Hyperbolic Logic

Palladium Boots created a short documentary on Detroit starring Johnny Knoxville.  It shows some of the great grassroots rebuilding of the city by its citizens.  The city’s rich history and unique freedom are some of the reasons why it is great to live here.  Click on the link below.

“Once the fourth-largest metropolis in America—some have called it the Death of the American Dream. Today, the young people of the Motor City are making it their own DIY paradise where rules are second to passion and creativity. They are creating the new Detroit on their own terms, against real adversity. We put our boots on and went exploring.”

Exploring Detroit

Hi Everyone,

I was in Montana earlier this year and came across a pickyard with a lot of interesting vehicles.  This is the first time I’ve experimented with HDR processing, which enhances the dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of the photo.  Compared to the human eye, a camera can only capture a limited range of intensity in a photo, which is why many photos look dull compared to how you remembered the scene.  It works by merging three photographs, each with a different exposure level.

Some photographers aren’t huge fans of HDR because it can be overdone and make very artificial looking photographs.  I kept the effect mild and it did a great job of bringing out all the details in the cars and surroundings that would’ve been lost otherwise.  Enjoy.

Dubai is known for people with deep pockets who appreciate fine automobiles.  There were so many different places we spotted nice cars I decided to put them all in one post.

To start off is our chariot that we rented for the 5 days after Alex left; a Toyota Yaris.

Although it is painfully slow with a small 1.3L engine and felt fairly cheap it was a nice car.  There are speed cameras all over the city, which is a problem since the roads are so smooth and well put together.  The Yaris took all of it’s muster to get up to traffic speeds, and handled decently enough with quite a bit of body roll which made it exciting to toss about through the roundabouts and construction mazes.  You basically had to drive the piss out of it just to keep up with everyone else.  Its more fun to drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow.  On to the good stuff.

There was an exotic dealership that had an impressive array of beautiful cars including the otherworldly Enzo, a $1 million dollar car.

Right next to it is a Koenigsegg CCX, a version of which was faster around the Top Gear track than the Enzo.

The new Ferrari California.

Rolls.

Maserati Grand Turismo

Next door was the Hamann showroom, which makes performance packages for cars, many of which are pretty over the top.  Take this modified SLR McLaren for example.

This Bentley had an odd matte textured finish.

A G-Wagon, a very popular SUV in Dubai since one of the Souks owned one.

Their Ferrari California looked pretty nice, a lot more subdued.

Here is a Hamann kitted 6 series we saw on the beach, looks really nice.

Here is a medley of a bunch of nice cars we saw parked around.  First ones at the Mall of the Emirates.

More randoms

Their version of the Pontiac G8, looks cooler than ours.

There were a handful of large pickup trucks there.

An older S8, there were a good amount of the newer ones driving around.

Mercedes were everywhere, especially the AMG versions.  The one below as 451hp.

By Alex and Ajo’s house there was a couple blocks filled with auto repair shops and had several interesting cars lying around.

An Aston Martin V8 Vantage

The owner of this car did a burnout for us, Skylines are nice.

An interesting anphibi-car

Next door was a dealership with a nice selection of vehicles.

A Hartage 6 series

They had one of the great 90’s supercars, a Bugatti EB110.  Quad turbo V12, 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, 217 mph top speed.

We saw the best car on the last day, a Bugatti Veyron at the Dubai Mall.  Seeing all this exotic machinery for the past few weeks didn’t jade us when we first spotted the Veyron, which had a huge crowd around it.  This is basically the top modern supercar you can buy.  Over 1000 Hp, price tag north of $1 million.  The thing has the presence of a spaceship.  We were really happy we got to see one of these on our trip.

Well it is Christmas!  I’m normally used to snow and negative temperatures, but 80’s and sunny is fine with me.  Tonight we will be dressing up and going to Christmas mass, where Ajo is a server.  Later around 3 AM Nick and Alex will be arriving!  I’m excited for them to get here.  I’ve been busy the past few days.  I moved out of the hotel to a spare room at Alex and Ajo’s house.  I’ve been having fun hanging out with Ajo and his friends. 

A few nights ago we went to a shisha (or hooka) bar.  A few of my friends own hooka pipes and there are a few nice hooka bars around Detroit.  For those who don’t know: shisha is smoking fresh, usually flavored tobacco from a large water pipe.  The smoke is cool, smooth, and very relaxing.  Unlike the hooka coals in the US which are tablets with some sort of combustible substance inside that makes them easy to light, the coals here are loose and natural.  There is a guy who walks around with a large metal ladle full of coals and replaces the ones on your pipe when they are dying out.  The hooka bar was nice, with lots of tables and comfortable places to sit.  There were several TVs and some of those bar computer games.  We hung out and played some card games.  We played poker for points.  Gambling is very illegal here, playing poker for money can get you 40 lashes.  We also played a traditional Indian card game called Donkey.  This game is simple but extremely fun and involves a lot of strategy and risk.  We have played it several nights since then and it is always a good time.  It gets it’s name because the loser of the game has to put a sock on their ear, and if they have socks on both ears they have to make a donkey noise, otherwise they get a “round of slaps”.  We didn’t do the sock thing but made sure the losers made some type of embarrassing sound.

  Kevin and Bennet

Ajo and me

A couple days ago we put up the Christmas tree at their house.  It is an artificial tree, obviously real pine trees are hard to come by here.  Normally Ajo’s family puts the tree up together but since they are in India with his Dad for the next week or so we made sure it was up for Christmas.  We left the star off the tree for Alex to put on when he arrives.  The tree looks great, bedecked with ornaments, beads, and lights.

Yesterday we took a bus and the metro across town to the Mall of the Emirates.  It is not the Dubai mall, which is the largest mall in the world, but was still extremely impressive.  On the way there we rode the bus, the busses here are identical to the ones in Germany, very modern.  The metro is also really nice and new.  The trains are automatic, no drivers.  The stations are extremely clean and nicely designed.  Here is a photo of Ajo and I at the station.  I’m looking kind of smarmy with my eyes at half blink. 

 

On the metro we rode through downtown, which was amazing.  I didn’t take any photos since we were zipping through on the train and I’ll be there again soon to take some proper pictures.  There is so much construction going on.  Dozens of huge skyscrapers are in a partially finished state, their concrete skeletons showing through open patches in their sleek glass and steel skins.  What was very unusual is unlike normal city construction where there is an established street and neighborhood surrounding the site, it looks like these buildings are rising out of the bare desert themselves.  Sections of the downtown are just a sea of sandy construction sites, with beautiful tall skyscrapers sprouting through.  Only a few paved paths cross through these areas, like there was nothing there before.  A couple apartment buildings had only one lane of paved road circling the building which connected to another path that led out of the construction area.  Further back was the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world.  It is stunning and has almost an art-deco look to it with rings of chrome over the tall glass cylinders.  It is 2 to 3 times taller than any of the surrounding buildings.  It officially opens on January 4th and we will be there to see it for sure. 

We arrived at the mall and started walking around.  I bought a plug converter so I could charge and use my dead laptop.  The mall is nicer than any I’ve been to in the states, and about 4 times bigger.  Each section has its own design theme.  All the floors are colorful marble, and everything is very pleasantly designed.  There are lots of interesting shops there, and uber-expensive jewelry and watch stores.

  Me next to an impractically large teapot

We ate at the food court which had some really nice selections.  There was a KFC, Burger Kang, and Pizza Hut, but also a lot of really good looking ethnic restaurants from Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Italian, etc.  The mall is also the first place that I’ve seen tourists, besides a handful near the gold district.  It is pretty nice since so far I’ve been seeing a lot of the city that is off the beaten path for most foreigners.  One interesting thing about the mall is that there is a dress code which is somewhat followed by most of the tourists.  You have to be modestly dressed, no skirts above the knees.  Many of the women I have seen so far at least have their hair covered.  Some wear the full burqa, although most have their faces uncovered.  Many of the women at the mall had ornately decorated burqas, and were probably more rich than most of the women I’ve seen so far.  Not all the women were wearing traditional garb, most were wearing what any woman would wear to the mall in the US. 

There was a large Christmas tree in the middle of the mall with an animatronic polar bear for the kids to sit on.  Not sure if Santa was on break or something.

 

One of the main attractions to this mall is Ski Dubai, the only indoor ski slope.  We walked into the main area where you buy tickets and rent equipment.  It is 180 dirhams, or 60 dollars for 2 hours of skiing.  I’m not a skiing fan and unfortunately the only look we could get of the inside was through the windows near the food court.  It is still pretty unbelievable to see a ski hill in the middle of the desert.

   

We decided to hang out outside, luckily we chose an exit next to the main valet area and saw some incredible vehicles.

And I showed the guys the traditional American way to pose in front of a Rolls Royce.

Christmas eve Ajo and I dressed up for mass.  We went to this neighborhood in the city that has the most schools in one area.  It also had the most churches in one area.  There was a mosque on one side of the street with the catholic church, then Ajo’s church – Serbian orthodox Christian, on the other side.  The Catholic church was holding several masses that night in different languages.  I caught the end of the French mass and decided to walk across the street to see what was going on with Ajo’s mass.  The Serbian Orthodox mass is interesting.  You need to remove your shoes before entering the church, and there is only a small section of pews for older folks and women with babies, everyone else stands on the carpet.  Men were all on the left side and women on the right; the men were wearing the standard Sunday church wear like you would find in the US.  The women were all wearing brightly colored dresses with beautifully ornate embroidered patterns.  Many covered their hair with scarves.  The mass was in Malayalam, Ajo and Alex’s native language, and pretty much the whole mass was sung.  After standing in the back for about 45 minutes, the mass is about 3 hours, I decided to see if the English mass was underway.  I had to walk through thick crowds of people dressed up for mass, and the whole outside of the church was packed with people watching the mass projected on screens.  There is a large Pilipino population in Dubai and it seemed like they were all at that mass. 

The Mosque across the street from Ajo’s church

One of the Xmas displays at the Catholic church

   Ajo’s Serbian Orthodox church

I went back to Ajo’s church and the place was now packed.  The inside had filled so there were people standing outside along the walls of the church facing the altar, and there were huge piles of shoes.  When mass was over everyone flooded in the square outside the church, cakes and coffee were served.  A choir of girls got on stage and started singing Christmas carols while parents took photos and video.  While that was happening a parade started walking around the outside by a group of men with drums and a guy dressed as Santa singing songs.  It was pretty interesting and fun to see.  Ajo said the celebrating goes late into the night until the priest finally kicks out the stragglers.  We walked to a corner cafeteria, ate two different kinds of schawarma and took a cab home to wait for Nick and Alex to arrive that morning.

The girl’s Christmas choir

The Christmas “conga line’ with Santa

That is all for now.  Alex and Nick come tonight, and with Alex we will have someone with a drivers license so I will be seeing even more of the city.  Stay tuned and thanks for all the comments so far!    

This is my first entry for my Dubai trip.  I arrive in Dubai Friday night, 2 days before Nick and Alex arrive early Monday morning.  I decided to stay at a hotel those first two days since only Alex’s brother Ajo would be home and he was studying for exams.  The hotel is also closer to the city.  My flight to Dubai started in Detroit and went to Atlanta.  From Atlanta it was 14 hours to Dubai.  The plane ride was pretty good, I can’t sleep sitting up so I had to pass the hours watching movies and playing games on the screen in front of my seat.  Since I arrived around 7pm I figured being tired would help me sleep through the night and adjust to the time change faster.  After walking a long ways through the airport and getting my passport stamped I met up with Ajo and his uncle who drove me to a money exchange place and then the hotel.  I’m staying at the Ewan hotel which is pretty nice.  The floors are white tile with Persian rugs and my room has its own balcony.  I was exhausted so I thanked Ajo and his uncle, showered, and passed out. 

I was woken up at 6 by morning prayers that were being projected by the minarets of several mosques across the city.  They were saying different things, so it sounded from the hotel like they were trying to play over each other as the voices echoed off the buildings.  The airport is also very close so low flying planes pass regularly.  It was slightly cool and wet out, and the streets were already busy with cars bustling around.  Here are a couple photos from the balcony.  My room actually faces away from downtown Dubai, the skyscrapers in the distance are part of another city.  One Ajo says many people go to because the rents are a lot cheaper.  The pictures below are from my hotel room balcony.  The large orange building is the hospital where Alex and Ajo’s mom works.

 

The hotel has free breakfast from 8 to 10 which consisted of eggs, a stack of white bread, two slices of cheese, and some packets of orange jelly.  The coffee was fantastic so I had several cups.  I decided to go for a walk after the rain died down. 

Once the sun came out the weather was beautiful.  Up the block from the hotel is a main road that rides along the beach.  There is a wide brick walkway, then large rocks between the water and the road.  There were many people walking around, some stretching in front of the water, others sitting on the rocks and fishing without a pole.  A distance across the water was a huge sandy “island” that stretched several miles along the shore where I walked.  It was part of the construction of the palm islands, huge man-made islands that will be filled with luxury homes.  Work there has paused for now because of the economic problems but the sheer size of it was impressive regardless.  It is so large it can be seen from space.

 

The photo below is towards downtown Dubai.  You can see the Burj Dubai tower, the tallest building in the world in the distance.

A few miles down from the hotel the road curves into a huge traffic circle and there was an interesting looking building across the road so I decided to investigate.  It was the Deira fish and vegetable market.  Under a huge overhang hundreds of people presided over tables covered in fish and seafood.  Several guys asked me if I wanted to buy some fish or shrimp.  I resisted the temptation and kept walking.  The market was busy, many people were pulling carts of fish and ice around.  The other half of the market was full of isles with fresh fruit, vegetables, spices, and nuts.  Each section of the isle seemed to be run by its own guy, who often sat elevated on the shelf among his goods. 

I left the market and walked further inland, where there was a wall of buildings about 6 stories tall along the coast.  On the bottom floor were endless small shops, about 10 feet across each.  The ones closer to the market were part of the gold district and were full of jewelry.  Many had watches, hats, handbags, and shoes.  It reminded me of some of the shops in Italy with inexpensive “name brand” apparel.  The proprietors of the shops stood outside for the most part, and if you looked too long at their wares they tried to make their sales pitch.  One guy saw me looking at his watches for sale and started following me rattling off brands trying to sell me something.  “I’ve got rolex, gucci, dolce, DVD’s, CD’s, gold”  Not today man.  The number of shops was overwhelming.  I’m not sure how there can be enough business to support over 50 identical mobile phone stores in a 2 block radius but apparently there is. 

I stopped at a nearby grocery store to pick up some things.  It was a decent size but seemed smaller because the ceiling was about 10ft high, vs. the super high supermarket ceilings in the US.  It was like a small meijer, with a food/bakery/meat section, then a small clothing section, TV/electronics section. 

I ordered lunch from the hotel, chicken biriani (chicken with rice and slightly hot spices), a salad, and some bread.  It came out to around $8 but was a huge amount of food, about 3 meals worth.  I stuffed myself and still had a lot left, as you can see in the picture.

The next day I walked around some more after breakfast.  This time I went in the other direction down the main road towards the hospital.  The hospital complex was huge, and had some beautiful gardens.  The sidewalk around the outside of the hospital looked very nice too.

 

I hung out with Alex’s brother, Ajo a few times.  We had lunch at a small restaurant/cafeteria.  They have the food made already so it gets to your table quickly.  It was very good.  He had chicken biriyani and I had chicken curry and some bread and we both had small salads.  They give you a spoon for the rice dish but you are supposed to eat with your hands or with the flatbread for the rest.  There are 2 sinks at the back of the place to wash your hands when you are finished.  The food was very tasty and cheap.  Both our meals together was 17 dirhams, about $4.60.

My brother and Alex were supposed to arrive last night but someone at the airport screwed something up so they had to cancel their ticket and move it a few days later, bummer.  That night I met up with Ajo and we walked towards their house.  We grabbed a delicious coffee at a smaller cafeteria, only room for 1 table inside and a larger table outside.  On the way we passed a crowd of people playing cricket, a popular game here.

We also passed a few very large homes that you can see in the picture below.  Since this is a desert climate very few people have yards, some areas have almost no vegetation at all which is much different than in the US.  Many people live in apartments or flats, and there are many postings around for people looking for roommates.  Ajo and Alex’s family live in a 4 bedroom house that has a carport and a nice garden/courtyard in the back.  Most of the houses are connected as a group that lines the street, with an outside wall against the road.  Many people had Christmas lights up.  Ajo explained that the country was about 90% Muslim.  Their family is Christian and the religious diversity is welcomed by everyone there.    

That night we met up with 4 of Ajo’s friends and went to a pool hall.  Like Ajo and Alex, most of them were studying to be engineers which is pretty cool.  The pool hall was on the bottom floor of an office complex and there were TVs playing the soccer game.  There you pay for the tables by the hour, which is really nice compared to paying for each game with quarters like you do in the states.  It was unusual that there was no alcohol around, since pool and alcohol are very closely associated for me.  Juice or not, Ajo and I still won 4 games in a row.   Alcohol is somewhat forbidden here, only certain places can get a license, mostly hotels. 

So far I’m really enjoying it here.  I’m bummed that Alex and Nick had airline problems but they will be here soon enough.  The weather, food, and people have all been great so far.

I’m going to Dubai tomorrow.  I’ll be staying with my brother at our friend Alex’s house for three weeks and will be checking everything out.  When I went on study abroad 4 years ago (!) I wrote details and posted pics of every trip on a blog I created here to share with everyone back home.  I thought it had been deleted but found it a couple days ago and was brought back and started remembering things about the trip I had forgotten.  So I’m going to do the same with this trip on here, I hope you enjoy the coming photos and descriptions of everything that is going on.  Feel free to post a comment or say “Hi”.  I will try to post a few times a week.