country like the dudes you are claiming cause it's collapse is a bit.... hypocritical!

A college of mine suggested everyone stopping for five minutes during an appointed time to do a really dramatic thing in silence across the entire country would have been amazing...
Imagine cars stopped and everything halted for 5 minutes to remember and then... life rolls on...

OH No
We had to get politicos shooting their mouths off harping on those tired and deep terms meant to tap into the pathos and ethos of the public...

I'm getting so tired of people thinking that vibrating the air in their throats is somehow going to improve the plight of the nation...
Doing....
GET'S THINGS DONE...
Nothing less.

Under the footbridge to Dora and the conversation of the coffee trolls

2007-02-11T16:42:00.000+02:00

Here we go again....
Yes folks, February 14th is going to be a few ticks of the clock away but here in the wilds of Lebanon it doesn't mean Valentines...
I will float back the dial to a little incident that occurred two years ago...
I was standing looking out at the sea from the 7th floor of the Gefinoor building. It was immaculate the azure of the ocean the pale hint of blue that was the sky and then...
A strange feeling that the floor had decided to jump backwards. The bowing of the glass was ominous...
I was actually pushed back...
Then came the cloud... a white billow right near a spot I had just learned was Ain el Mrese... (Facing the Mediterranean)

Next on flicked the television as workers gathered around to guess what it was. I started out claiming it might be a gas explosion because there was no black smoke. The experts here claimed C-4 or a car bomb. I laughed because Lebanon was supposed to be through with that nonsense it had been over two years since someone had been whacked.
The carnage on Arabic television blows any of the snuff or death films witnessed in secret cubbies in the USA this stuff was the real deal and LIVE…
A man was being dragged from a van where the roof had melted in… I would later learn it was one of my college’s cousins.

It would be the beginning of the end for me…
The idea of floating back and somehow getting into the rotation in the USA in any sort of normal fashion was washed out with this little carpet of thunder that rolled across the city.

Life has an alarming way of stacking events up.

After all, all of us in our little daily problems are… well …. We are only treading water.
Those first few days in kindergarten when coloring in the lines felt like it would give you a migraine…
To those days of snapping out of the dream world that you may actually get into a medical school in the US…

Those moments when you gold up and give in to a fate that superglues you to the Middle East and makes you leave everything you used as a foundation in life alone...

The rattling of fake flakey people as they smile at you while you carry them through projects to earn your degree…

The near death experiences that come with the territory of the health issues I live with…
Damn there have been a LOAD of those…

The weight of seeing the first fingerprints of your own decline…

Those desperate efforts and attempts in recovery to ensure some sort of happiness in the tangled mess you find yourself in…

The constant state of failure…. As the threads and pieces once again fray apart..

Dreams and the fuel that keeps us going (humanity calls hope)…
Does and
Eventually WILL run out…

You can only tread water for so long…

And in the end… you just give out and give up…

So here it is the blog of truth and doom....

Ringing with the answer... Though the massive majority of my dreams may be….
I often find that the bones of the desert carcass (this existence {has become}) is stuck being …

NOT DEAD YET!

I’ve been riding the bike…
Yes clad in the Armstrong live strong outfit I was passed in Dbayieh by that wonderfully affable guy Zaher… He’s Lebanon’s Number 1 Mountain Biker
He was with his Girlfriend Lina…She’s the silver medal winner in the Asian games Time Trial..
Second place * a constant place for this woman who always finishes AFTER LINA * came another Women’s Lebanon team member and her cousin…

We were clipping along beautifully…

My HR was pounding at 89-91% and they were all in deeply relaxed 70%...
But the fun of talking and kidding around made up for it across the three hours of riding.

The session would round out over an hour later as we were joined by Lebanon’s Number 1 road cyclist… a climbing specialist named John Pierre.

The conversation on the ride was wonderful as we snaked out of Dbayieh and into Jounieh and then back to Beirut…
The company was delightful but like usual…
My BG called an end to it as I ran out of candy bars to keep scarfing down…
I peeled my front tire off of what was the perfect line back down the riddled and rattled highway to find carbohydrates…

This led me to discover some of the most wonderful individuals under a bridge I have ever met…
NO THEY WERE NOT TROLLS…
They were espresso salesmen and their bus driving regulars.

Of course me in my alien outfit created quite a stir…
How much does the bike weigh?..
Wow it is light… no $$$$ it weighs less than 7kg… more like 3kg…
Then the near verbal fistfight as to the real weight of an empty gas bottle which is apparently the standard weight and measure used in the coffee serving circles of Lebanon
How much does it cost?…
Then come the guesses after I refuse to say how much I paid.
NONE OF WHICH ARE EVER

EVER

Near the ball park, zip code, or country of the actual price…

At least 4 bottles of Pineapple juice later I’m on my way…

Back home back to the little apartment
to a cleansing HOT shower after 4 hours of intimacy with the bike...

What NOT to do in front of road cyclists when you are on a mountain bike.... THIS INCLUDES GUNNING IT AND SAYING...Little Feets Don't Fail Me Now!

2007-01-28T19:05:00.000+02:00

It was a dark and stormy night….
Actually it was a cold and windy morning too…
The bike ride was more something to fill the gaps in time. I had set an appointment to ride at 8AM we didn’t actually get going until 8:30.
The ride passed along some very memorable roads… Yup you guys know how memories can do that tiger trick to you…
My legs were wobbly and weak...
We (me and my riding copilot) would reel in mountain bikers and then clip a hammer pace to wear them out. The routine always began the same way. There was their stupid dash to prove they could keep us off
and... of course... we didn’t pursue.
Then as we wound them in with our steady pace they kept huffing and diving to get ahead. It was hard holding back and waiting there… It was horrible being vicious in making them suffer.
It was worse that I was out of shape and doing this.

“They don’t get that riding is a war of attrition. They seem to think it’s all quick sprints. That makes me even more sure; they have no clue about what it is to be a cyclist.”

It hurt hearing the German’s diagnosis.
This country was a spot where I wanted a tour; where I thought the people would love the idea of seeing the dudes from the grand tours in Europe duke it out.
The ride stung all the way.
There was the smell of the cars…
The jarring state of the road with it’s bumpy hazard riddled tortoise back and gaping holes…
The black donut prints on the ground where some political group had protested with a wall of traffic stopping tire burning…
There was the weaving through silly military checkpoints where nobody was checked and the slalom would almost always send some reckless bastard in our direction.
We paused in Byblos…
Yup
memories again…
After deciding to turn and call it a day due to “old age and poor health” the weather seemed to snap.
Yes we pulled the same routine on the way back and aside from one young silly punk we destroyed everyone we passed. (said young punk gunned it up a VERY VERY SHORT INCLINE and stopped at the top to stare back at yours truly who was only about 15 meters behind him)
Yeah I know I coulda had him but what was the use I had another half an hour of riding left.

The wind hammered all the way back kicking up glass and sand. I can still feel the burn on my legs where it feels like I was attacked by Huntington’s patient trying to dry me with sand paper.

I WAS supposed to deliver some long stem inner tubes to a wonderful shop owner on my road to the south but I gave up after the goings on today.
I seem to be lacking the respite from the world that riding the bike was for me.
Those empty moments at home just compound things..

Yup troops,
Life feels quite shattered.

Then there are the disturbing reports of the nation…

THIS IS A DISCLAMER
>>>For the sake of nerves of the dear parental units>>>
who are NOT PERMITTED TO READ FURTHER....
please be cautioned...
NONE OF THE BELOW ARE CONFIRMED EVENTS…
However there are those who attested to their authenticity.

Found…. two naked male bodies in dumpsters following Thursday’s unfortunate incident….
One decapitated….
The other shot with 2 rounds in the heart from lose range, a slash on the back from neck to pelvis and a bullet that seems to have traveled from thigh to ankle of left foot….
It should be noted that one of these men went to the scene of the trouble armed… he was looking for his brother and wanted to get him out alive…

Missing… 13 men from a southern suburb of Beirut.

Destroyed one brand new Mercedes in a parking lot close to the incident… YES it was insured but these are counted as acts of war, God or whatever the cowardly insurance agent can use to weasel his way out of paying.

There were apparently several attempts to light things up that unfortunate day with what started as stone throwing and escalated into systematic property damage punctuated by what is over 10 more unreported homicides. In addition to the fact that Thursday was TWO SEIGE EVENTS NOT JUST THE ONE. They tried to start it up again when night fell.

Of course each side is showing video of not exactly well behaved young men doing bad things to “innocent people”

There are also images of the army standing and staring at the goings on.
What do you expect from conscripts? DO YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE they will put their lives on the line with the way you treat them?

There are also over a hundred arrests in those goings on…
I wonder how those poor guys at the hobbit style police station under the bridge where we met the Syrian version of the Patriot are holding up.

Ok there it is the unreported news

Of course there will be the note made by the author that ANY surface to air weapons that prevent Israel from conducting DISGUSTING little Fly over exercises would be much appreciated.
There will be the complaint that if police had ticket quotas maybe all of the laws would be enforced…
Then I wake up to the idea that a lot of people seem to be quite content that their section of the world is going to hell in a hand basket…as long as they can catch their friends at the local ministry or institution where the work to shake hands and kiss cheeks…chat and do absolutely nothing… things are fine.

Also of note….
Myopia concerning the future is not a good thing if you want to be safe or strategic.
Lip service is only exercise for the face that LEADS to wrinkles rather than preventing them.
Democracy is 50% tolerance 40% patience 10% logic and all constructive critical open mindedness…
vomiting back party lines like a good little French student reciting poetry is NOT thinking!!!

I wish you all a good night as I make my lonely little way back through the rainy season here in Beirut…

tires blaze and the university students clash (decide to have a stone throwing contest)

2007-01-26T16:40:00.000+02:00

Thursday arrives and I have to get my passport photos and police report translated.
Another session of Otter ping pong ensues only this time it’s trying to find someone who is an officially sworn translator to translate officially.
The day and the time during which the embassy deals with such issues BURNS…
I finally get around to the translator after dealing with the photo issue at noon a FULL HOUR AFTER THE EMBASSY IN AWKAR is done with business for the WEEK.
The papers will be ready Friday.

Then after heading to AUB I find out that 4 are dead and over a hundred are wounded in a clash at local universities…
I’m told LAU, Hawaii, and the state university BAU (Beirut Arab University) are involved…

Not to worry troops!
It’ll be a grim day when the embassy (bastion of USAID) here at AUB faces any such trouble…

Especially during finals…
The phone lines are clogged…
I’m trying to help those people in Lebanon who I care about the most but things aren’t working out so well.
Panic ensues… It’s usual for this customer…
I send an SMS to their relative with a receipt.
“Contact your sister. If you need help getting out I’ll meet you. The car might not be an option.”

There is a parking lot of traffic everywhere and things are deathly quiet.
Having gotten no SMS or call from the student
and with it being around 6:00 pm
I head out. Hamra is shutting down and the streets feel hollow once again. I call up the gym to check on the situation…
“Do I have class?”
“We’re wanting to close”
To me it sounds like the guys are trying to empty the club and feed into the panic.
They did it during the war without thinking of the devastation to the club’s reputation. I head home and pack the gym bag.
The walk back to the club is deafeningly quiet.
I make it past a long search by one overly interested police officer with a big honking M-16 and trudge up to the gym…

It’s quiet
dark
and empty…

My phone beeps to let me know there’s a message…

It’s the fitness manager’s SMS and her particular ring letting me know that classes have been canceled!
Wow!
Great timing!
I call her back...
No answer…
Ok, so I’m worried…

I grab a cab above the StarCo building and the brusk A$$ up front is screaming at the driver not to give me a ride.

Out steps the young police boy in white and brown fatigues as I slide my stuff in. The guy up front is swearing at Lebanon.. Cursing it and spitting. We swing up the road and the passenger up front is rattling through conversation.
“I’m headed to Karakas”
“It’s a Druze neighborhood right?” asks the jerk up front.
“Yeah”
“Where are you headed?" asks the driver.
I repeat myself and he makes sure to confirm this is a “taxi ride.”
We swing up past the burj il mur… The Mur tower ( a scarred building where snipers used to hide in the war. Its’ towering stories gutted and its’ walls pocked with craters stand silent in the night)

The cab revs over the bridge and swinging back to the intersection above the Mur tower dumps the jerk! The guy up front squeaks himself through the door steps out cursing again. I catch the glimmer of his pistol in the back of his pants… He’s obviously mukhabarat… Ignorant, vile, and haughty…

The driver is panicked, lurching, and leaning the car as he whips around for directions. “taxi right?” He's nervous scared and driving like a maniac

“Sure none of the other guys paid, I know the car doesn’t run on water, someone’s gotta pay for gas might as well be me (and my sorry looking forgein ass)”

I keep telling him “its ok Just head to the end of Hamra” But he keeps stopping at military hajiz (checkpoints) asking for directions.

I finally give up on the Hamra route and relate directions that take him along the Corniche and he coasts along changing the tape from one of what sounds like the Ouwat rally songs (Samir Geagea faction of Lebanese forces/ Maronites/ Christians/ Vicious/ Proud/ half of what bled the people dry in the civil war) to something else. In pops some silly over produced Arabic woman singing some tinkley song. I get dropped of in front of my apartment building and I had over the 5 thou… “No it’s on my account”
“No! Seriously that is rude,
I’m paying!
Take your money, the money that I owe you and God be with you”
Another night in Lebanon draws to a close
But it’s not over yet…
Not until after a gut wrenching phone call that is bittersweet in all senses of the word and my past existence…

The Patriot.... Syrian style... and what really happened to Lebanon's CEDARS

2007-01-26T16:35:00.000+02:00

Yup troops another update from the fraternal council of all things rainy…
The beloved author’s luck has once again turned to mud!
Leading our intrepid wordsmith on…
Another one of these fruitless missions in Lebanon.

My passport in all her wonderful and faithfulness, decided to go on a trip…
WITHOUT ME!!!

Losing a passport is pretty serious business..
Losing one in Lebanon…
Is tantamount to tying bricks to your feet and jumping in the ocean for a dip
during a hurricane.

Yes that day I discovered what happened to Lebanon’s cedar…

It wasn’t burned in recent protests, as some may suggest

It was used to collate my one police report concerning the passport.

Of course with bureaucracy came the loop d loop tour of offices…

Just to spice things up the decided to have all of the English speaking bureaucrats on vacation indefinitely leaving only the francophones…

God help me…

So after being dropped off at the Brand new pretty General Security building near the museum (which in my two years here I have never gone inside)..

beeping through the metal detector…

In the Middle East they are supposed to beep to let you know they are working…
No!
Of course you don’t go BACK through the machine!
Only foreigners do that!
Little do those poor saps know that the beeping and alarms are merely for show.
Of course there won’t be a strip search!
They might get a bit curious about your purse and what brand of lipstick and perfume you use but other than comparing it to their nearest of kin’s there won’t be much hassle.

Your next destination is information just to the left of the metal beepy thingy where two wonderfully friendly fellows will attempt to muddle the situation as best as they possibly can.
This is their chance to practice English and their Sherlock skills in order to give you what looks like a green worm wrestling mat with the scrawl of an epileptic telling everyone who sees it that you were the idiot that lost your passport.

Recently instituted is the new method of enforcing the no cell phone policy.
I think it has something to do with the fact that Saddam’s Hanging and police torture in Egypt were both made public embarrassments by cell phone cameras.

Now truth be told cell phones haven’t been permitted in the General security for ages but that didn’t mean that you did anything but walk in with it as if it were pasted to your pocket.
Recently you have to check them in… Meaning they write a number on the back of your worm wrestling paper and then toss your phone in their desk.
I ran up the stairs to the second floor looking for the lost passport section where I was redirected 4 times until finally reaching a 10m X 20m office of 5 guys trading dirty jokes.
They then informed me that I needed to visit the General security near the ADL… meaning the ministry of Justice.

So after skirting down the road destruction to get to the OTHER older General security building I was informed to go to the other guard shack at the other end of the building.
At this point I have just covered 17 discussions of exactly the same ilk…

Yes…
No…
Nooo…
I LOST my passport.
I was told to come here to…
But they told me it was here….
So where am I supposed to go….
(repeat back the directions)
(have the directions corrected)
(the guy sitting next to the directions guy disagrees)
(have the directions corrected)
(have a discussion on how the directions were corrected)
(unanimous decision reached)
(directions agreed upon)
(repeat back the directions)
And that is where I can get what I need to give to the US Embassy?
I hope to God too…
Ok thanks…

So now I head to the Ministry of Justice… sprint right up the imposing imperial stairs only to be told that I need to go to the guard shack around the corner… it’s only a couple hundred meters away…

Why is it always THE OTHER guard shack?

I get subjected to another metal detector.. But this time it gets interesting…
I take off my wallet and they go to pass it on..
Today the guard station is manned by a fan of the TV show 24…
He tears apart my wallet and pulls off the chain…
Impatiently insisting on victimizing my cell phone next

I then get snagged by a bespectacled brunette who offers translation services
She spotted her customer after hearing me ask the metal detecting maniac where do I go to report my passport lost.

She directs me to the snack counter behind the curtain where I get a statement saying: that I lost my passport; that I am of sound mind and body; that I live in an apartment; that the apartment is in a neighborhood in Beirut; that my mum is from England and has an English name; and that I am a sucker enough to pay for the translation of something so simple and the 2 stamps that go with it.
I have never seen stamps used for mail in Lebanon they always go on official documents.

Next I go up to the office upstairs and deal with the various bureaucrats there and after a quick set of Otter ping pong they hand me off to go back to the General Security near the ministry of Justice.

Now note each participant in Otter ping pong adds a minimum of one blue soaked inky stamp one scrawled signature and one extra page to the packet of stuff I am carrying.

I head to the guard shack and of course get told to go to the OTHER GUARD SHACK…

Back at the General Security I WAS SUPPOSED to drop the packet off and call back a week or two later…

OH HECK NO!!!

I sat with the papers telling them I wasn’t sure when I was going to fly it could be in the next couple days. I would have come Tuesday but hell broke loose in Lebanon and the black tire stains are still on the streets.

This little embarrassing episode that they all wanted to forget seemed to grease the wheels.
I was sent; from one big mucky muck, to another… People were sent to find out if things were possible in the SAME DAY…
WOW!
Hot diggity!
Things are getting done…
Up a couple floors and a funny conversation concerning my first name and it’s origin..
I later find myself in front of a highly decorated WOMAN?!?!?
Wow I was deeply moved and impressed.
SHE HAD A STAR AND EVERYTHING!
There was no conversation just a signature but that encounter…
It hit pretty hard… I smiled
It’s wonderful on those rare occasions your expectations get exceeded…
I was proud to be a feminist!

I was then sat in an empty office were I waited for some young hot shot...
He must be headed places because he had a nice watch.
After explaining I used to dive with one of the Generals of the General Security and swapping stories about the USA
I was got myself “fast tracked”
Which meant I got to have an escort …
This Napoleonic statured employee was supposed to walk through the offices and get things done. We only visited one office…
I was then led out of the building round the corner and to this stairway in the foundation of a bridge…

WEIRD…
It looked like the entrance to an underground subway station or a secret hideout of the Italian mob…

It was… A police station complete with ping pong table, wooden benches, felons and detectives…
I was to have the pleasure of sitting there waiting for my police report to be written in Arabic for the next 5 hours…
I covered all sorts of discussion with the local police who were very intent on knowing what I was studying… how much I could hope to earn… and how long I would have to keep going to school…
I took this opportunity to test my Blood sugar… same rules applying here as everywhere else in Lebanon… it was high… I injected
The officer sitting in the corner had pretended not to notice… so as I sat back after injecting and hiding my supplies away…
he couldn’t resist…
For me it’s part of the usual routine….
How long had I been diabetic?... How did I get it?... What did I do that was different to everyone else?....Did he have diabetes?....

Then, came the next event of the day…
An Accused man’s wife had been crying….
She wanted to see her husband and had to be gone by 3:00 because of the kids…
What conversation followed was HILARIOUS to say the least.
I pitied the woman but couldn’t help laughing…
“So madam what is the trouble with your husband?”
“I dunno!”
“Whaja mean you dunno? You have two kids by this man and you don’t know what his problem is? I can’t help you if you can’t tell me what’s up.”
She sits there sobbing in the corner…
“I donno what he was doing in the middle of that mushkil(incident/ trouble)”
After an hour of her sniffling they seem bored
The lead her out…
In come a couple agents to discuss what the deal is…
They then lead in the man in handcuffs. He’s a mountain of human flesh with a beard, a warm jacket, a big gut that seems like it’s trying to burst through the bottom of his grey
t- shirt,“So tell me what’s up with you”
“Well, I can’t go back to Syria”
“What’s that on your hand?”
“I was inked in prison”
“Prison?”
“Yeah”
“Why?”
“Well I got in trouble with the Syrian Secret police (mukhabarat=intelligence). They kept coming to my house looking for my brother who is in Germany. They came and tossed the house 4 times and I didn’t say anything. The last time they came for me…
There were 4 in the car… I got a hold of one of their AK’s and shot three of them. I would have shot the forth but they shot me in the gut and that is why I need my medication. I can’t lie down on the floor and there are only Sudanese in there”
“They won’t give you a spot to lie down?”
“No they are all Sudanese”
In comes the local prison doctor… He’s a young guy with slicked back hair…
“Yeah he’s got something wrong with his stomach as you’ve heard.” With a nod the doctor confirms it. The man is lead out and the wife thanks the detective profusely.
I sit there silently waiting it’s about 4:40 and the fifth time they ask me if I want to eat. “No thanks I can’t it’s the diabetes”
They call the judge and get the signal to make out the report. I had to wait until 5:05 for the judge because apparently it’s nap time for those guys.
After the call and conformation I have in my possession a written police report concerning my passport. I head to the faculty and then home…
I know it’s supposed to be translated in English and officially stamped but that will have to wait for Thursday.

Reporting from below the burning tires and sounds of gunshots

2007-01-24T09:51:00.000+02:00

Welcome to another weird wild and wonderful installment of opinionated drivel here at Otter’s own base for shooting his mouth off.

First off I am in one of my more spectacular moods.
One could say it’s been a rough couple weeks…month… run…whichever holds up long enough to cover the latest expanse of bad things following one another or attacking in unison.
Today is what I am beginning to traditionally hope every morning…
This… I find myself saying…is hopefully the end to the convergence of crap that gets thrown my way.

I’m getting a bit sick and tired of the build up.
If it’s not one thing it’s another.

I had intended to post this catalog of memories a bit earlier yesterday but then something happened.

I have recently had a lot of time on my hands.

It is in times like these that your beloved author takes time to go over some memories.
I’ve got some ones that will live on in silence and some I jotted down to keep a mark of.

These below are like stones thrown in a pond that send ripples right out to the shore
They sting with the need to have the sensations back again
To build on them… again…

Dancing in the rain…yes of course…. White…
The amazing mission impossible shot thief and the bouncing head of hair that made the loop around the entire place.

Watching the Beirut skyline and
the glow of Michel’s face from those dim lights below the glass
as he greets you with that famous knowing nod of his.

The classic “you know how I get when I am hungry” line… before or just after some appalling behavior.

The shine of everything in ABC at the holidays
the wonderful feeling of having sprung a surprise.
The watching selecting and listening to…”listening to tracks at Virgin”…

Being valiantly rescued at Fly, pampered and cared for.
Like almost all those other times it happened and in flew that angel that held back the world for those moments.

Picking out new glasses.

The rise of the road up the mountains of Broumana.
The way the fog wrapped around the little hamlets as a chill fell during the war
Us, the strangely dressed people, who shared those feastings up in those hills.
That silent jarring ride down
when
for once
everything made sense
and that true feeling of resonance
hit me.

Watching the clouds rush up the side of a place called Sakra
The husband, that got reincarnated as a parrot, eating on the chair.
The Lesbians and their big meeting at the table near the wall.
Peering into the black hole that was what had become Da’hiyeh
My putting us on the longest shortcut ever to get all the way down again.

Trips to 499 Orient… And the great Abaya parade
Surprise the silver one too.

Roadster’s…. AGAIN?!?!?
FRIES…

Coffee at Costa…

Foot massages at the Rouche Starbuck’s.

Foot massages in general.

Chopsticks and the great take away office dinner option with all the necessary glassware.
Shogun
Benihana
Those beans at Soto

Karam… and their little asafir

Yes I want a whole chicken at Deek Duke…
Abu Koko that wasn’t Abu Koko but some other restaurant…

The many many times at Casper and Gambini…

The nut shells at Waterlemon in the salad
and later fruit smoothies.

The Bab al Mina Sunday tradition

Appointments for running on the treadmill

The Haagen-Daaz cure to sadness

I can’t ride past Ge’ant without thinking over that tea buying splurge…the cart riding…
and the horrible sound of kiddie entertainment...

The monastery up on Mount Cherbil and that crazy swooping ride down.
Finding rings in the bathroom of that famous food spot up there.
Getting caught toying with a smile and someone at another table.

Pinocchio… and the fact I never set foot in that kitchen shop

Mayas… the bubbling tummy and the mariachi

Soy sauce stains beneath the Buddah…

Tapping on that frosted glass door where I mounted the Nike symbol
with such precision and bearing as to get its’ position exactly like the LOGO..
hearing that not so welcoming “come in”

Waiting in the cold and dark of that Hazmiyeh building parking lot.

Painting the walls… and shorts.
High on Turpentine
the Royal Plaza.-Great for both the world cup and a detox zone

Choosing the curtains.

Trying to get all the wiring done so that the place would be presentable.

The restaurant meal on big white plates that some crazed idiot decided to bring to the car.

The red BMW that met such a horrible end…
That sore feeling in middle of my chest
that I had been cheated when I found out what happened to it
and for how long I wasn’t allowed to know.
The forgiving it because…back in there somewhere there had to be a reason.

Daisy and her sneaky way of diving around traffic and giving a leg work out at the same time.

Messages from the hospital…
The constant barrage of testing that never seemed to make the worries any smaller…
Are you sure I don’t have…? How do you know?
The big book that should explain EVERYTHING for those questions.

Sending that SMS “sorry I couldn’t make it to class because I broke my collar bone..”
Having an all night post concussion discussion…

Dragonfly
and that feeling of finding a long lost friend.

That feeling when I did lose…BIGTIME…forever..
And yes the idea that these memories...shall be frozen
never to be shared with the farmer that planted them…
not being allowed to give those memories any more brothers and sisters…

That hurts…

Sadness such as this I am told
eventually fades
but here in the thick of it…
I know it never does…
It merely hides
to wait and catch you when you are completely unaware.
To tear you to pieces like a tiger hidden in the thicket.

You never forget.

When that attack does happen; you get that distant look on your face.
A half baked smile
and that bulge at the bottom of your eyes that looks like a tire that has a flat.
Because the happiness of then
will never be topped or reborn.
It will never be part of something
because the other half refuses to be in them
They make the now of the visiting fleeting memory all the more bitter.

It is the point where you discover you are an orphan..
I feel so small and so damned hollow.

But instead you get this….
Yes Lebanon decided to throw another one of those interesting curveballs my way…
A bit like the day I got evacuated…
Once again words come out muffled…
Somehow lacking the emotion I have invested in them…
They come out pale and wane instead of being those fully colored things that I feel.
It’s amazing how easily words betray
the why and the what of my intentions and meanings.

I have to put up with the fact that though I have the best of intentions things never come out the way I hope they do.

I’m not so hot at living up to expectations…
Or maybe it’s that the expectations always seem to be a quarter inch too high…
I get caught feeling like the short kid in the white exercise t-shirt that’s always three sizes too large.
The big feet and gym shoes that just seem more looney toon than should be allowed in the section of life we call the real world.

Yup it’s hard to overcome those ideas and self image issues one has coming up though those formative teenage years.

But here I am denigrating my writing skills without getting into the meat of today’s posting.

Pardon my Yosamite Sam impression here but it only seems a fitting way to describe the sorry state of my neighborhood…

There was a… shootings… a….. burnings and….
a whole lot of other goodies and shenanigans
going on this Tuesday in the Karakas and nearby sections of Beirut.

There were of course political co-opted goings on too
But the truth is everyone in a very personal sense is sick of the entire region.
The arab world has become corrupt.
It’s been developing for a while actually… since the fall of the house of wisdom in Iraq.
With the ottomans the beuracracy and the pointy headed idiocy became magnified
Each ruler outdoing the last in ineptitude
until now we have what we have in this region..
It is now an oligarchy of patrons of their own silk linings.
The haves and
“have been robbed”s
are growing farther apart
With the death or should I say escape of
the middle class society here is shredding itself apart.
This all means the loss of a state…
The loss of the cornerstones to development…
The loss of movement and evolution.

Lebanon has been in a state of limbo since her creation.
Her politicians and neighbors seem hell bent on keeping her that way.
From what little I know of the history of the civil war… and in it
being a war there was nothing civil about it…

From what I have not been able to avoid as far as politics are concerned I have been forced to diagnose a problem here in Lebanon.

And what with the country… as I have said before… being IMAGE OBSESSED….
I think this place may have suffered another fatal blow…
Not to the people the protests were actually pretty lame. There were a few burning tires and some gunshots... actually TONS near the apartment where I live.
But, nothing really came of it.
Like most protests here in the Middle East NOTHING comes of it.
A soundbite on the news... and then of course.... the protest's purpose and intent gets hijacked by some political entity for their own ends.

Here I am stuck doing what I can
like usual..
Which incidentally… feels damned pathetic.
I visit the not so well endowed regions of Beirut with my trusty Blood Glucose monitor…
I do the test right out in the open…
Yup here I actually DON’T Hide the fact I carry and use needles.
It isn’t like in the USA where everyone automatically assumes you are a druggie..
Here they are sadly innocent of the issues of heroine in their own country.
Here whipping out a needle and injecting is a point in time you can teach.

Believe it or not a HUGE majority of the population wanders around as undiagnosed type two diabetics.

More than once I have had to deliver bad news.

That sorry buddy but as I told you 100 is normal
and I know you may have had a cup of tea and eaten something sweet but 400 is nowhere near respectable…

Go get yourself checked out and see what you need to have dialed up on your pills…

Not being a doctor and not being licensed to practice sometimes drives me up the wall

More than once I have told people who can’t afford to pay for basic things like a small bit of meat to go and scrape together enough for a glucose monitor.
More often than not
I am told that the local pharmacy has one
and that the test subject will go to the “saydalieh” to get their blood glucose tested for a dollar a test.

HORRIFIC
I know

These people should be testing a minimum of three times a day and here they are, going something like once a week.
There are huge populations in the South of Lebanon claiming they need BG monitors and also claiming they aren’t diabetics…
I guess here in Lebanon they don’t think you qualify for that honorary title unless you have to take something for it.

There is one particular guy in the neighborhood whom I keep demanding sugars from…
He usually runs a good 200 to 240 on a daily basis.
I have told him to visit the doctor and get his doses dialed up…
I’ve asked him about his diet…
I’ve told him where to adjust…
Trouble is…
I am not employed to be his diabetes educator…
Apparently neither is anyone else!
I wonder why non-governmental malitia have such power? Hmm could it be that these little groups are the only infrastructure these poor populations have ever known. Whatever happened to the responsibility of the state?
I mean there are some UGLY HIGH TAXES here in Lebanon!
The politicians get to roll around in some wonderfully nice cars and their houses are appallingly MASSIVE!!!
The average Joe is living hand to mouth just to make the bills.
(which I must add seem to get inflated according to how white and forgein I appear)
Yup there is no single law for everyone.
There is no sorry I'm not sure how to do that...
There is the sorry lie that says... I know how to fix it...
Then followed by a fixing it.... that results in the VICTIM cough cough patient's demise.
When are things really going to get repaired?

I think the loo's O-ring has burst!! And the case of a leaky nose...

2007-01-10T09:37:00.000+02:00

This episode of the writings from Arab hinterlands involves… the cold.

Yes

I have been subjected to bodily mutiny.

The mutineers are none other than those good for nothing lazy white blood cells who can’t even seem to get their act together long enough to stave of the regular virus but this latest sin is far more dubious.

This time my bouncers let in the bacteria. Bacteria are a foul lot, doing horrific things in places they really don’t belong. It’s basically a teenager on a hell bent mission to prove supremacy.

Now most people would be asking…what did you do to make your white blood cells such louts? My answer as captain of this body is simple. I got cold. No the sick part came later I actually woke up several days shivering. I had not broken down to buy a heater remembering that in past winters it hadn’t been so bad. This one felt crummy to the point that your intrepid author was trussed up in bed with several layers of clothing on socks and one of those rinky skull caps.
I began the high water consumption regime only to be subjected to the frequent visits to the toilet. Each visit tested the resolve of a man with a full bladder. Brave the cold freeze your already blue toes a bit more or stay in the bed and let the pressure in your bladder threaten to pop your belly button. Yes each time was a close call and that jarring sensation of the ice cold seat is one that few should be subjected to.

The worst of the current situation is the apartment. My God deal with the slum lord; who owns the building, in a way that causes him the appropriate degree of torture. (I think God may have heard this one because his life doesn’t sound so hot these days) I was just ratcheting up because this is getting insane. My wall has been soggy for two years now and doing like any diligent rent paying individual I reported the first sign of trouble. My apartment has since decided to grow fungus on the walls, drop inordinate amounts of plaster and paint, leak what appears to be toffee but smells like death from the bathroom ceiling, and pucker the wall in the stairwell outside.
The cause, or at least my theory, is really a combination of two theories one, a leaky drain union above my bathroom and two, an actual seepage from high above in the building near what is our entire side’s front doors. The ladies upstairs seem to have done something unspeakable to their rusty metal drainpipe so that I can see the drips coming down in the crawlspace.

I was told by the Natoor … also guilty of several inhuman infractions against the rent paying people of the building… that the so called plumber they had called in wanted to shut of the hot water for three days to see if the heater was the problem. Sorry buddy but the heater is in the corner of the crawlspace. There is nothing in that heater that would cause water to drip from pipes coming down through the ceiling. I even wiped the water heater down with a paper towel to see if there were any leaks but not a single drip was found.

This Natoor… was also present when the electricity company pulled the plug on my power in the middle of the day. HE KNOWS I NEED TO KEEP THE INSULIN COLD!! DIDN'T THE STRESS AND THE WAR TEACH HIM THAT?!?!? I received one missed call to alert me of something. I was under the assumption that the Natoor just wanted another damned translation of how his phone worked and how to upload more songs. I called back within 15minutes WASTING MY MONEY TO SERVE HIS IRREVERENT A$$. He didn’t pick up. 2 hours later as I decided to go back to grab lunch I was startled to find that my electricity had been turned off.
I had to dash over to the electric company office in what is the east side of Beirut (a place nobody can get a cab to unless they pay inordinate amounts of money) I was then informed after the usual Arab run around and tag team affair that I had a bill I hadn’t paid in 2002.
2002?!??!???
WHAT THE &^*(&%$??!!?!?!
I was busy paying bills in Chicago for electricity in 2002!!!
I was then lead to believe that I had to pay regardless to get the electricity back on… and if I wanted I could buy a power meter for a mere $300 and then I could take it with me as a gift when I left. Wow what I always wanted an electricity meter! Um isn’t that thingy so the evil company…. can BILL ME?
Why in hell’s name would I want a device that ADDS bills without providing decent service.
It’s hard enough reasoning through a bill for phones here in Lebanon let alone the capricious way that the electricity decides to grace us with its presence.

I parted with 90,000 Lira and was told the electricity would be on in less than an hour. One cold dark night and a cold dark shower the next morning would prove otherwise. I went back in to pick up my receipt (that I had been had for a bill costing 72,000 that was upgraded to 90,000 on what felt like a whim was just to ad insult to the affair). The fact the power still wasn’t on was part of the deal here in the Middle East. Nowhere in the Middle East is such pride and distinction given to screwing things up properly than this wonderful country called Lebanon.

For those of you angry folks about to flame this blog…. Take a look at the road (DIS)(cough cough) con-struction that occurred POST WAR along the Corniche. That little road now has so many hazards it’s trying to win the Lebanon’s most riddled road. I think it may overtake Bint Jbeil in a matter of minutes. Case and point.

Just for dessert let’s talk about the way that the downtown protests have put port-o-lets over the sewer grates that used to swallow my bike tires. YUP they pipe the waste right into a storm drain and…..

YOU GOT IT TROOPS RIGHT INTO MY DIVESPOTS!!!

SO yesterday I caved.
I got a heater… a nice BIG Italian model with both electricity AND Gas. Those little rotisserie chickens will have nothing on me in front of this home sized flame thrower. May the windows sweat with the heat!!!

Ok enough talk of waste flames and drains… I’ve got to go get back to looking at noseblow rorscharch tests which will require more Kleenex… This pressure in my head feels like it wants to grow up to become a headache.

Dante has NOTHING on call centers!!!

2007-01-02T11:38:00.000+02:00

It was a bitter 2C morning at Malpensa…
The flight was supposed to leave at 10:40…am…
All your intrepid hero wanted to do, was get a page over the intercom…
Italy and the Mediterranean mindset had other ideas…

From the call center at the Malpensa airport…
To an English interpreter…
To an Italian Operator…
To an Alitalia Group desk…
To an Alitalia main number…
To a flight status the ring went…

*****
“Hello Can you try that in English?”
*****
“Yes here is the flight number and yes it’s Alitalia”
*****
“Yes, I know it will leave shortly”
*****
“Are you telling me there are no page telephones?”
*****
“I’d just like to talk to her”
*****
“Lemme get a pencil”
*****
Clicking on phone keypad
*****
(THINKING DAMN LOST IT)
*****
“Ok one more time”
*****
“Do I call this number to get to a page telephone?”
*****
(These idiots invented European silk, the renaissance, Ferraris, and didn’t get around to the idea of a page telephone!?!?!?)
*****
“Ok so is there any way to reach this passenger?”
*****
“Hello Can you try that in English?”
*****
“Hi I just spoke with them they told me to call you”
*****
“Yes I was just on the phone with you”
*****
“No I don’t want the passenger list that is Illegal”
*****
“I’d just like to talk to them”
*****
“Thank you for being of absolutely NO HELP WHATSOEVER, you have a great day”
*****

After several phone cards international calls and attempts the flight had left…
The message went undelivered…
So much for the power of a determined young man…

That.... the message....to that passenger... Will be in their email when they arrive... With the record of when that file was created.

Yes I miss them already...

OOOO goody a CAMP OUT!!!

2006-12-15T15:21:00.000+02:00

Back in the Wilds of Lebanon again…
And since my last aged posting…

People are exploding in the south thanks to unexploded ordinance bon bons a gift of Israel… AGAIN…

People were shooting rockets into a downtown night club from a bridge that has Derek… the local translation for policeman in camouflage with an automatic weapon stand guard. And of course, nobody saw who it was.

And on a street where the traffic is more a parking lot than a road a politician was gunned down…. at point blank range…. After two cars crashed into the front and back of his little oriental number and opened fire…. it took almost a half an hour for the ambulance to arrive…
And of course, nobody saw who it was.

Then there is the tent city in downtown that has effectively destroyed an already indigent economy by closing what was once a financial powerhouse of business and nightlife.
More on the tent city in a bit…

The razor wire and the troops are getting irritating… Their sorry attempt at a Beiruti version of the Iraqi Green zone leaves so much to be desired.

First there is the SERIOUSLY WEAK body/bag searches that appear more in line with just hassling your efficient packing efforts rather than looking for anything,
Then there are the Soldiers living in tents which it appears they themselves had to by and getting up to boy scout behavior in those tents (farting and swearing),
Next, the camp out that they have going in my Gym,
Forth, the haphazard placement of roadblocks, that seem more to suit the laziness of those laying the cement blocks and barbed wire rather than some sort of strategic placement,
Fifth, the littering of pretty cobbled streets with old school French armored track driven personnel carriers,
Sixth, the constant state of gripe-ing that afflicts any cabbie taking me anywhere near the area,
Seventh, the fact that none of the little soldier boys gets that in order to maintain peace one must maintain a working economy,
Eighth that the politicians could care less that the tent city means that there are hundreds of people NOT GETTING WAGES because of some crack pot idea that a campout is a way to impeach a president.
I guess it didn’t hit on radar for these politico boys… that those camping hundreds will not be much use after starving to death or contracting some form of cholera due to the lack of decent sanitation downtown.

Yes the tent city. The Aoun posters are everywhere right next to the Hassan Nasrallah pictures. There are nerghila nights were anyone can get their hit of tobacco via water pipe. You can eat the thurmus and corn on the cob just like on the Corniche (the Mediterranean Sea/Lebanese version of Baywalk) what else could you need other than your local party flag available at the Sodeco flag salesman at the top of the tent city. There are also not to be missed the portalets…which are piped right into the same storm drains that dump out into my beloved Mediterranean Sea.
Yup, that is the same ocean that Israel “inadvertently” polluted beyond repair by hitting the oil that ran Lebanon’s electrical facilities. Interesting how it was a war against terrorism that terrorized turtles, tourists, my favorite fish for food (Sultan Ibrahim), countless dive sites, white sandy beaches that used to have Lebanese holiday makers and the beloved Byblos port.
Once again there goes diving!

I wonder how much longer this game of chicken that translates to let's see how close we can get to civil war will go. I hope that these people realize how tired the entire country is. I doubt it but I hope it in spite of them.

Another Day in the Breezes of the Med

2006-08-06T15:15:00.000+03:00

Days stretch out and melt one into another here in Cyprus…It’s hotter than Florida but the sun is weaker in the tanning department… I am still trying to grapple with the reasons why…

My one eyed cat roommate has taken it upon himself to demand a daily combing…His hair seems trapped in "bad hair day mode" for the entire duration of his life...
Being a 15 year old (cat to human years is like 105!!!) I am sure that he has gotten to the point where all crusty old man principles apply.

I have become a regular at the pool below and am often running along the sea road… Did I mention earlier I miss my bike?

I have been in contact with Abed and what he told me wasn’t where I gathered my details… It was what he DIDN’T tell me that sent the message home…

Abed’s wife had family in Dahiyeh… The young couple had rented a large apartment in Choueifat…Abed’s family lives in Ouzai…

To give the audience of intellectuals the background on Abed…
Abed’s wife has recently gotten out of hospital after giving birth to a son…C-section. This labor was a near 18 hour episode that shows the amazing competency of the Lebanese Doctors at AUH. She was puffed up like a toad when I saw her thanks to the free of charge nosocomial infection…
It would be nice if HOSPITALS PAID for infections they gave you!!! But no....
AUH was billing her for staying in longer…
I won’t even start on the fact that the young lad was stuck in the NICU for almost a week… Pretty trying times for these two young people.

Just to make things a bit more dramatic...Israel decided to play an important role in its Hezbollah recruitment position by destroying the neighborhood where the wife’s family is from.

I have several colleges at AUB who go back to Dahiyeh every now and then to make sure that their building isn’t destroyed…If they are unfortunate enough to see their home reduced to sand they start polishing their only remaining possessions…memories...That is all there is that is left...
It is amazing how valuable memories are when the roots that they grew from are severed by a made in the USA and delivered by the local Hebrew pizza boy weapons start raining down. Human emotion protects the human mind from the inevitable erasure of all things in existence…

God bless the Buddha for putting it so well!

After getting married Abed had rented an apartment in Choueifat … That home’s glass was vaporized by a too close for comfort strike…

Abed’s life history is quite a bit more interesting than what many may find as the boring undeveloped numb story of destruction…I shall begin at a pivotal moment in his life…He was a young man of 18…sitting across the table from Dad at breakfast… Dad didn’t come home that night for dinner. Abed would be burying him in a few hours… His father had fallen three floors in a construction accident leaving Abed at the tender age of 18 his three brothers and sister fatherless. Their mother managed the home in Ouzai that Abed’s father built with his bare hands… There are marks of his work left on the walls and in the mortar…

I found out in so many words the other day over the phone that the now 27 year old’s family home…The home of his older brother and niece. His younger brother’s home (a cleric) and that of the sheik’s son and daughter {the one where I worked on the wiring and plumbing during one of the political breaks we had last year at the faculty}…The home where his mother held together a poor family once their father left a vacuum in the stability of life is gone…
That little parched scruff of land that I had ridden past on the bicycle…that I myself had helped build additions to[my very own version of habitat for humanity in Lebanon]…GONE…

I have undertaken the solemn task of rerouting my future...I hope the detour is temporary…although not one of them ever has been…Those whom I have met along the road I thank you for the time and wonderful dialogue…
Life’s explorations are always better when there are witnesses to me screwing up. Alone here in Cyprus …
Screwing up isn’t even possible there is nothing to do…other than wait for Lebanon

Unless, of course, you consider me screwing up with the cat…
He’s constantly angry at me these days I have come to believe he has formulated the hypothesis that I am forcing him on a diet… This could have consequences…I hope that he doesn’t decide to start military sorties to stop my militia from creating an undemocratic situation in the penthouse…

The wind is starting to pick up here on the patio and my patience is wearing thin…I have been trying to get a piece going for a while now…it sits curled up and unmoving like some aborted fetal idea... this one is currently without the decency to get itself into shoes and take off running like some other famous ideas I have had…

The ones you want to be living always take the most work as they go on to code and drain you to the point you abandon these fleetings in logic...These patients of the mind get called DOA (dead on arrival)

On another subject...Just to clear it up for the armies of the world… Phosphorus... yeah, the neat stuff that makes that match click into a tongue of flame by just scraping it along the cardboard.
SHOULD NEVER BE PUT IN BOMBS headed for civilians…

I’m fine with it hitting tanks, bunkers, pill boxes, hangars, and armored personnel carriers but homes no that is a BIG NO NO…Those troops know they are killed and kill for a living…

The kids and families don’t…

But this my point is double edged yes readers I must admit it is a little tirade…

Those of you that run around in Battle Dress should expect to take the same treatment…
melting into the population just proves you were never a warrior…you were never someone who believed enough to die for it…those who you kill are as meaningless to your cause as you are…
If you want to fight by all means fight… but do not bring your family to the front by retreating back to them to drink tea…This process of letting their lifeless bodies be paraded around (you don't expect red cross workers to do their job ON NO THESE BOYS PLAY PRESS JUST LIKE THE OTHERS) weapons turn them into a side of kibbi nayieh just like the rest of us.
Such behavior is more cheapening of human life that you idiots thinking you are Rambo by putting on pretty little marches every other weekend.

Yes troops they are ALL wrong because they are both doing the same thing…
They aren’t fighting one another...
They are fighting against people living and dreaming…
People should only have politically permissible dreams according to these jerks…
Sorry you guys with guns…I don’t agree…
Dreams and evaluation of the real facts are our human rights…I refuse to be a sheep.

You can take the man from the mountains but you can't take the mountains from the man

2006-08-03T03:21:00.000+03:00

I feel that this blog should get a re-title-ing… My adventures now occur in Cyprus which is in many ways like Lebanon… There is Arabic spoken in the streets….By Lebanese even!!!
There is the same slow lilting irreverence for the rules…
There is the sea and the mountains…
Cyprus is also facing a collapse…
It has requested entrance into the EU…This translates to a Animal House hazing to end all hazings… The paddles and the beat downs will be coming…The older Frat brothers are going to hammer in the most deep scars possible and then turn it all into a welcome in handshake…
The Russians I have been told are not coming to Cyprus anymore as they require visas to enter the EU.

The Lebanese had left Cyprus to return home to Lebanon…I wonder how the homecoming party is going there.

Cypriots have themselves an interesting lot…They live for three months of the year feeding on the rich blood of the tourists…only to the starve the remaining…
Today I fell in love with Cyprus…all it took was a trip with the family to the ancient regions of the Black pines…

In truth I wasn’t falling in love with Cyprus….I was missing Lebanon… The switchback roads beckoned me as once they had done in the mountain towns of Broumana… The smell pulled back memories of the pines in Ithaca…The cool breeze rolled out memories of the sounds by the lake that hid between the dorms and the physics buildings at Cornell.

I always thought that smell came from the mulch…it was always an interesting hammered mix of copper, rusty nails and manure…I had finally realized that this incense was the black pines themselves. Their squashed tops seemed to have been bent down by a glass ceiling…

I have photos of the trunks of these beasts…the lichen and the moss…the sap and the boney scars from branches long forsaken to gravity…

I was sure that the Kurdish blood was the problem…The buzz clicking in my soul was almost unbearable…As we crested the rises and furrowed the switchbacks I could feel the rush and surge of the minute changes in altitude reverberate in my pulse. My uncle who was playing official tour guide got into a bit of a spat with my mountain woman aunt…was Shaklawa better than this? It had been ages since I had seen the mountains I was told…No it hadn’t I had been there less than 5 days before I decided to get tossed on a naval ship to wake up in Cyprus…The Lebanese mountains were beautiful…

Then came a quick baptism, the water of which, is made of curses for the Israelis who were pounding the Lebanese and those currently instigating the unrest in Iraq… We all participate in such lava laced obscenity fests…It feels like by pouring some bile out this far from the action we are actually affecting the Karma a little…maybe making a ripple might tempt the fates just to drop a stitch and let this part of the thread of suffering end…I wish I was doing more.

We passed through several little “resort” sections which sickened me with their unabashed consumerism… The real beauty, of such places, is the homes slapped on the side of mountain slopes… Maybe I’m a bit of an elitist but these single homes away from the “village” are the ones that get to me… The loaners… Those are the real mountain folk.
I wanted my bike…I wanted my Broumana bike riding buddy…I wanted to feel those feelings again…I only got the hollowed out close but not quite feeling. I had to open the window of the car to breathe feel the rush of the wind.

As we whipped along the road from the back seat of the car I knew it was too fast…The dream was folding up and as we descended the heat reminded me of the thump… The return of that feeling as the bombs pounded Dahiya…

I had descended Broumana on the Bike… I had slipped it down and around bends crushed a rise in Ashrafie and slung my brand new seven frame up past the Parliament house at the crest of the Downtown locality… I remembered the quietness of that ride punctuated by a tingling feeling of terror…How I had dropped my pump as I sped at over 70km/h down past the ABC shopping complex.

I remembered then and now days before the bombing…the restaurant Waterlemon (yes it isn’t melon) where they had mistakenly served us a walnut shell in the salad…

I remembered buying my “stand in” Louis Garneau helmet after I nearly melted down from lack of bike riding post hit and run accident…That was the Beautiful day…When I knew…

I remembered the great wedding dash-fest that bounced me between Zara…The hair salon…The manicure…Otter the tailor…and one of the most peaceful nights I have ever had.
But most of all I remember the mist…The cold, crisp, can’t see anything sort of thick cotton, that cloaks mountains even as they are destroying a city below…

The crushing feeling as I left that haven…The crackling of the wind as the bike laced down those drops… The return of the altitude…

But most of all I poured over the jagged edged hole of emotion…She was gone…

The rack gymnastics and locker talk...TIMAN AND MURGAH---rice and tomato sauces...IRAQI FOOD YUM!!

2006-07-30T11:50:00.000+03:00

The ship, as it was painted, lead me to believe she was from the forties. The way the doors were cut into the hull and how everything felt old had me certain I was riding in a witness to World War II… a date that will live in Infamy… But this baby was new…Just loved in very thoroughly over 20 years… The Whidbey Island was designed with a new navy toy in mind… Those of course being the LCAC’s spoken of previously on this Blog…

Being commissioned by the US Navy meant that this ship had to have all sorts of Admirals ruining the broth…

There were an abundance of hands making this baby the burden of the lowest bidder.
Our enterprising ship builder thought it best to cut costs. And at least recover some of his losses so that his daughter might actually be able to give birth to his grandchild in a hospital rather than a cardboard box.

Those of you, that have been with those “other victims,” in the audience know that cost cutting; means suffering for your poor beloved author.
This suffering came in the form of lack of sleep. I along with several marines whose paths crossed some of the same stomping grounds of my “younger years” held a court. Yes this was full on locker room stuff ladies. Topics ranged from Yuengling… to firing 50 caliber machine guns…From politics… To the mountain of porn these lads had amassed in their idle hours…Their fears that coming home to a 3 month pregnant wife that they had left 11 months ago…Their plans after the military and what life is like in those strange stretches where you’ve only got one thing to do and that is ponder…

These marines were artillery…Just like the boys shooting from Israel…They knew what the rounds did…But unlike me they had not seen al Jazeera and their horrific way of making victims merely Meat!

I was struck by images this morning as they pulled a family out of Khana… I had been through the streets of Khana in the past on my way up to Bint Jbeil… The houses were shoddily put together but even the best buildings would not have held up to that sort of bombardment. The exteriors of these houses were intact… Image remained the sole goal for buildings in Lebanon… The interior and supports folded under… All that remained was the veneer.

The image that strikes me the most is a child clinging to his mother in rigormortis barely it was his mother from the shape of her hands and wedding ring yet to be uncovered by the Red Cross.

I had concluded my discussions with the boys and slipped into an abandoned rack. The brunette whose family had squatted the entire library of prime real estate seemed appalled that I swung myself so slowly deliberately and easily into the rack( plank dressed like a bed) next to the one her father had until recently occupied. They had made the mistake of moving their baggage. The rack was as high as a man’s head so I pride myself on being light and graceful enough to get a pull up grip and hold my body out horizontal to slide in. Mum had told me one of her uncles was a champion swimmer British sailor. I guess those Brit genes kicked in…No sea sickness no discomfort in a completely uncomfortable ship…THIS WAS LIFE AT SEA.

After a bit of shut eye I checked my BG which had bottomed out at 56. I bolted for the mess(cafeteria). All I had time to grab was a waffle and a cup of coffee from one of those frothy machines you find at any government institution. Back to the racks next to the “head” (toilets)… I was reminded by one of the Docs (medics) I had been chatting to that I had to pick up my insulin from the hospital. A quick clip along the corridors that resemble hamster tunnel-ways, a slide down the stairs, hopping off over the two last steps, and I was there. It was good I had brought my bag because these were the people I was leaving with.

I felt it only right…First on LAST OFF.

Leaving involved observing several elderly individuals velcroed into a backboard being dragged around stairs. Several marines were barked at to offload the trash…only moments later to be told by the CO (Commanding Officer (the BIG CHEESE)) that “guests” come first.

I had failed in avoiding a handshake with the guy… I detest people who pander at politics…
It was then my turn…After hours of sailing… after a wedge shaped view of the now battered Manara below my house… The idea that it would be a while before I saw the hamam al askari(bain military) {military sports club}… That was always interesting hamam is Arabic for toilet…it is the military toilets?

After hours of sailing and a walk down the plank… I was in Cyprus.

I made it through check-in to see the bespectacled blonde whom I had met at the embassy. I didn’t know how long my stay would be. I didn’t want the next flight out to the US. I wanted to stay close to Lebanon.

I spent a few hours after check-in and my visa stamp waiting on Logistics…My poor poor family members DID NOT KNOW I WAS ON THE SHIP. Through several panicked phone calls and tag team messages I got in touch with my WONDERFUL Uncle Farouk…

GOD BLESS HIM!!! I was given taxi directions to the “tourist area” and the penthouse he had there. I was given a promise of seeing him…HOW MANY LONG YEARS had it been?!?!? Not since his son came to the US with cancer… He had visited other times but I had been away at school… One of my favorite Uncles… It’s his humor and style…Uncle was a BIG mucky muck in the Police and suffered HORRIFICALLY when the Anfal campaign happened.
(Saddam committing war crimes against Kurds…sending them nearly naked… walking over the mountains to Iran)
Uncle was tortured FIRST…

I pushed the doorbell and there she was….Aunty Layla… That smile of hers will never leave me. Being the Kurdish side of the family I must tell my audience that she has SEA GREEN EYES! and nearly red hair. Yup we Kurds ARE SOOO NOT ARAB!!!

I was going to get some IRAQI COOKING…

I bumped into Salar a few hours later when he woke up… Salar was my family’s Lance Armstrong… His cancer took his knee.. But now… it looked like he had eaten an ENTIRE BULL… The guy was massive! And very nicely bronzed!

The belly of the beast...The hospital...the Lieutellan... and cursing the mess (cafeteria)...ADVENTURES ON THE USS WHIDBEY ISLAND

2006-07-27T13:38:00.000+03:00

Sorry but the second installment of the story was Delayed…

It appears that I have suffered one of the worst cases of I miss my bike-itis in all of recorded history.
Yes I even went as far as staring at a poor son of a gun moving like a mini
(albeit slower than I move) bullet along the Cypriot roads.

It is true. I have arrived in the loving arms of family may God bless them for their kindness which I hope not to impose upon for too long.
When all of this foolishness is behind us I can get back to Lebanon and finish my degree.

Now onward to the juicy details!

The skirt of the hulking grey beasty, known as an LCAC, was a carpet that lead us down to the ramp in the back of the USS Whidbey Island. The ship was a cavern inside with tanks and HUMVEE’s all throughout the hold. It appeared that this would also be a long wait.

The irreverent to the rules Lebanese were to suffer the indignity of getting their own baggage and dragging it aboard. They would then have to entrust it to the boys of the Navy…

Translation being that they would throw it on top of the bunks to make sure that nobody stole their sleeping spot...Worst of it is THEY NEVER USED the sleeping spot... leaving me only 2 hours on the rack.

When I first arrived a wonderful M.D., Lieutenant Pugh, was unlucky enough to get flagged down…”am I the guy you are looking for?” then I whipped out the triage card. I guess that I was….

Triage cards WHICH SHOULD BE USED IN ANY MULTI-CASUALTY SCENE rank individuals.

You get the bunny meaning one of your ABC’s is critical and you get a ride out first…
You get the tortoise meaning you can make it if you don’t go first…
You get the black background with the white dagger cross if you are dead or.... if you are not dead you might as well be.. because you are going to take more than the unit can commit to make you reach the hospital in a living condition…

On the flip side there are specifics that tell them where you are “hit” and a short description piece below…

It is truly amazing to look at what a TON of information you can get on a little rolodex card with a bit of string on it.

The Lieutellan (as they put it in "South Pacific") took me up to the Hospital…It was there I met a familiar sight…but there were some pieces missing…. An operating room…only this one lacked the laminar flow and double doors… It was a bed with lights and that was about it.

Crazy the way the military cuts things back to the boney fundamentals!

I got my blood test and it popped out a whopping 198 and that was AFTER an injection…I was 225 on the beach… Things were getting pretty sour in my blood so life was going to be a bit painful for a while. I was to push fluids as our health team…cough cough (translation me and the MD) decided…
I thought the best bet would be an IV…
SO.... I got a pretty lousy stick in the arm. The sailor doing it was roping the thing around for what felt like forever…The stupid tip of the thing wouldn’t get under the skin.

FINALLY he got the Teflon off of the steely needle and I started getting my bags of goodies!!!

I learned an interesting thing though this little process… THE MILITARY DOESN’T HEPRINIZE their IV lines….strange I thought, but then again these are usually strapping young guys they are treating and those guys may blow a clot given some of the speeds they push on fluids…

After my first baggie of saline I was feeling a bit better I went out on the deck to take a look at the situation and give some of the most important people in my life a call. The signal was choppy just before they blew the hell out of the Cell phone towers.

I also got off one of the most important messages of my life… I am still wondering how its recipient feels about it… Not knowing is probably the worst part of it… that is what makes war such a stress. These days you don’t know about the bombs until AFTER they hit… I guess the same must be true of messages such as this one. I don’t like betting at all. But to be honest this one didn’t feel like a bet. The results wouldn’t change the message or what was driving it to be sent… I had only swung though…The beginnings of the motion started AGES ago…and as I got closer to that instant things sped up. This is a horrific golf metaphor my dear readers and I know that you know I should know better… But at the bottom of the swing when the club is moving the fastest… the best thing to do is be ZEN… flow in and flow out nothing drastic nothing spastic…
COMFORT is key…
This message, strange as it may seem…
brought comfort. I was skating a razor’s edge by sending it…
but I was being honest…
and for me honesty is the key…
although I feel sad that I didn’t engage the recipient as I had initially plotted and planned…
AND THERE WAS A BUTTLOAD OF PLOTTING AND PLANNING….
but there it is…I did the best that I could with what I had…May they find it to be something worth smiling about when they tell the kids…

If they are reading this…. I would like them to wave at the screen because I can see when you dropped by….
Dear Reader….
and for how long too….Mu haa haa haa haaa

I went back behind the bolted door after taking a couple pictures of the people standing around and the last sliver of Beirut I would see for a long time…

The next part of the blog is fogged in the metal cocoon where I am not sure how the hours passed other than that it was mostly in discussion with some great marines… Times like this I really kick myself that I didn’t get the chance to shoot through a military career and have everything paid for come out with an MD and get the whole Navy/Air force/Marine benefits.

The only problem is the complete lack of sleep…unending boredom… followed by the intense focus… I faced that in the fire service only not for months on end. So I recanted and surrendered my spot in the hospital for a woman with a broken hip….

What came next was the great bunk experience…. And that my dear readers…will come later…

Of LCACs and Marines...

2006-07-23T23:31:00.000+03:00

On a particular morning a particular American looking type was seen riding his beloved Seven bike for what would be the last time...
in a long time...

I wore my Livestrong shirt...My pretty Fox racing bib...and took my time to think through a serious phone call I had at 5.
It was my sister...and I had some new information to throw into the mix...
The mix wasn’t getting better...

I then proceeded back home after and hour and a half of cranking around Dbayeh... The American’s were staging and the Marines were nowhere in sight...
It was all Lebanese troops on the outside... Parked cars were lined up on the bridge over to the military base...

The road was closed by a big khaki colored truck down in Dbayeh... so the loops I turned were set at my speed... it was heaven without the cars.

I saw two riders swinging around the other side of the road near Chopsticks as I passed the ugly office building that sits near the stadium that is under construction....

I thought it was Zaher and his Girlfriend...One was on a Scott bike but as I pulled up I saw the other was on a Trek. These were new people and the guy was spinning his legs at an amazing clip with his knees out like a damned penguin. SAD! He could move the bike when he wanted but I knew I could take him if I wanted on a sprint. So, I sat back and rolled along with them.

They would pull their wheel up to my back wheel doing what is a cardinal sin in group riding which meant I kept having to jump or slide back behind to prevent any accidents. They were constantly sprinting it out and changing the speed. They can't have been doing intervals it was just pretending to race me on my bike. I got bored and angry.

After three laps I peeled off and told them goodbye tacking a route back past the Medco stations and the three Gasoline and Oil dumps.

The ride up through downtown was haunting.
I wanted to take pictures of how empty it was but didn’t have the heart. The picture of Jibran Twainey is stuck in my mind... I knew it would as I stared at it...empty democracy...empty politics...empty unused oportunity....
Then I turned to my left and there was the blue domed mosque closed and memorial to Harriri deserted.

I pulled up that hill just past Starco that used to beat my legs into submission. I clicked over it without any alarm or abandon I just spun in my seat and rose over the climb past the medical building. I hated that I had to swerve around the demolition job they were doing to repair the sidewalk along AUB. The ground was dark and the terra cotta that is common to Lebanon was not present. This was not native soil!

I rode up past Smith’s grocery shop and down to my apartment building. I wheeled the bike in on the back and pushed it into the elevator as I had done in calmer times. I knocked on the door and Abed answered asking me to wait. After a pause I swung the bike in the door after Abed gave me permission to enter.

His wife didn’t have her Hijab on and she was getting ready to go back to the hospital..They were quite worried about their son.
Haider as he will be called was born at the beginning of this war... His age will be its anniversary. His mother ruptured her membranes and suffered a nosocomial infection post operation and the poor little guy is stuck in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(Spelled NICU but said...NICK U).

There he will stay for four more days... That was my last thought as I rode up that hill... the decision was made...

I told Abed to drop of his worried wife and told him to come right back rather than deal with the Daman (social insurance in Lebanon).

He left and I took a shower and cooked the last ma’anek I had.... Some last supper...
I worked over the thoughts in my head...the bamiya I had soaked last night... how good they would have been for dinner.

How do I put it to this guy?....
What do I say?....

I laid the stack of money on the table...Just enough for 6 months rent and the water and expenses. There was a bit left over but that was it...
My shirts flapped lazily on the clothes line outside... all of the other clean clothes were a mound on the chair in the bedroom. I pulled down the sheet we had put up to keep the bedroom “theirs” if I needed to use the toilet at night...

Then I waited.

I sat down stuck in pause with my “go bag ready in the corner.”
My mind and blod froze...

He didn’t knock he simply rolled the knocker that made a scraping sound on the door. I let him in.
He asked me right out what was up.
I said sit down...
We are going to talk...
I’m going to tell you everything I have on the situation right now...

I felt that cold icy feeling that I knew well in the Emergency room. I was clicking out emotionally. This was going to be brutal to receive...

The facts rolled out slowly and I checked him over after each to see that he understood. I could see he felt his lower jaw drawing up into the back of his skull... He would feel it scraping and sliding horizontally until he was certain that he couldn’t breathe.
But he did breathe... and would keep on breathing.

I taught him what I could and tried to hand him the keys... He was shattered and took off with the money to visit his family. I pray I get the chance to get him out.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and marched the familiar track back to AUB waving Goodbye to a curious Abu Ali. That tanned jokester who used to make the most profane comments in the Dukan’e would be the last I would see of the guys who put a human face my neighborhood. I was still out of it emotionally so I smiled and waved.

I walked up past Arne’s door and phoned on my mobile. I had to tell him the bike would be with him... He was floored... Should I go? How long will it be?
I don’t know the answer to these questions...questions all the Lebanese have asked me lately... I know how it is now. I know where it will head given certain contingencies and I am seeing certain paths close off...

Bouncing into the faculty I didn’t run into anyone I wanted to see... There was just Dr. Nuwayhid.
He tried to make the slick comment "Do you want to help us?"
It made me IRATE and SICK to my stomach....
I grit my teeth and opened up my outdoor voice at his little meeting....
They got a bit of a jolt....
“I TRIED TO HELP”
THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE WOULDN’T HAVE IT
THEY WOULD LOVE THIS TO BECOME A HUGE CRISIS
THEY WANT TO BECOME THE ONE’S TO SAVE THE ARAB VERSION OF DAFUR. I CANNOT RELEASE ALL THAT I KNOW ABOUT THIS OVER A BLOG AND WOULD NEVER DREAM OF MAKING A STATEMENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION. SO I WENT MUTE....
“BUT I WAS INFORMED I COULDN’T”
“RATHER THAN BURDEN YOU PEOPLE HERE I AM BEING PULLED FROM LEBANON”
I turned and walked away... and heard one of them comment that I should talk to BBC
I wouldn't talk to BBC... They needed to know that I wasn't walking out on them it was THEY WHO HAD WALKED AWAY FROM ME!

Abed’s wife was in the hospital and I had to drop off the keys...
It took ages to get her away from her son. She asked where Abed was...
Idiot that I am I told her the whole truth.

“Why is he going to Ouzai? His Family doesn’t need him RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Why are you giving me the keys? What is going on?”
The questions came out fast and desperate...I was still running ice in my veins...I said nothing other than he was busy sorting out papers with the Daman... and that I had to give him the keys.
“Are you going?”
“Abed knows what’s going on.... talk to your husband”
“Bye and God be with you Rayan” I got this frigid feeling that she would be a KIA....
Her round face and plump little Cherub expression was marred by the wide eyed toddler look.
She was a child waking up in a dream where she was falling. All there was around her was an abyss and the wind told her that she was moving down fast.

I dropped down four floors and spoke to those people at the desk in front of the Laboratory.
“Is Fadi around?”
“Nope he doesn’t get in Until 4”
“Are you certain?”
The greasy haired idiot bolted back the same reply and leaned back trying to show me his “I OWN YOU SECRETARY LOOK”
So I whipped out my phone and Fadi answered. I looked back at our pug little grease bag and whipped him the “Oh, so YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE A BIG $H^T” look.
Fadi came up and I handed him the locker key...He may need those supplies...and he is the best person to distribute them.
We walked back to the faculty so I could show him the locker. Then came a march up to Bliss House. I got a grilled chicken sandwich on a sesame philly roll, of course no Mayo.

I humped out to that crazy intersection below the Medical school and down to that strange little drop where the trees seem to hold up the street before it plummets down toward Clemenceau. Fadi was angry I paid for the meal he insisted upon flagging down a cab and I hopped in. I told the driver to go to the spot where they are evacuating American’s in Dbayeh but first I wanted to grab some water... I spent all but my 10000 Lira in Lebanon...I find it STRANGE how there is always 100000 that comes out of Lebanon

I got up to the line at around noon and presented my passport. The US is currently doing first come first serve. I sat down in a plastic chair and readied for a long wait. Then I saw him...
My first DOC!
Yup, this was a Marine! The others were silent movers saying nothing this one noticed I was checking my blood sugar.
“Sir”(they always address you in the most formal fashion) “ Are you an Insulin Dependent Diabetic?” I could hear the southern drawl comming out smooth and caramel like maple syrup on pancakes...Wow it had been ages...

So that is how I got fast-tracked on the ship. I met a few officials I had been in contact with on the way out and was then to be loaded on the LCAC...

For the un-initiated...The LCAC is a FRIGGIN BIG HOVERCRAFT... and YES I HAVE PICTURES!

I was escorted down to the hovercraft after registration on the manifest. This battle gray craft with its deflated skirt was slouching up on the shore. Into what was a slapped together aluminum matchbox we were tossed.

I sat there next to piles and piles of Baggage. YES they had told everyone ONLY 15Kg but of course the Lebanese don’t understand that the rules ACTUALLY DO APPLY TO THEM.
I had wished the US military would just dump these piles of things for people that are too ignorant considerate and haughty to understand that the 15kg is not random or arbitrary.

A QUICK SCALE MEASUREMENT WOULD SUFFICE then just toss the other garbage out. You pick what you toss but you only get 15Kg in a backpack for each PERSON…by collecting kids you do not collect extra baggage!
The purpose of course it is to keep the ship light enough to sail properly and to prevent issues in weight and adverse weather in choppers.

Lucky for these idiots things were unremarkable but the next time I hope they go down with their baggage!

The clatter of the blades as the loaded the last of us up in what were tin boxes with benches was not as bone rattling as we had been led to believe. To be honest the ride was silky smooth. The shadow of the ship and the black pall on the window told us we had arrived…

THE USS WHIDBEY ISLAND…

We slid up the ramp at the back of the ship and walked down ramps to get to the main hold (which I also have pictures of). This being part one and me being so dead tired I shall fill you in on the rest of my trip and the Cypriot adventure stage of Otter’s chronicles tomorrow….
My prayers are with the people….My sympathy as well…My stern conviction is that the professional THEIVES AND CROOKS who conduct this flippant con game called politics will continue to steal from those who are most deprived.
May they suffer in this life far more than they can manage.
May they endure endless moments of want may they realize at every instance their existence is futile.... and... may God see fit to deny them the ability to continue!

I went to visit where they threw holes in the road that once lead to the sky

2006-07-21T17:10:00.000+03:00

These are interesting times indeed! All those Lebanese with foreign passports are leaving…
Those that do not stare at me for NOT leaving…
It isn’t that it bugs them, I think it’s because they don’t see the possibility of carrying the effects of this situation.

Like I wrote of yesterday…Lebanon’s dream is dying… I never dreamt of Lebanon…

I see her as she is…

I see the sharp ragged edges and the silk that covers the skin beneath.

I see the beauty and the filth of it…

I saw it from the beginning.

Those who are with me, will be forced to admit to its faults.

I pray they learn and try to change them rather than throw a sheet over and pretend again.
But these days not much learning goes on. I walked by the Hospital today as a mass email went out concerning conserving electricity at AUB facilities… The idiots had left all of the ER windows open and there it was pouring out into the street. I have seen countless ones open with the A/C roaring away inside… Poor dreamers!

I know that they don’t care about sterility and the required airflow that reduces nosocomial infections. They use antibiotics in such a willy nilly fashion that I am sure AUH has contributed to several of the worlds most wonderful antibiotic resistant strains…They were just picked up somewhere else when one of the Lebanese who carries another passport was bouncing around passing them on to people.

The cities are growing quiet as are the roads…
This place is becoming a strange little ghost town…

Another Ghost town I visited was Ouzai. People in Ouzai can literally SPIT on the tarmac of the airport. So I visited today…

Mostly out of curiosity… and to take a peek at the airport from a spot I used to see the planes land…
The terminal is fine, the runway looks like a pile of coal has been dumped at particular spots along it. The hangars have patches in them where the sheet metal has curled up or flapped off and one lone MEA plane lays on its belly tailless without windows and doors. A hulk of what once powered the Lebanese economy.

I have seen bombed buildings beside the airport that were people’s houses in Ouzai… They are now pretzel twisted steel and pebbles…

So much for Lebanese construction!

It reminds me of the woman in front of the Embassy. She had your typical Middle American build and expressions but she was from Washington State. She said she was shocked to walk out on her doorstep where she used to relax with her husband and find shrapnel from a bomb lying there with broken glass. I guess she was a dreamer until then.

I am not mind you talking about hiding from everything…Merely accepting things for what they are…
And this is the kicker for most of those who I have tried to talk to about Lebanon….
Rolling up the sleeves and making the dream a reality…
Nope they want it Fast…Cheap…and with no work.

Things that come that easily
GO that easily.
There should have been more work on Lebanon… I know some of the audience will clamor there was tons of work.

I would agree in part… that part being…KEEPING AN IMAGE ALIVE… But Israel just shot out the projector bulb like they did the lighthouse and now we are seeing how dirty the little movie screen is.

The Lebanese have a HELL OF A LOT GOING FOR THEM!!! Unlike the Kaleej they have a long history
They have seen money come and money go…
But why pay so much for the image?
Why not build the foundation?
Why not prepare the ground rather than just throwing seeds in the air… The crops will take TIME and WORK but that time and work will REMAIN because despite bombing earthquakes and other catastrophes the base upon which it was built CANNOT BE DESTROYED… Without a base… all you have is a house of cards that will crumble in the next wind!
The fact that you didn’t build that foundation made civil war… last so long….and this one so hard for you to bear.
I hope that some of us can work… to try to show you how to build the base…
That, come what may, you can rebuild quickly and remain stable.

This base I believe works much like these little terrorist groups…
In CELLS!
And if one goes down the next one along rises .… Sleepers woken up by the shaking of the ground as a structure falls.
People close enough to see where the cracks started and BRAVE enough to admit them.
You Lebanese must be strong enough to patch them otherwise your society and culture would have vanished EONS ago.

But here you remain… IN DENIAL and that is why I am convinced your repairing jobs collapse so quickly.
Is it so hard to say I do not know?
Is it impossible to say you know better TEACH ME?
Does it destroy you to ask how can I make this day better than the last and pass that on to my children?

I leave it to you to be offended and hope that you can honestly listen to such questions and the reasons I wrote them… It isn’t me being arrogant…I honestly want to know how I can help!

Today I visited the Embassy to see what there was to see

2006-07-20T21:30:00.000+03:00

Yes… you can finally accept my not dead yet reply to the Hi..Keefik?
But we here on this Blog are looking for the real questions and real answers aren’t we my dear readers?
So what is the real question for today?
It is….Whether or not to go.
Today at the embassy came the feeling…. It was followed by a rattling little quote in my brain. I had told a spinning friend that I wouldn’t be the first to evacuate. Others closer to me would go first… Yup…they went… May God make their voyage swift calm and may they find peace from the sounds that used to fold them over in front of me.

The curved shape of the back and that bitter grappling hook grip their fingers made as they dug into their own shoulders…. I will never forget the look of it… The rockets were hitting in Dahiya… far from where we were… Having been in the thick of it I knew that if you heard it you were fine…

Not hearing it….

That is the kicker… you get the ring hollowed out sound and that sledgehammer ache in your ear. What feels like sweat running down your neck only to reveal itself in a crimson rim on your collar…That is the point you scraped by and the feeling that you’ve had your skin peeled off of you means that you were too close to the window.

These were built to do this to human flesh… with utmost cost effectiveness. The shrapnel and the concussion...

And all it took some punk kid up there thoroughly full of himself and his pretty jet clicks off a shot with a mild quiver of his thumb. There is no thought for this flyboy. They pulled the hesitation from him quite early in training. The key is racking up the effective yield so that when his buddy goes in to take photographic evidence he peels in rapture as he gets a Holy $h*# you really toasted that F*^%er! Of course this may get sprinkled with High Fives and the occasional toast.

Truth of the matter is…QUITE UNLIKE IN IRAQ….This flyboy doesn’t have to worry about getting his butt shot off! He has free reign in the sky. There is not sovereign airspace in Lebanon. I remember as early as my first April seeing the contrail bend over the middle of Beirut. I found it awfully strange that a passenger jet would make a wide turn like that. I hoped there wasn’t a crash imminent. I was assured it was not a commercial anything. That was Israel conducting what other countries consider an act of war. The flying though airspace without permission. Lebanon is a country of fun loving, singers, beach go-ers and food enthusiasts.
But these flyboys wouldn’t believe it even if you showed them Oceana before they bombed Damour. Yup T-back bathing suits and coconut oil. Those have got to be terrorists!
I would agree about some of them… That much silicone anywhere is an explosive entity!

But honestly folks…Lebanon has NEVER been a sovereign state. From the French…To the Syrians…To Israel… Lebanon has never been itself unto itself... It’s always been someone elses…

The IDEA of Lebanon is I grant you something completely different! I mean you can’t mix images of Teta and the great warak anab cook a thon… or that secret thing she does with the arayees with the idea of what a State is.

Lebanon only exists in a state of mind…

And now as the shudder rattles though the building we all wake up in the internet café… The flyboy let loose another one…The dream of Lebanon dies again.

Today I heard the yearning to sleep in the dream of Lebanon. That crawling back under the cover we used to do as Mum pulled us out of bed for school. The cry of a dream lost and the heavy price paid for a view of Southern Beirut ON FIRE…As they left that dream behind

The wave ripples through the earth again and as it comes again I catch myslef calculating...this one smaller and harder… It’s Dahiya they say… but to be honest every hit you don’t feel anywhere but in your core….

I leave you to the sounds of the concussion and echos that role through the city…Not killing me but killing a dream… And removing the homes of what will be more than half a million internally displaced persons…

The news informs us over the phone interview it is Haret Hareik….

Another night of wide eyed children scraping into their shoulders and this little internet café empties and the silence shrouds the night as the cars vanish from the streets.

I'm in a bit of a Thing right now so forgive the LONG WAIT!!!

2006-07-19T10:03:00.000+03:00

I know… I know…. There have been no postings in what feels like forever… My famished readers must have forsaken this little blog for dead. But I have decided to breath life back into it just to supply real life news from what the Lebanese are calling a war of epic proportions…
In other worlds I just thought I would let you know what was going on in this section of the world without anyone’s spin but mine...This morning they started repaving the areas near the airport known as Dahiya and Chueyfat(that’s how it’s pronounced not how they spell it) with bombs.
It was shortly followed by the compulsory fly-overs just to assess the damage.

I must say it is quite remarkable the precision of these weapons they are using. They can hit the building in the sweet spot and leave two others next to it still standing. Of course the glass and contents of them may become dust but the effect is something to witness.
I did when they hit the Manara. The plugged the thing right in the light bulb and left some of the glass that shielded it in place.
With such precision I am sure that the whole bombing thing went to these young pilot’s brains so they decided to bomb the ambulances. I know there are supposed to be rules of war concerning humanitarian aid but these guys get so bored in their fancy new jets that they take a little target practice now and then. It amazes me how silently the world has received the news that they have just blown up HUMANITARIAN CONVOYS!!!!
This sort of compassion was emulated by the Roman Empire concerning Christians in the coliseum. They only sent in the hungry lions.
Here at AUB classes have been suspended INDEFINATELY. Which according to one of my colleagues hasn't happened is a VERY long while. I don't see many of my professors around and the one or two whom I do meet are more the die-hards than the math types.Grocery shopping is also another interesting feat to have to accomplish. We have tissues and toilet paper but bread seems to be a big commodity here. I don't eat it... so me and my stocks of Basmati rice are a lot better off than the poor Lebanese fighting over slivers of dough.I am STILL Excercising. (Translation: peddling my bike over the shoddy roads of Lebanon) It seems the best way to keep my stress down and my sleep normal. Biking has now become heavenly in that I have no traffic to deal with and the only terrorizing part is when I pass the now empty fuel dumps on the sea road to the north.The neighborhood is full of NEW NEIGHBORS. This lot have NO MANNERS, little education, and aren't at all used to seeing the likes of me around. It's good that all the Natoors (doormen/ building superintendents) in the area know me and say hello because it seems to calm these Newbie's.In other news Abed's wife is giving birth RIGHT NOW and he is nursing injuries from a car accident. I think he snapped a ligament in his knee when the car hit him on his motorcycle, but all I can see is the dressings scattered all over him.Thank God I met him because there are NO TELEPHONE CARDS ANYWHERE...So fair warning mum... If my phone runs out... this could become use the USA PHONE LINE TIME. Sorry in Advance for the bill.I spend most of my non exercise days at AUB (the University has power all day and my apartment only at night it seems) But even this may not last long if the lines for gasoline and Diesel fuel are cut for much longer.
I have visited the mountains up above Beirut a few days ago in a wonderful little village called Broumana.
It's like SWITZERLAND up there!

There is an abundance of traffic, water, and fruit, but a complete lack of hotel rooms. Most of the Hotels in Hamra are beginning to empty (it’s too much for the destitute of Dahiya to pay) and those that are empty... go on to close.
In the south of Lebanon it is a completely different story. They are using artillery which is a "HELL OF A LOT CHEAPER" but also a hell of a lot more indiscriminant. Unlike those of you in the states we here get the full gory pictures with some irreverent low level ambulance guy presenting sections of children like they were lamb on sale at the butcher shop.
The weather up in the mountains is wonderful and I am thinking of visiting again with a German Neuroscience professor who I have become good friends with. Both of us are quite saddened by AUB's conversion into a Ghost town. It is even more depressing when we open the subject of what happens after this little change in the weather. It can’t rain Isreali rockets for more than 40 days and nights! Once Isreal lets up what happens with the people here. The powder keg is primed and ready to split Lebanon into Shi’ite and non-Shi’ite
The shi'ite poor are getting marginalized AGAIN as they seem to be in Iraq too. Something in me blames Iran for this because ever since there "Glorious Revolution" thier superpower aspirations have lead to funding terrorist groups. I'm not sure they understand that Xerxes empire has been HISTORY for over 10 centuries.But enough politics....the politicians can't help themselves let alone the people they are supposed to represent. When they do claim to be helping it seems they are conducting their very own version of Ocean’s Eleven on the population.

The Lebanese seem to live on rumors and to be honest I have grown sick of Dramatics. Tell me what actually happened and then go sob about some new myth you heard in the corner.War is not lived through by living from sound bite to rumor and back again.I have to thank Dad for reminding me of Iraq and what we faced there. Those of us with Kurdish blood have for generations known war and on Mum's side my Grandparents started a life together in one. So yeah I think I'm made of tougher stuff than this. Watching the Lebanese react to this attitude which I should have had at the outset is amazing. It sets them straight and they clam down.To be honest from what I remember of Iraq this still doesn't feel like much of a war YET! There is electricity and water. But I have been assured that the Mezot (Diesel) upon which Lebanon runs its generators is dipping below threshold levels. So things may get interesting soon.
Everything here in Lebanon is caught in Limbo and the roads into Syria though many in their number are dropping. All of the main roads have gone on to become pebble farms and iron pretzels.
I have been weighing out the idea of leaving... and on that note…they have sent in an assessment team and took out a few US citizens but the prospect of moving 25000 people seems pretty massive.
On that subject…this internet thing WILL NOT!!!
I GUARANTEE!!!!GO ON FOR LONG!!!Which worries me…as I have ONLY gotten Warden Updates from SOME SODDILY DONE WEBSITE the STUPID EMBASSY HERE IN LEBANON doesn’t tell us a GODDAMN THING.The other countries of the world are sending out mass SMS messages to their citizen's mobile phones I HAVE NOT RECIEVED ONE from the “GREAT U S of A” ...Maybe it would be good to register my British passport at least I can get news!!!
IT’S APPALING THAT THE SUPERPOWERED USA makes it’s citizens PAY TO GET THEM OUT! Maybe it is because they are cheap bastards who really don’t give a shit unless CNN covers it… that are charging for the ticket out… cost cutting includes keeping the people without information I guess. WAY TO MAKE YOUR CITIZENS SAFE AND COMFORTABLE!

Now remember folks Tax season is around the corner try asking where these taxes REALLY GO! But I am sure the ULTRA SHORT American attention span will keep them all safe from your rebuke.
It now seems that the Christian areas are the only ones free from attack. Good thing I have friends in those areas.Take care everyone and FOR GOD'S SAKE CALL!!!!

Ok He's concious....ASK him WHO ARE YOU... "NO NEED my dear ambulance driver...I'm ...er....I'm.....I'M BATMAN!"

2006-03-14T13:40:00.000+02:00

Hello again dearly Beloved readers...
It appears your Dear author has once again topped himself.
This story begins with of all things an itch. Itches, being strange little entities, have a way of running around on you. You have to admit my devoted literary regular...that that back itch migrates just ahead of your scratching device at velocities even NASA has problems explaining. Mine is called the need to get on the bike...
The setting one of Beirut's BEAUTIFUL the cold was still in the air the Sun was preparing to give out tans to any piece of skin silly enough to be exposed and your beloved author had just washed his bike. Yes! Bikes need washed just like cars. Only unlike bubble mobiles bikes get the grease back on you for touching their chains and the dust always seems to hide back in the notch of the bottom bracket no matter how hard you try to wedge your cleaning cloth in there. But no she looked a beauty...sparkly blue and happy.
I strapped my helmet on, suited up in my Livestrong yellow jersey so that the animals that drive here might get their eyes caught on me and for once SWERVE OUT OF MY WAY instead of INTO IT! Clipped in and headed down the hill near the Apartment. Then.... IT happened... Don't ask how... truth is I don't remember I just woke up cut up with a pounding headache and confused as all hell. Yup! Accident! And, not 2 minutes into my ride. A trip to the ER at AUH (American University Hospital {AKA voodoo medicine at it's finest}) and the tests began. CT for the melon and bleeding in the brain...X ray for the hip, knee, and shoulder. All this JUST before my favorite class in the Gym... Spinning. I was heading out for a pre class ride hoping for a decent build on my endurance phase. Instead I got sat down and told to hold off training or face a severe beat down!
My helmet is smashed... My bike is fine... My collar bone broken...AGAIN... and then there is the whole not remembering anything. I have a strange feeling something is horribly AMUCK! Why is it that my right side looks like I've been attacked with a rabid vegetable peeler and my left side only has a strange black stripe above my ankle. Why is it that my bike is fine on the right side but the LEFT side's hoods and handlebars are misplaced...?
My natoor (God Bless Him) is thoroughly convinced there is a plot afoot!
It involves the Most EVIL trifecto imaginable comprised of a waiter, a dish washer and a parking attendant.
It is of course obvious that Vader and the Emperor will be making a cameo appearance in this film my dear audience; but the issue with the actor's guild and unions are giving us a bit of a problem with the actual recording of it....
So here I sit with some very precious chunks of my skin shaved off with my underwear attatched like a loving aunt to your cheeks. My favorite bits are lying somewhere on the tire beaten path of a Beirut street! My arm in a sling.
I can’t train just yet…I haven’t earned the authorization.
I daren’t do it to early because threats from this gate keeper are nothing to scoff at.
My bike will again grow lonely, my helmet will again be ordered, and I will long for the black river of bliss that carries me to the next hill.
It almost makes one weep at the waste!
In other events... Pressure increases and life drags... It could just be the effect of the cage...All that sun and road out there taunting you like that can't be good for the brain!!!

And so Tutu Mangumbo the Local Witch Doctor told me I owed him 14 chickens...

2006-03-05T15:48:00.001+02:00

This is a catastrophe edition from the Wilds of the untamed Lebanese wilderness. That’s right your beloved author is in Beirut and things have gotten all the more complicated…
It appears that since our last update things have succeeded in going to hell in a hand basket and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!
First, after its initial suicide dive off of a desk in class my laptop has decided that though it can take falls it can’t take being opened carefully. The LCD contrast bulb has blown. This is a common and silly occurrence which means I am at Hanu’s clogging the bandwidth as I download this whopping 90.90 Megs of Windows updates.
Now everyone in unison… God Bless Bill Gates like he deserves to be blessed!
I have also finished creating the CD of doom for the next spinning class on Monday complete with pain and suffering built right into it!
Then, comes the health update from the shallow end of medicine.
You know you have moved into the wrong section of town when the local voodoo witch doctor actually starts to look like a truly appealing choice for seeking appropriate health care.
Our sub plot begins with a trip to the pharmacy or “saydaleeya”
It is hard enough finding a shop other than the ones that sell menaeesh open on Sunday. Even most of the local ex convicts mercenaries and villans that took up their second career as vegetable salesmen won’t break the Sabbath to open. Let’s say you are sick and being that all viruses and bacteria specifically choose days off when is it most likely that you will get to your sickest points in life?
You got it!
At about 2 in the morning your stomach starts bubbling rebellion and you do the all too familiar trip to the toilet. Have a seat you will be there for a while. Yes seat belting yourself in may provide some respite from blowing yourself to kingdom come. Why is it that at these vulnerable points in one’s life does it pop into your head lectures of television shows on pollution and environmental health?
Yes first I started thinking Cadmium poisoning or other wonderful heavy metals that were dumped on the Lebanese population so that some local militia could afford more guns, ammo, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Or was it the whole food cleanliness lecture with the Bird Flu lecture and the interesting note that the coldest sickest looking chickens get put on the TOP rotating skewer at your local Farooj (rotisserie chicken) restaurant. The red drippy INFECTED JUICES sliding off the white flakey skin of the top bird directly down onto the chicken picked by your local manager to sell to you. Yes he doesn’t worry that you are going to feel this one in the morning… Oh no he slides it off the skewer without a twitch in his conscience and uses his ratty pliers to crank off the greasy bolt holding the bird in place.
Was it the lead paint and asbestos that has been pulverized into airbone fog that now floods your lungs as the local Syrian demolition crew sledge hammered the building two doors down?
It might have been that last ride around Lebanon where that cab in front seemed to thrill in making you choke down the black clouds of smoke pouring out of his tailpipe. Yes there are emission laws but there are a thousand emissions guys that will look the other way for a couple thou (in Lira).
You look your skinny slack cheeks in the mirror and say to yourself well here we go… Rummaging around the draw of drugs that you have aquired in your short stay you fish out the mother of all killers…CIPROFLOXIN and prepare to down what is tantamount to an antibacterial Nuclear weapon. You remember what they told you in Chronic diseases about how you should finish your prescribed regiment of antibiotics and how bad it is when the little buggers get immunity but right now blowing out your very last O-ring seems as good a reason as any to skirt the rules. So I took two 500mg tablets so sue me! It worked and I FINALLY got some sleep.
I’m going to keep at it for a week so no worries concerning the drug resistant bacteria.
Then, comes the discovery that I have been taking it in 2 pills twice a day with only four doses remaining…
Wow
This IS serious… damn it where is there a respectable pharmacist when you need them?
The answer is NO WHERE.
I drop in to the only one open on the entire street called Hamra at 11am and he hands me Cephrodar the Jordanian knockoff of something.
Translation...Cephlexin.
HE GAVE ME KEFLEX?
I Wanted death and consequences quinolone Ciprofloxacin and he gave me tuck the bacteria in and read them a bedtime story Cephlexin!!
So I marched back when I discovered the difference and gave him… a good talking to. What would have happened if I got a MAOI inhibitor instead…big BIG FATALITY TYPE PROBLEMS!!!
Not to mention the fact that I just got the drug that I wanted… clearly labeled PRESCRIPTION ONLY without a prescription… Gives you a rough idea how much the law really matters here.
Now that my updates are chugging up to 72% I may get a shawarma and a print out of the CD tracks for the local Energizer stunt bunny Patricia…
Hmm I hope that my Polar Heart Rate monitor doesn’t hiccup again like it did last class.
193 is nowhere near a respectable heart rate even through it felt like that is what I was doing… the replacement told me it was a mere 171! After getting out on the bike and going for quite a ways without the reading I stopped on the Corniche and restarted that monitor with a own pulse monitor to the wrist unit reset. Off to the races. Dashing down the seashore again up the two climbs over the bridge into Ouzai and sliding down to the airport…Wonderful…YES and after a spinning class it feels like taking over the entire world!
I wish I was out there today but here I am updating word at the fastest internet connection in part of Lebanon and hoping to finish off this silly report on the current impact of HIV in Iraq.

You know my leaving you here will maroon you to a fate worse than death ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE SURE? He replied Yes!

2006-02-17T18:33:00.000+02:00

The day was a drizzle yesterday and for the most part the complete lack of classes brought on a sense of responsibility and self purpose that would and could only lead to my doing my homework. Pitiful!

Actually COLD! The day actually turned my fingernails BLUE!
Yes it was a cold one yesterday.
Fu was kind enough to let me know that the situation wasn’t good and maybe I should have/get a pair of leather gloves. It almost made me weep for my gloves I had in the states.

After ordering a pair of Caesar salad from the restaurant Choices. I must say Choices attempt at the restaurant institution of the famous Caesar salad was sad. The dressing came in a packet which is almost a cardinal sin! The lack of respect for the requisite salad mixing and the precise combinations of cream, cheese, anchovy paste and spices was missing in this sloppy broken attempt (broken means the oil is coming out of the sauce whether it be a dressing or a sauce). Being this broken meant that the dressing was kept too warm. It makes me worry about the safety concerning the raw egg component of the sauce. With the chipped Parmesan cheese that was a sad smoked tasting affair sliding its way down to the bottom of the salad box I could only eat and put up with the black fringes that decorated the lettuce like lace on a Victorian aged dress.
Let us not even discuss the chicken that had been reduced to cedar wood by some overly enthusiastic cretin.

After munching down the first salad as I waited for Fu to finish with Malik’s.
Malk’s is the bloodsucking bookshop that copies out the papers we need to read.
Of course they didn’t have the book my poor professor ordered ages ago.
They never order enough because here in Lebanon it is common practice to photocopy entire books.
One scholarship student who gets all their books paid for buys the original and the rest of the students pay a whopping $15 for a $100 text. Well the rest apart from me.

What gripes me is the lack of them handing us a file with these course readings and articles on so we can pull the out in our careers later. These packets are cluttered with texts from 20 years ago and for the most part resemble all the other classes’ packets thanks to the WONDERFUL LACK of coordination among instructors. This means that we read over the same material in all the classes at the beginning of the semester wasting our time and delaying our classes to cover what we covered in other lectures only to have to rush through the important NEW items later as another politician gets a parade in his honor.

In the academic world having papers so old is tantamount to milk left on the kitchen table for 4 warm summer days.

We are further insulted in that as you get packets they AREN’T bound and are usually stapled on the Arab side of the page.
Oh the irritations of having grabbed the page on the wrong side and ripping it out of the side as you read left to right.
Not to mention the fact that pages are usually missing from the copies you need.

You don’t get to find out until there are a couple weeks to the end of the semester.

Yes! Pages 89-93 are missing in your copy now try to figure out what they forgot to copy from the text your prof. had some poor Graduate Assistant (GA) copy.

The quality of these copies being made by what are human beings with the coordination of monkeys often leaves a LSD appearance to the copy. The whole sliding line of text in the middle of the page with the lower half of the copy’s the paragraphs making a leaning tower of Pisa just to spill the important conclusions into the un-photocopied area that blisters the edge of the page white.

As you can tell I have gotten over my initial glee of reading the assignments.

Now for that long slog through the wilderness of the doldrums to arrive at the stage of the final exams. The trouble is that this quarter will also have several papers sprinkled throughout which should make the attempts to maintain my own elusive state of calm relatively…impossible!

Thus far we have covered Choices and the fact that one should NOT choose Caesar salad, Malik’s bookshop and the crimes committed by the copyright infringing Lebanese as well as the general issues of … oh wait I have almost forgotten.

In addition to the quick statement previous concerning Lifestyles gym here in Lebanon I had not added that one should be prepared for retinal damage.

Nowadays lasers come with the warning labels that would in the past be used to cull idiots from our ever fragile gene pool these days you get told that coffee is served hot not by common sense but by the writing on your warm styro cup at Dunkin Donuts.

There should be a warning n the gym door at lifestyles. If you are a male member you will be subjected to blinding exposure! That’s right you thought those nude festivities in the locker room at high school were the end of humiliation YOU WERE SOOOO WRONG!

The Lads at lifestyles love their bodies!

And that goes double for some of them, even if those bodies are a wrinkly mess of skin and hair resembling that 2 month old apple at the bottom of the fruit basket nobody wants to touch for fear that the fruit may actually bite them.

The lads at lifestyles
Can
Will
and DO walk around “air drying” and burning the retina of anyone who mistakenly glanced in their direction.

This would be fine if you were on cell block F of the local QUALONG people’s republic of China prison number 153 but the fact that you are paying for a membership to see this is all the more humiliating.

To anyone that is a member of Lifestyles I intend no offence in my writing other than the one I intend but please SPARE US the “FULL MONTY”!

Then of course there is other news. News far too sensitive to be revealed over a mere humble blog such as this and far to humbling of an affair for me to claim to have EVER and I do MEAN EVER claim to have been part of. That being said and having absolved myself of the guilt for lying to say that I had covered everything when that impressive, scary, and heart wrenching event would not be included in this small catalogue of my life and the things that get stuck in it.
Yes my opinion is stuck in my life and now that you have reached this far you have a piece of it guaranteed to be stuck in

Mummy they are talking siyaseeya AGAIN!

2006-02-16T10:19:00.000+02:00

Well after The Great Blog symposium number 18534-a
that took place somewhere in the secret cave base
on mount Ungunakitaki (the second K is silent)
at some undisclosed coordinates longitude and latitude…..
we have decided…..
Bloggers love politics!
Well we like to talk about it.
Ok.. ok… we like to BS about it.
“Here in Lebanon there are,” as one of my esteemed blog-aholics said, “two things to watch sports and politics.” I would add soap operas but those seem to have taken a back seat to politics these days.
For me the whole region seems quite a simple expedition in follow the money and where’s Waldo the Ossama Bin Laden version.
But on to other topics. I think I got completely tired of that topic around the end of the second straight hour.
On this blog… the weather has been covered
and so has Taxi, fitness, building, and topics of interest concerning the “program” I seem to be signed up for at school.

Now how about a little restaurant rating….

Let us begin with Bliss street.

It’s an actual road that we were subjected to in the marathon but when you mention food on bliss you are talking…. the spot across from AUB.

Note the Lebanese attention span rules here so maybe these restaurants will be closed five seconds after I post a rating on them.

Beginning with some of the classic favorites seems to be the best bet so why not cover..SAGE…

Now for the uninitiated a “sage” is basically a giant tortilla cooked on top of an upside-down radar dish. Now the high-tech tool used to flip your tortilla on such a “high tech” piece of cooking equipment is best described as… A HAIRY PAW. That’s right it’s the same one that gladly accepts your grubby 1thou.
It’s ok kids…Think of the piles of bacteria laden sputum that some poor kid who gave you the change hacked onto your blue… turned soot grey… 1000 Lira bill as… SPICES.

Now of the selections available at the local 2 SAGE’s are available only at a specific coordination of planetary alignments tidal patterns and the mood of your beloved paint scraper wielding SAGE CHEF.

Basically after 1:30 if you want it they just ran out.
You end up getting cheese or zaatar.
Now for the cheese…our beloved Chef
ALWAYS
and I do mean 100% of the time
will pile on the white greasy stuff so that it is guaranteed the middle will not melt and the resulting landslide melted goodies will sentence your pile of of white puss…er… I mean cheese juice to attack your favorite clothes like Jackie Chan the bad guys.
This famous combination is worthless if taken straight or ADI .
Your brave author who survived on these (3000 calorie a piece) things during finals recommends mint, tomato, and olives (zaytoon, banadoora, and na` na`
This combination unlike the cucumber DOES NOT SCREW UP THE SADWICH with a unfit CRUNCHY texture stuck in the middle of the gooshy stuff.

The best bet is to get a paper bag that will turn greasy in its kamikaze effort to protect your clothes. The grease and juice will then spread to your hand where you discover you have forgotten your wad of Kleenex has nestled its way into the comfort of your pocket.
As you know you will have a handprint of grease on your slacks so there you are stuck with… stained… either way… pants.
MUHAHAAHAA the SAGE NAZI’S efforts are MOST EFFECTIVE!

You may have avoided the above situation and counted yourself among the weasley ones however…. there is always the explosive version!
This tale… is one of woe… and… possibly blinding consequences.
Yes you guessed it.
The swarthiest looking section of your will suffer an aneurism.
The resulting eruption of either blistering of freezing cold cheese juice will blind the person you attempt to enjoy such food with.
So you get GUILT AND STAINS.

Speaking on the zaatar… Now zaatar… in the traditional sense… is a mix of sesame seeds and Fresh Thyme that results in an interesting spicy combination applied with dollops of oil.

My actual experience with it here in Lebanon has been a GREAT DISSAPPOINTMENT.

Most often the carbonized moped brake crumbs
used in its concoction are mixed with
10W-30 motor oil is enough to make your heart stop looking at it.
The fact that the thyme came from a secret stash of marijuana intended for the pharaoh Ramses The Second probably explains its horrific bitter aftertaste.
In short avoid it unless your local Lebanese “Teta” (translation Granny) made it THAT MORNING!”

Should you have the unfortunate fate of going the meat route I blame any issues your digestive tract may present to you as being silly enough to think that a hot satellite dish would somehow “irradiate” the germs to the planet lepton… instead of enabling them to gain the powers of the Incredible Hulk.

Hail and Consequences

2006-02-15T15:35:00.000+02:00

Well the season has come… Riding season that is… or at least I thought it had but of course Lebanon had another trump card lying up its sleeve.
Yes HAIL… YES again!
My goodness if it wasn’t a record first time in 50 years they’d seen the stuff… last year as the Lebanese were busy blowing up politicians… no poor victims of my subjective rants… they couldn’t stop…. there they had to have HAIL AGAIN!
Even when your brave author was out and about in the bitter cold of Chicago surviving snow drifts…. and riding his trusty steel frame bike…. never once saw hail such as this stuff.
It was gravel from the heavens!
Then came the rain
Shortly followed by more hail!
Interesting…the weather is almost as short lived as the attention span of the people here. Oh, and for you sensitive types, that last quote isn’t mine it’s from another survivor of this social mess they call a republic.
Yes REPUBLIC in the Darth Vader and Yoda sense…although I haven’t found anyone with ears pointy enough to fit that short green dude’s role in the political circuit… but fear not my beloved readers… your author will not rest until the Yoda of Lebanon is found!
Many popular nominations have attempted to make Walid Jonblad the front runner…but this being a democratic webpage I would have you believe… unlike the elections that go on here…EVERYONE GETS A CHANCE to leap into the lap of luxury corruption!
Now riding season… of course has with it threats hazards and tales of wonder…
The first… my discovery of a CATALAN shell worker “roughing it” with is specialized bike out in… Syria…of all places!
First, the shock of a nearly Basque dude…
much less a nearly Basque dude with a bike
and not only a bike but the same silly addiction /obsession /sickness your author has for abusing oneself in the name of zipping around on a 15kg triangle of metal is…
well almost enough to induce epileptic fits from SHOCK!

Max, the owner of VO2Max (the only substantial bike shop in Lebanon) took AGES getting to his shop. He was meeting clients on a ski expedition.
Max, my dear friends, is an explorer!
He gladly shows off his pictures from the poles (I forget if it is the north or south one that I saw… but whatever…. the dude was freezing his skinny butt off staring at a zoo of ice cubes).
Then there is his next event… EVEREST!!
Yeah, the dude is headed up the highest mountain on Earth to ADD to the pollution left behind by other climbers.
It makes sense at least to the individuals who employ half of Syria in SUKLEEN.
I am sure they will get a crew up there sooner or later
decked out in their ugly red and green uniform with the nifty little pincers and scrap of cardboard to catch orphaned cigarette butts and shovel them into the nearest green SUKLEEN dumpster.
Max was only keeping the shop open for 20 minutes as me and my new found friend from Catalonia tried to repair our wives.
Well Luis (the Catalan cyclist) is married… but to be honest if you are that intimate with your bike saddle for more than five hours, the woman in your life is more of a mistress. While we stretched out for a good 2 hours and a half waiting for Max to arrive in his version of a Lebanese 20 minutes we talked shop. This guy had to have been loaded there were FSA(Fast Straight Ahead) parts EVERYWHERE!
Translation for the uninitiated… CARBON… yup he was also running a compact carbon crank arm and nearly chuckled when he saw my sorry state of affairs!
I was riding a 52/42/30 triple crank wide and heavy with the silliest looking setup of all CARBON pedals.
What a waste carbon pedals and a heavy metal crank set!
Fear not readers a quick starvation diet to make up the cash and all will be righted… Gulp…
well maybe not quick…
Max quoted my $8000 for a Cannondale carbon crank.
This may end up needing one of those Live Aid Tours to save your author from evaporation due to skinniness. Pray that I don’t end up like my little green ex roommate!

After my repair was complete...
I headed back home… and… my leg started clicking again…
Yes… You know me that well… I went straight to the gym and did it more abuse just to shut the noisy thing up!
That is when I met MR. TIM… He’s the head Kahuna down at lifestyles the aforementioned gym and was alarmed at the fact I’ve had “two incidents” at the gym. The first was due to a misunderstanding. I thought they wanted me to starve before assessing my diet and body when meeting the nutritionist.
Lemme tell you boys out there…
Lebanese nutritionists aren’t the lunch ladies we have in the states!
These ladies are models for Barbie complete with plastic parts everywhere.
Brilliant... no?

If anything is going to make you follow a diet a blonde with warpaint is going to!

The second was a bit of a dehydration problem in the hot tub…
FEAR NOT!!!
I‘m
NOT DEAD YET!
I didn’t pass out and remember it all
I was fine once they dragged me out and cooled me off.

So dear.... Mr. Timmy... wanted to make sure I knew he had his Brit eyeball on me
and that I should “take it easy and train a bit lighter”

Then after using my whiley… weasley… ways… he ended up handing me a card for the Hash House Harriers (a drinking club with a running problem)! Talking about business in the region and handing me one hell of a wonderful quote!

Then on to training… Which of course means abusing my muscles for a couple hours and racing out into the cold…
Well that is… after living it up in a Turkish bath, fresh cold shower, jaccuzi, sauna and finally shower progression I have seen fit to make a ritual!

So today I am sore as hell and not in the Gym.
I find myself somehow happy and contented

It could be that I am stuck with a belly full of Iraqi cooking..
thanks to a WONDERFUL 1PM appointment with my trusty first semester sidekick through suffering…Doctora Farida.

Which leaves me at present typing a much awaited and very needed update.

Doing so I catch myself wondering why a pack load of Lebanese rolled by on their version of hells angels (43 teens on thirteen mopeds) slinging youth front flags and the old tree with blood stripes around.

Must mean the weather is about to change.

Lifting the Rubber...and sitting in Bubbling hot water... UPDATES OF THE LEBANESE GYM EXPERIENCE

2006-01-31T11:27:00.000+02:00

Working out… It hasn’t happened much recently but now… I am a MEMBER at LIFESTYLES! The gym is wonderful. Yes I’ll get to the not so hot but right now lemme give them the props they deserve. Yeah the architecture is so nice it’s… WHACK! Mmm They have a Turkish bath AND a sauna that isn’t overpopulated or stinky like the one in Las Salinas but that is a later post!
The instructors ROCK!!!
They are all completely cool guys well at least the ones I have had the pleasure of chatting to. Yes I work out like a bandit. Get the headphones on and I am gone to the world. Working out is WORKING not socializing so for the dudes who should be talking round the water cooler instead of taking a piece of equipment I want to use GO HANG SOMEWHERE ELSE! I’ve started working on the whole upper body deal and some days I honestly feel like I am stuck walking in orangutan posture. I hate the ripped guy walk! But I digress.
The equipment is ALL NAUTILUS! AND the Jacuzzi is something else too.
They have settings with jets at all the right levels. So you just walk along the wall and they hit each muscle height. They have this amazing bed for your back and neck that is just amazing as well.
They quackulated my % body fat at 7 and 6.5 wonder how that happened I feel a lot fatter than that! I so need to get into doing the small arc exercises I was instructed to do for my knee and it might actually stop clicking when it stabilizes. Then it is on to MEGA HILL TRAINING! I’ve been a bit negligent with the cardio which of course means me paying for my sins soon. I should start after the exam tomorrow. Yeah I have an exam and I am typing a blog…
The thing is this blogging stuff is a great safety valve.
And on that note…now for the not so hot… The machines are all on the second floor… so every time someone opens the door to the track you get chlorine poisoning.
The track runs round on the second floor right above the pool so other than those who like coughing up bloody lungs I think the track is for show.
There is also a punching bag and other goodies but over the pool makes it all a bit silly. For the want of a few panes of glass the whole thing could be fixed BUT this IS LEBANON so that day will come when HELL FREEZES OVER!
The machines are ALL also TOO CLOSE TOGETHER!
The cardio section is smattered in front of a giant bank of TVs which is irritating to say the least.
It would be nice if they left at least one spinning bike upstairs for those of us who don’t need the blinking silly motivational LEDs to do some serious work on a saddle that won’t make us feel like we’ve been skewered in the prostate.
So after a workout this morning that took care of my legs but didn’t obliterate them I am here at campus waiting for CAPTAIN NOOBOO! He said he’d be in by 10…
but I think his pillow ATE HIM! Poor guy!
Anyhoo this MPH thing had to have some victims.
I was nearly one of them during the Epidemiology test. The first one involved an interesting Hypo partway through I asked for an exemption or stay of execution. I got told that the Israelites wanted the thief to live. Yup you guessed it MY BELOVED PROF with 20/20 HINDSIGHT said you could have told me you were having problems BEFORE THE TEST. But I wasn’t! I tested it and my Blood Sugar was FINE. It DROPPED IN THE EXAM not before it! He told me he had made his decision and that was that.
So until the next time Galactic Space Cadets this is Captain Otter…
telling you all to take your vitamins, do as your local and very rare uncorrupt policeman tells you, and brush your teeth after eating lollipops..

The sea road and return to the loving arms of Scarlet O'Hara...NO not her... ABOU KOKO!!

2006-01-31T10:51:00.000+02:00

Well troops it has come!
They have lifted the ban on the Blog at the university.
Apparently some smart alleck thought I was writing porn.
I know my writing is good but ORGASMIC?
No even with my ego I know I'm not that good...unless it's in person. Well not even then probably.
Yeah so continuing on... I have been out on the bike.
I have ridden north and returned to the loving arms of Abou Koko with a blood sugar of 48.
Yes they thought it was a bit strange that your beloved blog author was walking along the street "hafle" and that they had to break a $100 to make change for my 10 kebab sandwich order.
I had parked the bike on the other side and proceeded to try to defy death and cross the road back from Tripoli into the Beirut port.
Big mistake nobody was stopping their cars for me.
Especially with me wearing what is in essence a wetsuit and looking like a sunglassed space alien.
The best bet at the time seemed to be unlocking the bike wheel and climbing up on the walkway that passes over the sukleen section of the street that lies right near the infamous mechanic where once I was stuck in a cab for 2 hours waiting as the lads of Lebanon decided to mourn one of their old presidents. But that is for another blog concerning the mourning process in Lebanon.
Right now we are dealing with Hypoglycemia and Abou Koko. It was after traversing over the footbridge to the other side of the street where the cabs and cars are whizzing off to Tripoli that I discovered them… BonIbon.
They are m&m's but they aren't m&m's they come in a little pill case that makes it feel so much like popping vicadin you can get addicted to the rattling sound the little candies make as they head for their last stop... your tummy!
Now Abou Koko is the spot that will live on in a place of honor among blogs of Beirut.
It is the best kebab joint in the ENTIRE COUNTRY!
Yes, Abou Koko is an Armenian mafia business.
They have one little shovel of charcoal over which… the best kebab in Lebanon is made and formed into an infarction waiting to happen!
And yes there is a fan near the coals much to the disbelief of every other individual in Lebanon who I’ve seen barbeque…
ELECTRIC FAN’S WORK FOR BARBQUES!
It works its wonders by keeping the coal hot and ash free reducing the burns caused by flare-ups because the oil fire burns out sideways instead of up on the meat and results in… well just the most fantabulous Kebab’s around.
It is that and the amazingly cheap price!
I mean Damn!
1 sandwich for 1500L a young man could really loose his amazing figure eating that much bread and meat a day!
Yes I have fallen for a sandwich here in Lebanon… Well of course that doesn’t include my stomach’s other mistress menaeesh!
What you don’t like that my tummy is a polygamist? Neither do I the rotten ungrateful thing never settles for long so I hope he at least hangs out for a while!
Now for a couple Abou Koko complaints… Yeah you knew it was coming… Well the sandwiches would be PERFECT IF… they just backed off on the whole onion parsley silliness the stuff leaves you with twigs sticking out of your teeth, and the whole having a solitary bone sliver ruined what coulda been a perfect date with a sandwich and my stomach.
*sorry this is a stacked post but… There are examinations to study for.

I'm just a little black rain cloud sang Winnie the Pooh

2006-01-11T16:10:00.000+02:00

Eid al Adha… I’m in Starbuck’s after a long think, a bitter phone call, and a nap. Life grows rainy-er.
I’m not sure if it’s Lebanon or just the cold.
This hollow sets in and starts me down that dangerous path of mental tripping. I find myself wondering about my schizophrenic discovery. He was marching around Starbuck’s the other day. I was being my usual analytical self zinging off questions about pie crust and pith of language. We humans do play interesting games. But I digress our subject was pacing around the wall at Starbuck’s with a tome of Schopenhauer. Yes he told me he was walking because our dear philosopher is a walking philosophy.
Today our subject is a painter. He and several other patients were painting in Starbuck’s. What a droll idea! Gauche and Starbuck’s? I could tell from the rush of color in the pictures the unrefined edge and the repetitive representations of a sided bias this was one of those common highly functional cases. His work reminded me so much of a picture of a cat I saw once in a book. A mild mannered tabby transformed into Cheshire cat fame by the schizophrenic patient. It was glaringly similar the flow of the line the reiterative stroke of the pen that ground holes into the paper, valleys for the subject to push out a will that drove out the demons within his skull.
I felt my artistic roots humming with indignation, then the clap and sudden release of the anchor. Yup we artists are weirdoes!
Thank GOD!
The rest of you are far too normal.
As the commandment would have it NORMAL is BORING!
What a wonderful wake up to reality. I like them look in from the outside. Am I the one who is insane? Possibly!
Who would rant and rave this way into a closed box that doesn’t matter the way I do? I am sure those that see me will remind me of the Blog. You will go about marionette-ing these statements and giggling within yourselves.
Wow have we got dirt on him now!
He called himself nuts…
This is far… far too easy you will say to yourselves and then wait to place your slick well thought out ribbing. It must be well placed so that the lord it over you feeling will rush in and supply your much needed ego boost you hunger so desperately for.
Welcome you are to it… but know I expect it… and WILL look down upon you for needing to use it.
I slid out of Starbuck’s as it was closing up for the night…trotted home swinging my new chubby stainless steel mug. It was a weak effort at cost cutting and saving the environment, workers poor washer woman hands and warmth in my coffee but I love its potbelly profile. Now home without my socks and white trainers on I am soaking in the slick oil tanned feeling of my Ron Jon Surf Shop flip flops. They were an airport find. The last thing I bought in Florida. They weren’t expensive, came in my size and thanks to the cloth big toe separator fit all of the hard to fill beach shoe criteria I had. I need to break them in enough to have my footprint shorn into them. Then they will attain the bodisatva comfort that all true oceangoing surfers seek.
I sigh and catch myself thinking would that I could find it more often in life here in Lebanon.
My Mp3 player has given up the ghost and crossed over into that mystic land of nonfunctional warranty expired machinery. I am tempted to wander into another shop and get a 1gig flash drive that would do a bit better during my exercise routines. Which have come to a halt thanks to the bum knee.
Dr. Uncle Sam said I had weak quadriceps and needed them to hold my kneecap in place. My fear is that the cleats on the bike are in poor adjustment and resulted in an overuse injury. Damn it!
I want to be back with the wind rushing in my gloves and leaning hard into corners again. I wish NooBoo would hurry up and get his bike so that hardcore training wouldn’t have an excuse! But patience seems to be a prerequisite here in Lebanon.
12:30 am is rolling along and life seems to have found the quiet hum that sits like a slothful and gluttonous man. It’s only waiting to pounce on me and take my mind for one of those long night rides through humanity and my fingertip’s touch on the truth. Having announced it I am sure you wait for its results… There is, my dear readers, no expression for such traversings. The clapping of fireworks tonight will punctuate the smoothed out luge ride down into a valley of subconscious lipped thinking. I may let go and just slid out into nothing for a while…Translation…I’ll prolly end up reorganizing my Mp3’s and figuring out if I really really need that flash Mp3 player.

It's the smell said Al Pacino

2006-01-04T14:02:00.000+02:00

Well, I'm back in the Balad...Yes Beirut.
Things are well... not much changed.
What did I miss?
I don't think I've taken full account but mostly the smell of menaeesh and a hot oven as it first sparks life into the dough. The crackle of the zaatar and the strange bubbling that happens on the cheese.
I have come to other conclusions as well but those are.... well not ready for the blog yet.
After living the film "Terminal" I must say that it was a wonderful juant through my HMPD readings as I was trying to kill time. Now that work has geared up here at University I am forced to type blogs on the fly. Forgive me for my sloppiness, although as refined as my audience is I am sure it isn't possible for them.
Yes, fellow bloggers my audience is HIGH CLASS, HIGH MAINTAINANCE, and a lot of HIGH other things. It's probably why I love them as much as I do. I am currently working on my manifesto to take over the world…translation...HMPD… Health Management Public Policy AKA…DEATH AND TAXES!
Can you tell I have to present religion's position on tobacco?

What is a Old Lang up to? A live report from Heathrow

2006-01-01T08:25:00.000+02:00

Well, I got caught…
Not really caught just picked up in a security sweep.
It was around 10:45pm when it happened. I was sitting in the infamous quiet seating area tucking myself in and taking in a movie. They told me I couldn’t be there because it closed. Brian as I found out later was unlucky enough to have to take us (the herd) down and then up to the check in area. First there were the formalities of arriving. They marched me down to the passport section along with a bunch of (4) what might have been Ghanaian workers. They were all headed to the USA and me? I’m going to Beirut.
Out pops the English accent, the fact that I am “one of theirs” as the immigration guard put it, and your intrepid author finds himself in the lap of an empty First Class Check-In lounge; while others are stuck dealing with the rock hard seating in the “commoners section.”
This reminds me… After getting my eyes checked and finding out that I had no retinopathy mum looked over and smiled. It was a wonderful smile. The sort of smile you see a 4 year old, thoroughly convinced that life is a beautiful thing, smile. She then said “God Loves You.” I didn’t even think at the time that God might not love me, but then I recalled how many scrapes I have gotten out of. I panicked at how much more was left.
The next idea that shot into my head after such a memory compounded with dealing mentally with my present surroundings is another parental quote. There were not many from this trip that I will share with you readers but the few you get are gems.
Dad… “It is the system… the strong sap from the weak.” The streamlining of the species ensures that only those that are connected (strength) survive. The rest are fodder. I saw it over and over again as I watched the BBC news discuss development, the marginalization of the poor, and the lack of health in such populations.
The question I have for my professors, rattle out like bullets at the muzzle end of a machine gun.
Can it be wiped out, this health gap?
Who is to say that a certain number of individuals that do not get help is “acceptable”?
Why is there this drive to stand on the heads of others?
Is it integral to the human condition?
Why do we human beings CRUSH one another?
He who can do it for cheaper by skinning the lowest income brackets is he who becomes the wealthiest.
So here it comes… Otter’s discussion of money….
Money is Death…
or at least someone else’s.
Death makes the value that is money. Death removes product from the market. It increases demand while decreasing the quantity of loans outstanding and reduces the need to print money.
Inflation I have become convinced is the soundest way to oppress the poor. The wealthy who merely adjust prices to account for it destroy the poor in that the poor are not as mobile in regulating their income. They must subsist upon the dictated prices producing only the same amount of product. The more “product” they make the cheaper it becomes and it devalues the money they possess in a more graphic sense. When one earns little and what little they earn has no value it cannot be said recovery is even a road on the horizon.
The poor are hit from both sides. Nowhere is this more apparent than health.
So after getting woken up at 6:00 to get the hell out of the rarified air of the First Class Check-In area, I headed to security. Now I'm headed for my 14 hour layover.
I haven't gotten much sleep...Hopefully I can on the plane.

While Otter was sleeping and actions of the spokes weasel

2005-12-31T21:03:00.001+02:00

I am leaving the states and returning to Lebanon. How is Lebanon the clerk asked me in the airport. “I’m thinking of visiting.”
I said “Well it’s a great place. A lot like France.” I should have said it’s trying to be… I didn’t have the heart to break the little possible vacationer.
I caught myself staring at his ID badge…
It had a Cuban flag on it. Strange I thought.
I finally have the Buena Vista Social Club CD. It’s got the best cigar song ever. The slow winding guitar of Chan Chan is what I am listening to now as I type the next update to the Blog. The flight into New York was uneventful. I got into JFK and made the ride round to terminal 7 on the inner airtrain. I weaseled my way up to the front of a HUGE line to get checked into the flight and suddenly there was a problem. They had booked my baggage on one flight and me on another. I was relegated to taking flight 186 instead of 116 which should have left at 9:00. So 2 hours later after grabbing a fish and chip dinner, I was typing in the complimentary British Airways internet zone. They gave away HIGH SPEED internet FOR FREE!! I'm gonna miss that in Lebanon. The call came and we were subjected to some jerk bringing McDonald's on a plane.
But it isn't all smiles and happiness dear readers... This flight to Beirut has been one issue after another. My baggage was booked on a different flight than the one shown on my itinerary. So after changing my flight and my seating… I got on the plane with only 2 hours layover. How did it happen?
Then the plane was DELAYED half an hour. When we got out of the plane there was a massive line in security it reached right up to the plane door almost. This took ages to get through.
I was a bit of a weasel and snuck up front complaining that my flight was soon.
The British Airways worker told me “no you are ok you are flying at 1200 noon” so after sneaking up to the front of the line and asking a question I slid into line ahead of the entire flight. I crept upstairs to the terminal and waited for the gate to appear… IT DIDN’T only stating that the time was changed to 13:30.
I went to the quiet sitting area which it isn’t because everyone here is sleeping. I left at 12:30 and wandered around again. The screen said to go to gate 15… SO I DID!
I laid down on the side near the TV and may have passed out. I got up did a quick tour and I fell asleep as it prepared to depart. I didn’t hear the pages tucked away in the quiet seating area here in terminal 4. I have enough syringes and Insulin to keep me tided over.I think I got confused tired or something because I wandered around the airport for something like 2 hours and then passed out again in the same spot. I woke up and looked over and the gate didn’t say Beirut anymore… THIS MEANT TROUBLE! I went to the information desk that promptly sent me down to connections on the butt end of that huge line area. I must say that it feels surreal the way these people got cold when they assumed I missed the flight. They told me to leave and get a hotel. Then check back in.
I know my bag is way way WAY overweight so that isn’t an option.
The way I see it, I’ll just stick it out here and try to avoid getting tossed out of the airport. My vanishing skills will be ramped up I will have to just fall off of radar.
This is another gap in security… I slipped though its cracks.
So what of my trip? I'll let you know when it's finished.

Have yourself a merry little..OH MY GOT IT'S HEATHROW!

2005-12-25T16:31:00.002+02:00

Yes my brave beloved readers, I have left you in a jet plane....
AAAaaaaah The rarified air of the jet set!
What bliss, What thrill....
What the HECK IS WRONG WITH MY PLUG?!?!?!?
Damn it! The earphone is out! I only get stereo sound in my left ear!
This Means something!
I'm SURE of IT!
The fact that the plane is bitterly, and I do mean BITTERLY empty, on this Christmas day may be it.
It might be where htis mild....but getting stronger ... case of paranoia is setting in.

Nina Simone is singing...or at least was singing "I Put a Spell On You"....
Now it's David Grey singing... "As I'm Leaving"...

Beirut seems to be just a dirty stain on the lower end of my trousers now... well that and an acrid smell of cigarette smoke that just doesn't wash out.

The British English is jarring and as my jaw gets back into joint... I feel the flush of cockney rolling into a blossom on my tongue.
My mother's constant refining through English diction get's another lick at the top of my mouth and I feel it....SUN?!?!? What the *^$%! England is supposed to be depressing drizzly and... well a cloudy mess...But it isn't! IT'S SUNNY!
Beirut STOLE England's weather!

My leaving came just in time to witness Noah's second coming.
The slat metal covers (curse their creator to be discussed in the biking post) weakening as the gutters vomit back their meals of bygone sunny days.
My crippled sparkly blue NikeAir Vapors were subjected to several attempts at drowning in bottomless puddles as I skidded my sorry way to Ouzai ....
Subjected to a 5 thou 'servisss' ride
ok so I admit it
the poor guy's shock at my bartering won me over!
But I digress as you can see in the picture( please God in your wisdom make it fit to have my readers pleased at my attempts to paost this) the state of the left one is HORRID!

The Air decided not to be part of the WHOLE NikeAir thing on my left shoe and instead ran away to the circus of shoedom and decided to become....A SQUIRT GUN!!
so
BE WARNED!
ALL ye who walk near me...It isn't me being my friendly self...
It's just my shoe, in effect, weeing what puddle I recently swam in, up the side of your leg.

Topic for today... Security in Lebanon... or for that matter... anywhere...
Does anyone else feel unsafe seeing a brilliant young lad of 18 (if that) slinging around a loaded weapon near highly volitile JET A FUEL???
I mean he did just get over the whole dicey age of 16 with GOD ONLY KNOWS what sort of hormones doing... I can only guess what to his vulnerable young mind...The idea that the aftereffects haven't worn off is... well.....CHILLING

God BLESS our beloved cough cough leaders, who think it fit to have these kids with their fingers on the trigger, protecting us from....
Idiots who think religion guarantees them Heaven if they just get this truckload of explosives as close to as many innocent victims as possible.
Of course, if brainwashing highschool has done it's job..way up in the steppes of the Himalayas out in Pakistan.... this guy is unstoppable!

Yup!
It's dirty!
It's CHEAP!
But our catch an orphan program and turn him into a laser guided targeting system seems a DANDY of an investment!
What gets me....is.... these bastards completely devoid of morals....
ARE OUR TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ...somehow.... doing this?

Pardon me, but does this make any sense, to at least one person, who isn't certified cookie cutter in the nut loaf member's monthly wickets watchers of the Karachi Wahabi Provisional Insane Asylum?

It's just as bad on BOTH sides of this security thing!
The moral of the story is your author
after close inspection and analysis
between the readings due for our BELOVED MPH degree
celebrations of Menaeesh MADNESS that roll up into events paralleling Roman celebrations of Bacchus, and the occasional bike ride...Security and Terrorism seem to be sides of the same coin.
For some of you close listeners the reason I had hoped would restrain you singing my infamous quote
“the coin never, NEVER, EVER has JUST two sides” quote.
It’s true!
HONEST IT IS!
The coin doesn’t ever have JUST two sides but that won’t let me escape the fact that if the money is FUNNY it isn’t money it’s CRAZY!
We all know that Crazy is generally NOT RECOMMENDED when dealing in things that Kill people.
Killing people has a strange sort of permanence to it.

That’s it…(My, MY what BRILLIANT READERS I HAVE!!!) get it right the first time because you can’t take the rubber end of your pencil and just fix it. (OH I AM SOO PROUD OF YOU LOT!!)

So upon completing this Blog I shall post it in Heathrow International Holding Pen subjected to Starbucks, expensive internet, and the possible lack of a USB to plug to attempt an upload.

It all started when I was given a set of Legos

2005-12-24T15:21:00.000+02:00

She’s back!
No, not the roommate, or we would be asking where are her apostles,
THE PHONE.
I think she must have gotten used to the smell of my trousers or something so she just happened to let herself be found and returned.
It’s raining…. I’ve always wondered why they say like cats and dogs because dogs and cats only rain on particular spots in the city like lamp posts not all over the place like the stuff pouring down now.
This brings us to the next topic of the running Lebanon commentary….. CONSTRUCTION.
It’s truly amazing the construction that happens in my building apparently roofing tiles are more decorations than actual things to keep water off of your head as you are snuggling under your blankie. I am sure some woman somewhere is looking for her long lost terra cotta earring that just happens to have been slapped on my roof. These things are actually tied with bread twisties, not hammered, onto a metal frame, not tar covered wood. Which means that they wink when the wind blows just right and you can see right up under the houses roof skirts! BLUSH
As the torrents of rain find new ways of invading your author’s habitat we must remind the readers that life under a winking roof is racy…

Yes
I nearly got a tile in the brain
and after soiling my undies
and jumping a distance that would definitely have me on the first to go to the Olympics list
I was stuck sweeping up a broken terra cotta plate.
Now most of you know that scraping sounds generally do not do one’s brain much good.
The sound of terra cotta jugging over itself is something to be placed in a category with the rake on the chalkboard.

So after the Herculean labor of withstanding the sound and getting all of the chunks of tile cleared away my bird perch, billed by the landlord as a real live balcony, was clear again.
But getting back to the construction thing… Lebanon after the war has faced a growth rate in buildings that isn’t alarming it’s astounding!

But, whenever anywhere grows, that much, that fast, something gets forgotten.

Here it was thinking.

I must say cement blocks here are more like potato flakes than cement. The bricks don’t have the nice big square holes like in the states. Their shapes are shattered and irregular. Blocks here have 8 to 10 blind oval punches in them rather than the nice two squares that go all the way through. This leads to a massive problem, how do you thread a wire through a block that doesn’t have a hole on both sides?
I remember jobs in the states that had the piping and cabling running up through the cement blocks and with 6inch by 6inch squares even your local orangutan could run cabling through the gapping from good bricklaying. That doesn’t happen here. Here you see a wall put up, often without a plumb line or a level like the Egyptians used for the pyramids, you do not see the large flat plywood board that leaves those beautiful patterns on the poured sections of wall.
Here you get slats of wood that are CONSTANTLY recycled. These slats are wetted with one cement project, dried, used in ladders, commissioned as doorstops, ran into the ground to mark territory, stacked for cribbing, used to hold clothesline, togged into saw horses, un-togged when someone too heavy gets on the slat board, perched on by chickens, used for herding sheep, brought to anther construction project where they are slatted together to make a wall and then slapped with concrete, dried, but never ever burned!

I am convinced that the certain amount of wood distributed around Lebanon comes from a wood rental company and you must remember to muddy it before handing on to the next customer.

Wood here is so used it doesn’t have the sharp edges I am used to on cheap pine 2 by 4’s.

Currently I was conscripted into helping on a project in Ouzai.
Yes, Ouzai that little village south of Beirut that runs smack dab in the flight line for all the big jumbo jets that land at the airport. This job is something of a horror show. Even if you take into account I was adding the highest floor in the ENTIRE village on a building that is the next but last one before the runway begins. I can still see the images of the world trade center doing a scale down version here on the roof at Ouzai. But I digress

True, all the concrete has wire reinforcing it.
True, the walls are made of concrete.
True, it will eventually have indoor plumbing and electricity.
True, it will even have a backup power supply!

But truth be told, the cement walls are only one block thick, blocks in Lebanon only run about 2 inches wide. In order to run cabling, according to common Lebanese practice, one builds a complete wall and then proceeds to hammer out the path of the wire and chisel away the block and mortar while ramming a plastic hose about where you want the cable to go. The same is true for plumbing.

Running conduits on the outside of walls or pushing a piping plan as the building was being built is far too….far sighted.

Sure the pipe may leak or the cable may get yanked out,
and maybe it is easier to get to if you made the walls out of balloon frame and just replaced the dry wall if anything really serious happened...

BUT No, we builders of Lebanon like breaking stone with our little nubs of hammers and we enjoy destroying the integral strength of walls by pouring slip (watered down cement) into the gaps because it makes us feel like manly men.

WE construction workers of Lebanon LIVE for the challenge of future business and know that these people will not remember who built the catastrophe they call home by the time things get lethal.

I remember the joy of punching a cable through a balloon frame house. I revisit the breaking of drywall, the quick easy plaster of Paris repairs, the cut and drill placement of new power outlets, and the quick in, quick out, plumbing work. Balloon frames require metal frames, wood, insulation, and drywall, all of which seem missing here. I mean, you can’t exactly rent a plank and return it, if it’s holding up a wall in someone’s house; although these construction workers here may actually try.

Maybe the construction workers joie de vivre comes from the fact that hard hats are not recommended or required; that a 5 point harness requires a carabineer to clip onto something; goggles and gloves are for wussies; that shoes are as well, real men use slippers, “who needs steel toed boots?” Welding should be done without a helmet, all you need is a bit of plate glass or a green bottle in front of your eyes and you are good to go!

Another interesting idea is having bathrooms higher than the rest of the building. It isn’t that stubbing my toe to the point where the bone has powderized every night I want to get into the loo is exactly fun; it’s that the risk of flooding has me petrified of the idea.
I know it’s because nobody runs piping until AFTER the house is built; that means the 3inch sewer line requires you to stack the floor but that still doesn’t take away the brown waterfall image that comes to mind as I step over the threshold.

So the rain is pouring down.
Even in the apartment.
The mushrooms will appear on my wall tomorrow.
The natoor(doorman, custodian, and general building superman, God bless him) will be shown the state the roof and wall has gotten itself into in the apartment; will complain that the landlord is comming back from Venezuela or Guatemala after he gets through another major cocaine deal; that the senile sister of his boss has forgotten to pay our beloved natoor AGAIN; that the elevator is once again attempting its suicidal plunge from floor 6 to the basement by cutting its own cable; and that politics is Lebanon is once again saving defeat from the jaws of victory!

It amazes me that though they won't do it in public
everyone who isn't Lebanese badmouths the country.
I feel like a right idiot doing it because it leaves me open to the don't like it then get out comment.
I don't like it but figure that if I complain enough someone here might get angry enough to do something about it rather than letting the guy:
park his car in the MIDDLE of Bliss street;
blaze through the red light into the intersection because he knows if you squint hard enough the driver sort of looks like Michael Schumacher;
who is a lazy bum just tossing his bottle on the street shattering it into a thousand shards should give up his NBA jersey he is wearing and get out of the car and PUT it in the Sukleen dumpster;
or maybe caring about his children and buckling them into a car seat rather than making them into cannonballs for one of the 5 fatalities that happen on the autostrad (highway) a day.

I can't help falling... is this mic on?

2005-12-21T18:04:00.000+02:00

My roommate DIED! Yep, her strict eat nothing diet finally got to her.
R.I.P. you beautiful green praying mantis.

Life in Lebanon is cheap and death….well….that comes even cheaper!

This brings me to the next topic…
Beirut-NIGHT LIFE.
Well not nightlife just making an idiot out of yourself. Translation… Karaoke!
Yup! Your beloved author subjected himself to public ridicule WILLINGLY
and

Yes, I had one hell of a time!
I and my fellow FHS victims had just decided to cut our losses and just make professional idiots out of ourselves.
I must say the pickle award goes to the beloved Nooboo(http://lebatteurnoble.blogspot.com/) and his immortal interpretation of Woman by John Lennon!
I wish I could have done so well on the Bohemian Rhapsody.

Yes, the place was fraught with professional warblers. But for some reason they only wanted to sing French songs.
Now we have stubbed our toes on Beirut’s version of Sodom and Gomorrah, in its mildest form.
Warning what comes next is vicious insensitive and mean but I warned you I would shoot my mouth off......
It is here that you can peel back and see the goals of the Lebanese.
And with all due respect to the Lebanese….It’s to be NOT SO Lebanese
It’s to be some prime example of who your conquerors wants you to be.

God only knows how many Lebanese I am going to tick off with this….. I can hear my life’s sand is dwindling out now…..
But I hate that the peoples of this region have been pillaged and continue to be pillaged.
Culturally,
Socially,
And Economically

Lebanon is the Neapolitan Ice cream of the Middle East. Hi Kee-fic Cava?
(Hi! How are you? Good?) Yes, all the Lebanese laugh hearing it or at least crack a smile. For me it brings tears and depression.
This is the fingerprints of someone stealing what it means to be Lebanese or
Worse yet... and nearer the truth RAPING it!

Being Lebanese lost its Lebanon…..They crushed it.
It means importing it all….being foreign, only with a cedar in the middle of your flag.
Yes the food (God bless the inventor of Menaeesh) is from here
but that is where it starts to end.
The most frustrating is the hopping back and forth from
it’s ok to be two hours late because I am Arab and
I eat croissants only in the morning and speak French to my kids because I am civilized.
You can’t use them both as crutches you end up being a cripple in both legs.

You can’t appear to be Arab one minute,
then French the next,
and then back to Arab.
What you espouse is a state of being…… COMPLETELY.
You can’t hop back and forth because you reduce who you are to hopping and not BEING!
So, my dear Lebanese.
BE LEBANESE and LOVE IT.

Don’t tie yourselves down to an Italian drink, French language, and American clothes. Take it all….and then tell it to bugger off because these other idiots have a hell of a lot more problems than they admit to.
Just be yourselves not yourselves being someone else.

This problem plagues our developing world. You pick up the shiny new thing. Sadly you do not look at getting what makes and keeps it shiny and new. This isn’t taking the best because you only took the façade you missed what holds it up.
The Lebanese have this issue many, many times over. Look at the streets, the cars, and sadder still the Behavior and infrastructure.

I glow with pride seeing something that is just purely Lebanese. I revel in it. Goodness knows how many Menaeesh I have used to splatter stains on my shirts.
Seeing them imitate something that is so….not them…..seems inflated and fake.
The Lebanese, being IMAGE OBSESSED, are prime victims for image conquest.
The carrot on this stick is the image and always appears in the hands of someone else the person NOT BEING LED.
For the longest time it was held by the French who grudgingly gave it up to the population they disgustedly call ANGLOPHONEs
Who have been running the globe’s image ever since.
Nobody succeeded at changing goals as well as the front of the population as well as the French.

The Anglo’s are just perfecting it. We now address this economic conquest of the Arab peoples.

Yes it is conquest; they take you and whip you any way they want. These days thanks to the powers of globalization you get it polluting your ENTIRE FISHBOWL!
So, what does it mean to be Arab?
And good and honestly Arab?
No epithets please

Just a simple question

and I wish it had an answer but….
I think we’ve had it erased.
Well erased until people use it to marginalize them as bomb toting hot heads.
Lemme remind those of you coining these phrases that; these guys a probably wearing AMERICAN SHOES! Or toting Italian wallets!
They are fraught with your stuff and what good has it done them all of your “civilization.”
Truth be told you aren’t civilized. They were and they had been FIRST!

So back from the commentary sea….
And onward to one of the major flaws of your beloved (and now thanks to his big mouth marked for death) author…

I LOST MY PHONE!
It ran away at the Karaoke joint and hasn’t been heard from since. I had it on vibrate so that may be why. It still rings so nobody stole the phone and tossed the chip. But its little weight that sat on my hip like my baby child is now missing. So I am sad.

That….and after getting a ride back the Taxi took DOUBLE because he figured it was a fee for changing 50thou! May God give him a car accident that maims the hand that took that 10thou from me!I have to live on that 40thou until my trip home for the holidays!
It was after a glorious night out with great friends that I found her dead… Yup not even a goodbye just dead…
So now we have No biking.…No phone…. No roommate…
I feel like I am loosing things left right and center.
I honestly think this is the beginnings of the end here.
Things that matter a lot are just sliding away.
Yup this includes other topics too… but not for this Blog….

So because of such a bright bubbly night I guess I have to pay. The tab said 8thou for a can of tonic water but something tells me I got lied to I feel like I keep getting pumped and not just for money. It's tiring
And SAD.

That beep is for ME!

2005-12-20T15:41:00.000+02:00

Yes, the forgeiner has arrived! And he will be victimized! Well maybe not victimized YET, just charged at least 5 times the going rate for a cab.

Cabs here are NOT TAXI's.

Taxi in Lebanese means you are willing to pay 5 times the price you would as one person sitting in a "sir-visss."

Yes, the cabbies here consider that swearing.

Should you be lucky enough to find a "service" he will proceed to behave in a fashion that appears familiar to any of us behind the fat kid at the buffet.
This slow milling is actually trolling for more customers to pack into the 1940's bondo mobile. The only thing that keeps them benz's is the hood ornament. Mercedes and his buddy Dailmer have LONG SINCE washed their hands of such bastard children.
But I digress, they will stop suddenly and pray that someone who can interpret such spactic movements without focusing upon details. Such details being the long burnt out break lights. He does this only to save his spot in the Lebanese traffic (a topic to be covered later).

Now despite what may have happened to your gold spangled chauffer's family or how much "benzene"(gasoline) in Lebanon costs these days.....The going rate is 1000Lira for ANYWHERE in BEIRUT. You just have to be able to swear politely in Lebanese.

Now that we have covered the fact that there are no milage computers to keep 'em honest or that as they shop for other victims (think packing tinned sardines) of the "service" package that are more ridden with vermin than the last. We will continue to describe a cabbie's interesting behavior.

They are all smokers. Yes every last one of them. Their brand of choice would at first glance be some knockoff of Marlboro but in truth nobody on this God's green earth makes cigarrettes out of horse manure and bus tickets. If they have given up on overcharging you they will offer you one. This is well and good unless you do not smoke in which case denying a cabbie's hospitality is tantamount to smacking his wife.
So
take it,
have him light it, and then KEEP IT IN YOUR MOUTH so you don't have to talk politics. Talking politics can and will get you into the dilemma you were fighting tooth and nail to avoid, BECOMEING THE CABBIE'S ENEMY. Which translates to being overcharged.

Be warned you are a target even if you are just going for a stroll along what appears to be a pleasant street in Beirut. There are the pythons of the cab world who stealthily park their car and lean against it with the implication that their car stopped to avoid police tow trucks. You will usually get a "Welcome MISS STIR.... TAXI?" or just the batting of the eyelashes, holding the door open, "TAXI?"

From me they usually get a "salamtak" ( your welcome is enough) or just an ignorant look. It helps when you are running late to an important meeting or worse yet running from the General of Beggars minions as she slings her fastest young children to put their staining hands upon your white shirt. Professional beggars are also another topic for later.

Then of course there is the beep. Yes boys they beep at you. I know it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end thinking of the time you got propositioned in Miami's south beach but they just want to charge you 20 thousand for a 5 thousand Lira cab ride. Don't worry if a pile up happens as they slam their breaks to hoot at you, swerve to destroy another curb that escaped the mortar rattled fate of its friend across the street during the war. It isn't because he thinks you are "tastey."

Now if you are unlucky enough to NEED a cab.... You will have to "make the cut." One doesn't just hail a cab in Lebanon, you have to meet the Cabbie's crieteria. Are you going the same way? Are you going to pay for his next gold chain? Can you be masssaged for a few thousand extra? IT ALL COUNTS. As you lean in to spit out where you are headed remember to YELL it, and be prepared to face a cloud of partially burned low grade fuel that would kill a bird within 50 meters as you learn you have not been accepted. No there is no such thing as emmission standards.

Take the advice and ride a bike. The scars are prettier and you can avoid the whole pollution, Body odor, or War for oil issues that plague our planet.
Yeah it is strange and a bit.... no actually russian roulette risky when you haven't trained for bumping found in the peleton. But YOU LIVE FOR THIS GUYS!!!
Remember bubble heads that drive cars do not hear, care, or think. I'm sure it's the lack of oxygen in the car.

Working again...

2005-12-18T21:49:00.000+02:00

Yes,
I have arrived, have been living, and am going to recollect some for you, dearest reader. These posts will not be anything but me mostly shooting my mouth off about the current goings on in this part of the human fishbowl.
Yup
GOOD MORNING VIET... er cough, cough, LIBNNAAAAANNNNnnnnn!
Actually it's 10pm here and I am currently talking about palestinian women's last menstrual periods in order to figure out when we are going to classify late or early registrants.... For those of you who care it's homework. WOE is ME!!! It seems that after my slaving with the honorable co-pilot of mine the lovable Doctooooraa! that this whole 18 page research proposal thing is going to hell in a handbasket. I can't help pick through that picky language of Arabic and especially Palestinian Arabic to work on the questionaire.

My knee is shot so no excercise...
I honestly think I am going through bicycle withdrawal...
My running shoes lay sullen on the floor gathering dust. My running shorts seem to weep for the day of the Marathon again.
My bloodsugar is...well you know me you know how that is.
My roommate (the beautiful green praying mantis I caught walking along Bliss street) She seems lonely and...I think..skinny. I never see her catch anything.

Oh the battle plan or at least what I am subjecting you dear readers to.... MUHAAAHAAA!

cough, cough, but I digress,

following topics for discussion later

Education
Food... well that is a topic for a whole other RANGE of postings
Water
Taxis and travel
Biking....with pics hopefully
Diving...with pics hopefully
Beverages
Dreams
The enviroment and spots of interest
Healthcare in Lebanon
Films... I forgot what those are other than things I sleep through on my rare plane trips
This university is trying to kill me this will be explained one of these days when I get up the gumption to devote a topic to it.

Wow, what great hopes you subscribers have for reading these GLORIOUS postings... I hope I can provide you with the entertainment and social commentary you are looking for. You will of course be subjected to what I miss about home and what I feel is horrific and lacking here in this wonderful (cough) country.