Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder

How can there be beauty in these creatures? Maybe grazing in the desert in a sunset photo. I'll concede that. But this?

Pictures

Snap

I'm getting hounded for pictures.

These last couple of days were picture-uploading-a-thon days. Uploading 5 at a time all night long is tiresome, but there is story to tell within them.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. But then what does being there, in that specific point in time, equate too? I'm not sure yet, but one day I hope to have it figured out, written down, and open for discussion. For now this late night attempt will have to do.

You see it's not just the sights. It's the sounds, the smells, the sensations. It's the feel of the familiarity yet complete exoticness of human beings, our nature, and our land. It's the smiles, the tastes, and the shapes of the clouds. It's having a glass vase made up of pre-conceived notions with your conscious held tightly inside, and having it smashed to little bits all over the floor. You can never put it back together again; nor would you ever want to.

Click

It's the growth of Lateral Knowledge. Robert Pirsig explains; "To describe a growth of knowledge that doesn't move forward like an arrow in flight, but expands sideways.....Lateral knowledge is knowledge that's from a wholly unexpected direction, from a direction that's not even understood as a direction until the knowledge forces itself upon you" This is happening all around me.

It's now truly seeing the beauty, and dare I say the sexiness, behind the Burqa that the women wear, and at the same time knowing that designer jeans are worn underneath and fancy diamond studded watches and jewelry all lay overtop the mystical black cloth. Learning and then seeing this is absolutely fascinating. There are deeper stories at work within each picture; stories of culture, stories of tradition, stories of where they came from and why. Nobody will ever know the half of it; there is just too much to understand. But that’s what keeps people like me going; growing.

One day I will attempt to put this giant jigsaw puzzle together, but for now I am satisfied by clicking and capturing that slice of time that only a camera can catch. The explanations can come later. You first must collect all the pieces of the puzzle before you can begin to assemble the entire picture. You start with the border, and then slowly begin to fill it in with persistence and care.

Hold on the flash is not on

For the most part pictures will only be remembered by the camera itself. But the proof, the evidence that that moment in time somewhere across the world was once alive, will always be there. It’s a slice of life that becomes frozen in time for all of history. That is why I take pictures, and that is why I think most of you will take the time to look at them. Sooner or later everyone stares into the camera for the history books. It’s raw, it’s vivid, it’s true. You may only get one chance but when it comes, you better be smiling.

Say Cheese!

The Culture of Licence Plates

If you are an Emirati it's simple: you have too much money and for the most part, you don't know what to do with it. With Oil reaching upwards to $110 a barrel, this trend will continue for some time to come

So what happens when an excess of money hits a culture that 50 years ago lived in tribes and tents along the Gulf and in the desert? Simple: they take advantage of it - Big Time.

Putting aside the mega projects, the absurd growth in every industry, and rapid expansion which the likes has never been seen before in history, little cultural oddities arise that make the visitor shake their heads and have a little chuckle.

The culture of license plates is indeed perhaps one of the best examples of this. In a time when cars no longer matter as everyone who is anyone already drives the Hummers, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Lambos and Ferraris a new status symbol has surpassed that of cars themselves. Your license plate number now represents not only how much money you have, but how powerful you are.

You see so many expensive and luxurious cars that you become numb to it all. I now immediately look at their license plate to give them any real 'street cred'. A drop top Mercedes AMG 450 is nice to look at. An Audi R8 with the license plate number of 10 tells you that this guy is the shit. A custom silver bullet colour Hummer is behind you, you move out of the way. A slick black Maserati is behind you with the number plate of 2222, you get out of it's way and move 2 lanes over.

I've even seen a Porshe with 212 drive up next to a red Lambo trying to show off it's 43812. The battle on the roads was won instantaneously, as the Lambo backed down and let the Porsche speed up ahead of him.

The muscle of this culture is money, and the proof of this was best flexed a month ago with a public auction in Abu Dhabi for well-to-do numbered license plates, for well to do Emiratis. The license plate 1 went for over $14 million US. This was for a license plate people. Other hot numbers were 11, 17, 22, 88, and 101.... - get the point? All proceeds of this auction went to charity to help road accident victims, but it still is an awful lot of money.

Although I can witness the culture, I have so status in the echelons of this high society. I'm jus glad my Nissan Tida with 587684 has air conditioning.

a week of meetings and meeting people

This week has been busy.

On Sunday we had a meeting with the Managing Director of Landmark Properties, a brokerage house for various kinds of properties within Dubai. He was an American from New York, and he shared some great local knowledge on the inner workings of the property market within Dubai. That's the great thing about this job - you hear from the guys that are making this all happen. The stories are real, and they tell you what the newspapers and year-end reports don't.

On Monday we met with the Director of the Land Department of the Government of Dubai. This entity controls all the land and sea in Dubai. It's assets are over a trillion dollars, easily.

Tuesday we met with the Director of Inward trade at the DTCM - the Dubai Tourism Authority. Over cigarettes he showed us pictures of his villa on the Palm Jumeira, a sea side mansion valued at over US$4 million. He also talked about certain initiatives his authority is doing to attract not only leisurely tourists into Dubai, but tourism investors (Six Flags, Universal Studios, Dreamworks are all here) healthcare tourism (set up state of the art hospitals/surgery clinics – people from all over the world will come just for that) and sporting events among many others.. Interesting and cool guy he was.

Wednesday and tomorrow will be spent driving from office building to office building, meeting new people and arranging meeting for next week. It takes a lot of effort to arrange meetings with CEO's and Chairman's. And one day I'll tell you the story. For now, this is all I do in my spare time, and recounting here through type makes me feel like I am still at work.

The work day has to stop somewhere, doesn't it?

Chuck Norris

My favorite is the first one.

coup de l'argent

No electricity, no phones, no TV. No iPod's, no fridges, no freezers and no cookoo clocks . No Internet, no radio, no bedrooms. No big homes, no fancy cars, no flashy clothes.

Inflation, exchange rates, and financial markets mean nothing to them. Why should it?



We came across these Bedouins on Sealine beach, an hour south of Doha, in Qatar. It's a place where the paved road literally just stops into a vast duning desert. You must go by 4x4, camel or by foot to reach any further. We saw them and their camels and were immediately drawn into their company. We talked through our smiles; communicated through our laughs. I showed them some magic tricks, they made us fresh mint tea. It doesn't get any better than that.

The illusion and transparency of what money really is, does and represents reveals itself clearly through these people. It's all a material mirage.

A mirage, by the way, is something these men do know of.

teleportation

Who says you can't be in 2 places at the same time? Fraze and I have successfully mastered the physics and art of teleportation. We are still, however, working on the glitch of figuring out why we came out with breasts; although I know Fraze didn't mind....

Woah that party was crazy!