The Most Beautiful Baby Ever (Photographer makes the difference!)
There is a woman in Pensacola who has studied how to photograph babies. The photos she did of our grandbaby made tears come to my eyes:
She takes wonderful, joyous photographs of babies and families. She welcomes your visits and comments to her blog:
Doha: 10 “eateries” closed for Health Violations
This is from today’s Peninsula. Don’t you wish they would publish the names of the eateries? As a person who frequents ‘eateries’, as a person the health inspectors are protecting, I would very much like to know names of violaters. I would also like to see the standards by which they are judged, and the scores of ALL the restaurants/eateries they examine. In many countries, that is considered in the public interest.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know whose score was so low that they barely passed??
Eateries shut for violating health rules
Web posted at: 2/20/2010 5:46:46
Source ::: .THE PENINSULA
DOHA: At least 10 eateries across the city were closed down temporarily by Doha Municipality last month as punishment for violating health and safety rules.
Civic inspectors conducted routine checks on more than 2,800 eateries, among them restaurants, cafes and juice stalls in the city last month, to check their compliance with health and safety guidelines.
As many as 160 violations of various types were detected and 10 eateries found to be involved in serious violations, were ordered to be closed down.
Municipal inspectors discovered large foodstuff stocks with retail outlets that had outlived their expiry dates. Some 343 types of food items which were found to be unfit for consumption were recovered and destroyed.
They included more than 2,800 boxes of fresh eggs. Each box contains 30 eggs, so the stale eggs that were seized from various outlets and destroyed by the civic body totaled 84,000.
At least 53 samples of food items that were suspected to be unfit for consumption were taken by the municipal inspectors and sent over to the laboratory to run quality tests. It was found that six of them were unfit for consumption and did not meet Qatari standards and specifications.
The public cleaning department of Doha Municipality, on the other hand, referred 115 violations to law-enforcement agencies for action while issued 100 warnings to violators last month.
Some 423 entities found to be violating public cleaning regulations were fined on the spot.
As for beauty salons, raids were conducted last month on 63 of them and 21 violations were detected. At least five of them with serious violations were referred to the police for legal action.
The municipality also acted on a number of public complaints regarding stale foodstuff on sale, public hygiene and building permits, among other things, and referred several violators for action.
Some of these complaints had appeared in newspapers while others the municipality received telephonically, while still others in writing.
Scientist Proves it: “We are all boring”
LLOOLL, this scientist studied a large variety of human behavior and discovered that what we do, we are likely to do over and over. Where we go, we are likely to go multiple times.
BOSTON (Feb. 18) — Physicist Albert-László Barabási can guess where you will be tomorrow at 3 p.m. And where you’ll be Saturday night at 8. In fact, given enough data, he can predict your location at any time, with an average 93 percent accuracy. But don’t worry. He’s not watching you. In fact, his work shouldn’t be cause for alarm so much as existential distress.
In a new paper published in the Feb. 19 issue of Science, the Northeastern University physicist and his colleagues describe how they used data from 50,000 anonymous cell phone users to study human mobility, or where we are and when. Their work reveals that our movements follow a pattern, whether we are homebodies or frequent fliers.
Chaoming Song
These diagrams represent the movements of two mobile phone users. The one on the left shows that the person moved between 22 different cell towers during a three-month period, and placed 52 percent of his calls from one area; the other subject hit 76 spots, and was much less rooted.
“The surprise was that we couldn’t find unpredictable people,” Barabási says. “We are all boring.”
You can read the entire article here, on AOL News.
Arab Gulf? Persian Gulf? Games Cancelled
Islamic Solidarity Games cancelled over Gulf dispute
From BBC News
The first Islamic Solidarity Games were held in Jeddah in 2005
The Islamic Solidarity Games, due to be held in Iran in April, have been called off because of a dispute with Arab countries over what to call the Gulf.
The games federation in Saudi Arabia said the Iranian organisers had failed to address its concerns, particularly about the planned logo and medals.
These bear the words “Persian Gulf”, but Arab countries, who call it the Arabian Gulf, reject the term.
The games had been postponed in October in the hope of striking a deal.
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) in Riyadh said, after an emergency board meeting, Iran’s local organising committee “unilaterally took some decisions without asking the federation by writing some slogans on the medals and pamphlets of the games”.
Iran “did not abide by the rules of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation” and “did not follow the decisions taken by the general assembly of the federation at a previous meeting in Riyadh”, it said in a statement.
But Iran’s committee for the games disputed the decision.
“In spite of convincing arguments made to the ISSF executive committee, regrettably and without presenting any logical reasons, the ISSF committee decided not to hold the games with Iran as the host,” it said.
The games – which are meant to strengthen ties among Islamic countries – were first held in the Saudi city of Jeddah in 2005.
Iran has campaigned to ensure the body of water between Iran and the Arabian peninsula is known as the Persian, not the Arabian, Gulf.
Feast of the Epiphany in Doha
Our priest at the Church of the Epiphany has been instructing the children on how the church year differs from the marketing year. While “Christmas” may start in October – or even July! – to merchants eager to sell their wares, for church-going Christians, Christmas starts on Christmas Eve – and is celebrated, each and every day, until the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the Three Wise Men traveling to find the Christ Child in Bethlehem.
“I know what I want for Christmas this year,” I said to my startled friend, “I want you to fix my camel. I have all the things, or most of them, but I haven’t a clue where to start.”
My friend is a very busy woman. She has so much on her plate. But there was not a sign of reluctance on her face. “I LOVE doing camels!” she exclaimed!
“I want it to look like a camel coming with the Wise Men to bring gifts to the Christ Child,” I told her, and she got it without any explanation – yep, gold, frankincense, myrrh . . .
The camel is everything I had dreamed of – and more. She made little bags, she created a treasure chest of gifts, she even included my sewing machine and a coffee grinder!
I have three little Wise Men following the camel, bringing gifts. The Qatteri Cat has inflicted some damage; one is missing a foot and I can’t find it anywhere. I was able to glue a head back on, and a feather on another . . . The Qatteri Cat does not get Epiphany.
A lawyer from Texas A&M did a wonderful film, sent to me by my sweet daughter-in-law’s dear aunt, called The Star in which he presents the result of his research to find scientific evidence that a Star might have stood still over the little city of Bethlehem at the the time pinpointed for the birth of The Christ. It’s an amazing and insightful video, the life work of a devoted man.
The Snowflake Man
From a wonderful website on Parenting, iMom, full of ideas, comes this lovely video on a man who photographed snowflakes:
Snowflake Man from Family First on Vimeo.
With thanks to my wonderful daughter-in-law, EnviroGirl, for the reference. 🙂
Nexus One – I want!
I thought I wanted an iPhone – but now that I have seen the Nexus One – love at first sight!
From Engadget:
Well here you have it folks, honest-to-goodness pics of the Google Phone… AKA, the Nexus One. As you can see by the photos, the design of the device is largely similar to those we’ve seen, but the graphic on back is slightly different, and that piece of tape is covering a QR code (how very Google of them). Just like we’ve heard before, the updated OS features new 3D elements to the app tray, as well as an extended amount of homescreens, though it looks like the lock screen / mute is the same as in Android 2.0.1. Additionally, there’s now a new grid icon at the bottom of the homescreen, which when pressed brings up a webOS card-style preview of all homescreen pages — which raises some interesting possibilities. Apparently there’s been a new software update for the device pushed tonight, and sure enough the phone is identified as the Nexus One on the system info page. Quite clearly this device is running on T-Mobile, and is also using WiFi, so there’s two other questions you’ve got answers to. The phone also appears to come loaded up with Google Navigation (a bit of a no-brainer) and the brand-spanking-new Google Goggles. Hardware wise, the Nexus does look incredibly thin and sleek, and while there’s not a slew of buttons (those four up front are clearly touch sensitive), there is a dedicated volume rocker along the side. Oh, and note this… no HTC logo anywhere to be found. We’ll update the post as / if we get more info, but for now, feast your eyes on the gallery below!
Update: One item of interest. In the packaging there’s a quick start guide which points users to a “questions” page at google.com/phone/support. The page is a dead end right now, but it certainly gets an eyebrow raise from us. If there is a real Google Phone in the offing, that seems a likely landing page for support.
Update 2: In case you’re interested, here’s Android 2.1’s boot animation for Nexus One. Eerily familiar, no?
From the Fireworks Crew
As a reply to one of the comments on an earlier post about the Qatar National Day Fireworks Program, the crew that planned, organized and executed the fireworks display commented:
21 crew, 8 x 40 foot shipping containers of equipment, 2 weeks setup, 3 days of bloody rain, 17 pontoons over 3.2km, 1 island with 25 firing positions, kilometers of cable, countless hours of programming, 18 minutes of show, 4 days to pack it all back up and then fly home…great show, but exhausting! Very glad you enjoyed it!
Imagine! Imagine the work that goes into those 18 minutes. . . .
And I bet they are off soon to do New Year’s in some other fabulous location. Imagine, what a life that must be!
Christmas Eve Hilarity
All of a sudden, life slows down and friends can gather, relax, share stories and share laughter. We were full of hilarity as we sat down to make Christingles, which, as it turns out, none of us have ever made before and none of us have a clue what they are supposed to look like.
Here is an explanation of a Christingle from NationMaster.com encyclopedia:
A Christingle is a symbolic object used in advent services in churches of many Christian denominations. It has its origins in the Moravian Church , with the first recorded use, in Germany, in 1747.
This is the story of the first Christingle:
One Christmas time back in 1747 at a town in Germany, Pastor John sat at home in front of his fire. He was thinking how he could explain the love of Jesus, and what Christmas really meant to the children in the church. He decided to prepare a simple symbol to help make the message of Christmas fresh and lively for them. Pastor John gave each child a lighted candle wrapped in a red ribbon, with a prayer that said “Lord Jesus, kindle a flame in these dear children’s hearts”. This was the first ever Christingle service.
Many years later, in 1968, Christingle services were introduced to the Anglican Church in Britain, and the custom spread quickly; each year there are more and more Christingle services in England and Wales, although today’s Christingles are a little different.
The Christingle consists of:
- an orange representing the world with
- a red ribbon around it representing the blood of Jesus
- fruits and sweets (usually dolly mixtures) are skewered on 4 cocktail sticks which are pushed into the orange representing the fruits of the earth and the four seasons
- and a lighted candle is pushed into the centre of the orange representing Christ, the light of the world
Here are some illustrations I found online:
Here is where the hilarity begins – have you ever tried to tie a red ribbon around a sphere? Have you ever tried to determine the proper “Anglican angle” for the fruit filled cocktail picks? Worst of all, how can such a simple assignment end up looking more like Sputnik than an object to teach children lessons in holiness? We struggled to meet the challenge, and, in the end, had fulfilled our mission, but not one of us was confident that we had produced the real thing. Our results:
After so much stress and hilarity, we needed to unwind, so off to the Ritz Carlton once again, where we discovered that the disappearing Christmas Tree is back in all its glory:
You can opt for a plate from the Ritz Carlton Christmas food yummies buffet:
Or you can order the Ritz special Christmas Tea, which comes in towers (and you can actually order coffee with it if you prefer coffee to tea)
A lovely beginning to Christmas.
We wish you a Merry Christmas, and unexpected joy in the coming year.
Week of Celebrations For Qatar’s National Day
Wouldn’t you think these celebrations would want lots and lots of observers, helping celebrate? So . . . where and when is the camel dressage? (I really, REALLY want to see that!) Which day is the parade? When are the fireworks?
Announcements like this are tantalizing, and hard information often difficult to come by.
Gala planned for National Day
Web posted at: 12/7/2009 1:27:32
Source ::: The Peninsula
BY HUDA N V
DOHA: Qatar is set to celebrate National Day, which falls on December 18, on a grand scale this time. A series of exhilarating programmes have been lined up for the week-long celebrations starting six days ahead of the landmark date.
Beginning from December 12, various competitions, symposiums, parades and other events meant for family and children would mark the celebrations. The first day would witness two traditional Qatari sporting events — the Masseela Horse Race and Pure bred Arabian Camel Race.
Highlighting the country’s penchant for Arab horse racing and camel dressage, the National Day Masseela Horse Race will take place at the Darb-a-Saai Camp in Rawda Umm Rouman (Al Rayyan).
The horse race will be organised in the traditional Qatari way, whereby pairs of riders will challenge each other in a test of courage with the winning rider advancing to the next round.
The Masseela Horse Race, featuring both Arabian horses and Qatari riders dressed in the traditional attire of the ancestors is an apt way to introduce the young generation to the traditions of their ancestors.
Arabian camels from Qatar’s leading stables will compete in two contests — camel dressage and ‘Best Behaved Camel’. In the dressage, a camel has to complete a routine within a specific time and it is to be judged on the way it has been dressed up.
The ‘Best Behaved Camel’ competition will judge a camel on its ability to overcome obstacles and distractions such as water and food. Other events include a poetry competition for Qatari men and women focusing on their recitation skills. Various Qatari tribes will also showcase the traditional sword dance — Ardha — accompanied by music composition using traditional musical instruments. A symposium will also be held on the occasion.
Al Dawha satellite Channel, which was launched during the National Day in 2008, will be on air again this time with documentaries highlighting the progress, history and culture of the nation. On day, the Corniche will witness a huge military parade and a colourful rally. The 5km stretch of will be bejewelled in light. The grand finale of the week-long celebrations would be marked by a spectacular pyrotechnic.
Qatar University will also celebrate the occasion. Over 500 students have signed up for various activities to be held on December 16. A huge parade showcasing the history of Qatar, the visions of various rulers right from the first to Qatar Vision 2030, some of the greatest events in Qatar such as the Asian Games and the Qatar’s World Cup bid 2022 will also take place.
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