Goodbye Texas

It was really a blast being in Texas for the last two weeks with friends who really made me enjoy my time more than the last time I stayed in Houston. The classes were a bit exhausting but I had fun, too. We were having theoretical and practical classes as back and forth, so that when you're in the practical, you'd see the theoretical part in action. What matters, is I've really understood and learned a lot about the tool I came to be trained to; OverDrive™ System. Later, I'll be, hopefully, going to another training for one of the lastest technologies in the oilfield; these are Drilling with Casing (DwC™), Drilling while Reaming (DwR™) and Drilling with Liners (DwL™).

Apart from the classes, the weekend before last weekend, my classmates and I went to Austin and it was just amazing trip. The night life in Austin is way too much better than in Houston, it's just vivacious and active. This is the famous Lady Bird Lake (aka: Town Lake)

Last weekend, three of my other Omani friends and myself went to NASA Johnson's Space Center Houston. I didn't really enjoy much but I loved the weather there and we cruised around Galveston for like 2 hours; such awesome seaside town. A photo from the NASA Space Center:

I never imagined in my whole life I'd be doing a crazy shopping one day, but guess what? I just did. :D I went to Galleria Mall and I shopped almost over $3000 (knowing the fact that I'm the least person on earth interested on shopping xD). I bought kids outfits for my nephew and nieces, D&G sunglasses, MontBlanc sunglasses, handbags from Gucci, 4 jeans and 5 shirts from AE and most importantly, L'Homme set from Yves Saint Laurent (YSL <3).

I will surely come back here again, since my company's headquarter is actually based in Houston. 4 Hours left to my flight, see you at the other part of the world guys.

Snow in Houston?

This is really unusual to see snow in Houston, because it doesn't happen very often. Yesterday was really cold and the temperature reached almost 3C'. It happened that Amjad came from the northwest of Texas, from Lubback (which is very cold at this time of the year) to stay with his brother and it seems he brought the curse from there :P. It's expected that the weather would be getting warmer by tomorrow and back to normal the day after.

UPDATE: pictures have been added.

The last two weeks!

It has been a while since I last updated. I have been busy a little bit for the last couple of weeks; Eid, photo-shooting, etc etc. As I mentioned in my previous post that I bought a DSLR camera [Canon EOS 450D] and I have been experimenting it and took some shots. Here are some of the shots that I would like to share:

One of the main reasons why I didn't update my blog in the last two week, is that I did eyes surgery for vision correction at Muscat Eye Laser Center right after Eid; namely the Lasek. It was totally hectic and painful in the first two days. I cannot describe the pain I went through but in the first two days my eyes were very itchy (and still till now but less) and whenever I blink my eyes, it's like I feel someone cutting my eyes with bare blades. Along with that, I've been advised not to get exposed to any kind of lights; not to use the laptop or watch TV and keep my eyes closed most of the time for a whole week. You can't imagine how hectic it could be, but literally, I felt like I was prisoned in my room forever.

This is how my eyes looked like in the third day. You can see the effect of tiredness

When doing Lasek surgery, in order to help healing your cornea, usually contact lenses will be placed on your eyes for a period of time. This period differs from a person to another, depending on how flat/soft your cornea is, however, in my case the lenses were placed for a week. A week later from the surgery, I went back to MELC to remove the lenses, despite the fact of their bad services, when the doctor was checking my eyes and going to remove the lenses, he removed the left lense a bit harshly and the consequence of that I got a small crack in the cornea which made me suffer another 3 days to get it fully healed. During these 3 days, my left eye was tearing all the time, even when I'm sleeping. I could have had sued the doctor for his aggressive way of removing the contact lense from my eye, but I was just being so patient and wanting to recover to my normal health ASAP. Notice the redness and the tiredness on my left eye in the picture below:

Thankfully (el7madellh), I am now feeling much more better and I must say that it was worth doing the surgery because now I see things more clearer and more 'WoW'. This is how my eyes look like now:

Just one more thing about MELC which I honstly didn't like. They have one of the worst customer service you could ever experience. If you call their Customer Service Line, no one will respond to you immediately and if you're lucky enough, they'll call you back in no less than an hour later. Notwithstanding, when they schedule you for an appointment and you arrive at the right time, you'll have to wait for another hour till it's your turn to see the doctor. Now for heaven's sake, what kind of a service is this??

Anyhow, immediately after I got my cornea fully healed I went to UAE visiting relatives in Abu Dhabi and shopping in Dubai. Nothing special to mention, but I feel like posting this picture below which I took when I had soms Krispy Kreme doughnuts. (Yes 3anooda, this is a show off :p )

Happy Eid + Happy Anniversary

Happy Eid: I truly wish all of you a very pleasant and joyful Eid, to you, your families and your beloved ones. Have a blast :)

Happy Anniversary: Yes! Exactly today, I completed 1 year working in Weatherford International. What a coincidence that I'm going to celebrate two things in one day? :p


Just a side note: Lately, I was confused on which DSLR camera should I get and I was all hesitant between the Nikon D90 and the Canon EOS 450D. Eventually, I ended up with Canon and only Canon; 'cause I've been using canon in the past 8 years. I'll be posting couple of my shots some time later.


Happy Eid to all of you once again, have fun guys. ;)

New addition to the family: C350 AMG (2009)

Yes, that's my ride. 2 Months old now ;)

Random Pictures

I think it has been more than a week since my last post, so I will talk briefly about what I have been to since then till now.


Nizwa Rain (31/05/2007): Last week, I went to Nizwa after I finished my exams and studies at SQU and surprisingly the weather was just amazing and wonderful. The next day we had cloudy weather in the morning and at around 3:00PM, it rained heavily and we even had sleet falling. I have taken few pics and I'm leaving you with them. Enjoy ;)

NOTE: All pictures were taken personally by me. Camera used: Canon IXUS 800. Please double click to see full view.

Apparently, it was sleeting hard

Too cold

It even reached inside our house


Wadi after that heavily raining and sleeting


More from the Wadi

Camping Trip (Masirah 2-3/06/2007): YES! Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Graduates 2007 organized a camping trip to Masirah and I joined them and I must admit that I had real fun and I'm sure I won't forget this day since I know that I'm not going to meet all of them more frequent as we used back in school. I was there from Saturday and came back on Sunday's night. Here are few pics from Masirah.

Center of Masirah from the sea

Sunset

Wonderful, isn't it?


My tent lol

Guess who we met?


Look closer on who's enjoying the romantic weather xD

Cyclone Gonu (4-7/06/2007): I'm sure most of you know about this catastrophic event which made a lot of serious damages in some places in Oman like Muscat, Sur, Quraiyat, Amerat and I think some places in Barkaa, too. I believe Oman hasn't ever experienced such cyclone as this before, however, most of residents were less vigilant and completely not precautious even after official alarm from the Royal Oman Police (ROP). Anyway, when I first heard that Oman is possibly going to be hit by cyclone on Monday, my family and I decided to evacuate and we actually evacuated to Nizwa. Thankfully, and talking cylcone gonu aftereffects, Nizwa hasn't been damaged as serious as other places as I mentioned above. Here are some pics that I took frequently.

Tuesday afternoon: 5:00PM from the top of my house


Tuesday: sunset

Wednesday, after Fajir prayer around 5:15AM


Nizwa Suq and the Wadi was passing nearby


The other side of the Wadi

Cool weather and pic, eh?

A top view for the Wadi

Wednesday: sunset

Thursday, finally the sun rays

I was experimenting the focusing feature and trying to come up with something more close-up that show the details of my object which is the dragonfly in this photo. The purpose that I made the lower part coming darker is to help me showing the details of the dragonfly; that's by the lighting in the background of the upper part my photo. Obviously, such photos need patience and concentration and it took me around 15 minutes to get this photo right with shutter speed of 1/403 sec. I hope you'll like it and comments are highly appreciated

Picture Details

Model: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 800 IS
Shutter Speed: 1/403 second
F Number: F/5.5
Focal Length: 23 mm
Date Picture Taken: Aug 17, 2006, 12:07:32 PM