The Dubai Chronicles: Rebirth

about dxb chronicles

The saga of Jeff living in the City of Gold. Presently living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, unravel his journey throughout the city with memoirs and everyday life stories.

Payday

yep, i got my cheque from work but i was compensated partial of my salary because of the visa change expenses. the deduction cost me Dhs 1,000 and it's like a 3-day, 2-nights vacation to Boracay Island in the Philippines. i wish i was in boracay instead.

here's why:

- babes are great. you can see them wearing bikinis and bathing suits. in kish, you'll don't see them or they're wearing in full clothing (headscarf included).
- alcohol is bountiful. in iran, they prohibit it.
- you're on vacation. people treat you as tourist. there, its like a prison.

by the time i went home, i tried to do my laundry in our flat. i had never wash my laundry since i moved here...

...and there's always a first time in every situation.

discoursed by jeff @ 10:20 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

technical support

last night, mark and ms. iran purchased new parts for his workstation. they upgraded the workstation to 2GB DDR RAM, a new mobo (gigabyte), 19" LG monitor, and 8XAGP 256MB graphics card (inno3d). at first, mark bought the wrong mobo because it has only 2 RAM slots. i told him to replace it. after it was replaced, i helped him to disassemble the current hardware and installed the new one.

after installing it, he took care of the software installation. my work is done for the rest of the day...

after all, i finished the revisions in the morning. later in the evening, i made some little artwork... a horror version of my shot. :)

...and i called it, THE RING (PC EDITION).

discoursed by jeff @ 10:13 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

brain drain

i showed to ms iran the intro animation of the company's cd presentation. she was impressed...that's good on my part. :) although there are changes in the text, its going to be minor.

at least i can unwind and look for more creative juices.

later at home, i scoured my hard drive for resources on my project blog template. instead of looking for an ideas, i stumbled upon an excel file. it's a mensa test. i answered 18 out of 33 cryptic questions...and they say i was intelligent (12-18). who sez?

these are the unanswered questions that left my brain sucked out:

for example: 24 H in a D - 24 hours in a day
13 S of the USF - 13 stripes of the united states flag

12 S of the Z
15 M on a D M C
39 B of the O T
15 P in a R T
8 T on a O

...im curious... for knowledge will not acquire anything if i'm not curious; i must acquire it.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:07 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, September 27, 2004

pana brat

our new guy, a 3d animator, by the time he went here in dubai always complain. he looks older than me and yet he acts like a baby.

"where can i buy food? can you order some for me?"

"i have no sound in my computer, what would i do now? huh!"

"can you install these and that. there's no software.."

the hell he's makin' me angry...he's not witty enough to do on its own. even his fellow countryman is pissed with him. maybe he's boss in his homeland, but not here...

...and i dont follow orders to people who pretends to be one.

discoursed by jeff @ 9:11 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, September 26, 2004

kalas

finally, the presentation proper of our company is finished. it took me a week for this (including the disaster period). now i can relax and enjoy...

... salary is coming too!

discoursed by jeff @ 6:16 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Saturday, September 25, 2004

overtime

due to the disaster that happened last thursday (which my FLA file corrupted), i have to redo my cd presentation today. this time i made copies (three of them on different locations - one on the network, the other on mobile drive and the last one is on the local disk). three days of wasted work...

...screw you bill.

addendum:

kudos to the people who visited my blog. i dont know who you are but i know where you from (mostly from european countries like spain, russia, france, etc.). if you're kind enough to drop me a note, please do. i appreciate your visits. thanks!

discoursed by jeff @ 1:35 PM | 3 comment(s) | permalink

Thursday, September 23, 2004

budweiser

the two six-pack of budweiser cost me Dhs 38 at duty free shop when i arrived last tuesday from iran. tonight, its goin' to be in our bellies...

...bottoms up! long time no drink this month. :)

discoursed by jeff @ 11:25 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

backtrack: back to dubai

i only had three hours sleep when my boss, ms iran, called me up on my mobile. she insists that i should be coming back on dubai. i told her that ticket is booked tomorrow...she found a way.

due to their ethnicity, she shooked some bushes to find a way to get me back and found one. this guy, mr. taksharharahv(dunno how to pronounce nor spell it), will be handling my rebooking of flight. i went to his office and minutes later he came back with my ticket booked in an hour and a half from now...

i packed my stuff as fast as i could to catch the freaking flight. past 2pm, i was in dubai with no further hassles. i called up on ms iran and told her that i'll be reporting back to office tomorrow. she agreed. well...

...i headed home and sleep the rest of the day.

discoursed by jeff @ 4:07 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, September 20, 2004

backtrack: 44,000 worth of dinner

my roomies were new to this place... first timers. heleno and raymund, both physical therapists, wanted to experience this so-called getaway. i call this place prison.

yesterday, they tasted roasted chicken with rice toppings and raisins all over it. i dunno what do they call it...but the price you pay is worth it.

ms iran's brother, reza, called me up on my room and told me to get the money to this place he arranged before. i asked yesterday for wire transfer due to overstaying penalties i had at the immigration. i went to this hotel and picked up the money. now, everything is secured. my visa copy also came today. unfortunately, the flight has been booked on wednesday. i have to stay two more days here in prison.

we went back to this iranian resto/cafeteria to get what we want...chicken kofta. this time i described to the cook what we really want to eat. it's like a yellow strip grilled chicken topped with long rice and butter, grilled tomato on the side. we had great dinner. and it cost us 44,000 riyal (Dhs22).

after that, we went to the beach to have some shisha with other ladies...

discoursed by jeff @ 11:06 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, September 19, 2004

mo problems

of all the time visiting here in kish, this maybe the worst one.

here's why:

- we have to go back to the main hotel to be booked (and wait for so long in the reception) again.
- our room was not yet prepared by the time we get there.
- smelly signs of new paintjob in the room.
- tv is not working.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:06 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Saturday, September 18, 2004

ripped-off

kat, my flatmate, is goin' with me to kish. we went to the travel agency in deira to get her passport and booked ourselves for the evening flight. everything was set and we headed to the airport...

...but another obstacle in a way. i have to pay 200 dirhams to be released at the immigration because they told me that i was overstaying for a day. now i have only 50 dirhams left.

at kish, still, we had inconveniences. they said that the hotel was fully booked and transfer us to their extension hotel. we had no choice but to follow. we drove an hour to be there. my new found friends, all filipinos: raymund from sharjah, heleno from fujairah, and the other guy who always do the batman thing (now u see, now u don't) from abu dhabi stayed in one room.

too tired to complain, i went to sleep.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:58 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, September 17, 2004

a week after

friday, the usual laundry day at the right place at the right time. after one week of moving places i went back to jaffliya to visit them. the place was a mess... a sure sign of drinking session that happened last night. pieces of leftover pizzas, used empty soda and beer cans, utensils scattered, and the dark surrounding... it's already 11am and people are still asleep.

i washed my laundry... just the same as before. after two hours of drying clothes (sun is streaking that you can dry your carpet within a day), i folded my newly washed undies and everyday clothing and went back to satwa. maybe next week i'll try to sleep over.

i spent my night backing up my hard drive to dvds and other hard disks to prevent immigration at the airport from snooping my files... just to be sure.

...and my collection is almost 8gb. geez.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:22 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Thursday, September 16, 2004

take home assignment

i asked ms iran to borrow her laptop because there's not enough time to finish the presentation. since im going to iran and there's nothing to do, i might as well borrow and be productive.

reza provided me the hp inspiron3500. nice lappie. good in specs but...

...another burden on the way, literally.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:35 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

3rd time around

i encashed the cheque given to me by my boss... now i can exit uae again. the flight has been booked for saturday evening. i will be leaving for kish island in iran, again, and its gonna be the third time for my visa change.

...and i really hate flying.

discoursed by jeff @ 9:23 AM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, September 13, 2004

back to work

after three day holiday (sunday was the official holiday for muslims, so called ascension of somethin'...), its time to get back to work including this blogger thing. it's been almost a week im having problems encoding my blog.

...and that's what you get for free blogging. :)

discoursed by jeff @ 4:18 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, September 12, 2004

dvd mania part III

its hard not to have a fridge in a flat. first, you always go to market to buy the fresh stuffs. second, no cold water (or beer) and lastly, waste of money and energy.
anyway, it is my duty to cook lunch/dinner for them. i went to the locksmith first to get my own master key for duplication. then i went to Lal's to shop some onions, string beans, sarsa ni mang tomas,pork belly and luncheon meat (maaa-ling!).

i cooked adobong sitaw sidedish with lechon kawali.

i delivered bob's lunch at the shop. later on, mark, my officemate came to drop by to see our flat. it's an EXECUTIVE SUITE. hehehe...

later in the evening, we watched the following:

- Day After Tomorrow
- American Pie : The Wedding
- Troy

... after achilles beheaded apollo's statue...i fell asleep.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:21 PM | 2 comment(s) | permalink

Saturday, September 11, 2004

dvd mania part II

yep, its saturday. what else happened on this day?

aside from the anniversary of the 9/11 attack on us, officially its my first day living in satwa, away from suspicious thoughts and uneasy feeling. today, i'm on my own.

i slept the whole morning, trying to catch some hours of sleeplessness last night. feeling bored in the afternoon, i went to the i-cafe to do something useful in which it didnt work out. instead i watched dvds...again.

here are the movies (in order):

- i robot
- hellboy (didn't finished it though)
- bourne supremacy
- kill bill 1
- kill bill 2

...its good to watch something when there's beer in hand.

discoursed by jeff @ 4:39 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, September 10, 2004

dvd mania part I

yep, its transition day. i felt joy and sadness at the same time. joy because im going to live on my own, without support from relatives (not really relatives) and away from hassles.

sadness because i'm going to miss them.

i packed everything up in the morning. ate josie and maydy came to ask a favor. they would like to learn some basic computer stuffs and if it is okay if i can teach them. i agreed. they learned something even if its a crash course tutorial. they appreciated on what i did... and domino's pizza is the reward.

i moved to my new place in satwa in the evening. bob aka subject a, 2jetts, pete(peyts), and kat are my new roommates. as soon as i moved in with a "new purchased" computer. we watched dvd till morning...

- the sweetest thing (i guess by cameron diaz)
- 50 first dates
- matrix
- matrix reloaded
- matrix revolutions

...every beginning must have an end.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:59 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

dream on

recently, i discovered that our scanner has negative film scanning capabilities. i saved a lot of money by scanning these negatives rather than developing it to the photo studio.

one of the pics i scanned:

dream on skitzo... dream on.

discoursed by jeff @ 1:01 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, September 06, 2004

reward thyself

it feels so good when you reward yourself from the hard-earned job which you deserve. i did myself a favor. i decided to buy myself an external mobile hard drive casing for my hard disk. compare to the so much coveted maxtor one touch drive, i decided to buy an alternative. i saved almost 300% of the original price of maxtor. i do hope it will last longer.

discoursed by jeff @ 3:56 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Saturday, September 04, 2004

compensation

i slept only less than 3 hours because i have a meeting with my gilid. we've met at mcdonald's at 11 am, more things needed for the site and more topics discussed. i got the dough...

later i went to the National Bank of Dubai at sheikh zayed road to encash my cheque. i asked the information (pretty arab lady...riskyyy) if i can encash it on a different branch. she said it's okay.

good. i got my half month's salary and the mercenary pay while ago...

... and it just gonna pass on the palm of my hand.

discoursed by jeff @ 1:29 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, September 03, 2004

homesick and kidnapped

it's a rest day for all of us. nothing special during the day except for me-ann's bday. just a little partying and ...wait.

i almost forgot about aris' meeting. we've met in karama district. i saw his family for the first time. his daughter was also with him when we met. it reminded me of my daughter... i accompanied him looking for a stand on his new wide screen tv.

testing the new screen, we've watched X-men. after the movie, i went with aris to drive me home... instead he took me somewhere.

without me knowing, we're already on our way to Fujairah, one of the remote states in UAE. i have no choice but to go with him. it took us 1 1/2 hours from Dubai to Fujairah. Fujairah is quiet. it's like a small town... few buildings... as if it looks deserted.

I visited his villa, ate at the cafeteria, and entered the disco. same life as dubai, different environment. we left and headed back to dubai at 4am.

and i slept at sunrise...