More than a Facebook status

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I was at a meeting recently where someone asked the dozen attendees how many used Twitter. Only my friend and I raised our hands. The lady shared she was at a loss why people tweet. In her words, it’s no different to Facebook status updates, only less.

It made me think back a little over a year ago. Because at that time, I had similar thoughts. I’ve overcome that though, and would now consider myself an avid Tweeter.

The query though was a good prompt for me to think and clarify what I think it is that makes Twitter more than a Facebook status:

  • I love the potential of exchange beyond my primary network of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances. Twitter is for the most part a completely open dialogue. This is a dialogue worth having, when there are so many interesting people from all over the world, and all walks of life. Some say Facebook is where you lie to your friends, Twitter is where you’re honest to strangers.
  • News is updated on Twitter before any other source (news of an earthquake allegedly spreads faster than the seismic event itself). By following Trending Topics, you can catch the latest buzz about events before traditional sources even pick them up. The pace of updates might be due to the initial 140 character limit. Fewer words give fewer opportunities to deliberate.
  • Due to its free form, amazingly simple interface, and 140 character limit, Twitter encourages a special amount of creativity to keep the communication going, and the craftiness of language to keep the message succinct.
  • Twitter has become a powerful direct channel for individuals and organisations to spread their message. If there are celebrities, experts, or companies interesting enough for you to follow them, Twitter allows you to follow them – so to speak. Celebrities especially are finding it a useful way to share info directly with their fans – without filter.
  • And I like the real-time feedback and collaboration that Twitter can enable during events through publishing a #(hash) tag. These tags when included in a tweet act as an anchor for anybody to add to the conversation.
  • Your Twitter feed is also like a water tap that you can switch on whenever you want to quench your thirst. There is no cup overfilling that you need to get through before it gets stagnant – like an unmanned email inbox.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all positive. I think for the most part, Twitter is filled with rubbish. Duue to this, I rarely recommend people to get online with it.

It can be an amazing resource if you do have the right temperament, and thirst for knowledge, and ability to find things that entertain you.

Boys Aussie trip – 25 March 2012

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In hindsight, the 16 hour flights always go quickly. This time, our entire trip lasting less than a week went just as quickly. The following are some of the memorable moments, in our home country of Australia.

The boys as always were very good flyers, although they avoided proper sleep as far as possible. This sadly was until the flight’s last hour for Myles, and the last 30 minutes for Lewis. It made it very difficult to wake them and depart the plane once we touched down. A few passengers found it more amusing than I did. There were also many impressed that Myles was wearing a suit yet so young. Maybe a dozen commented on how handsome or smart he looked, and he probably received double that many smiles mostly from women. I could still learn a lot from him.

It’s an interesting approach to tourism that once you touch down in Australia the four massive wall advertisements you first pass are devoted to Australia’s scariest predators. It was a sense of “Welcome to Australia, you’re probably going to die” when you see a life-size picture of the largest crocodile ever found, the number off spiders we have, and the number of poisonous snakes that bless our huge land. It could be giving the public what they want, although we were hoping for a less extreme adventure.

The reason we were in Australia was to attend my new nephew’s Baptism, as well as meet him for the first time. Bracken is such a beautiful happy baby. As far as I could tell, he only laughs, eats, and sleeps all day.
At the church the bible reading by two ladies got some extra attention when a phrase that God was to say, was actually said by an unknown deep male voice. In fact it was very surprising to most, with most looking around, and even a curious “where the [eff] did that come from” from someone in the crowd.

We took the opportunity of being up the Sunshine Coast to rent a cabin near the beach for the week. I find it interesting that I fly Myles and Lewis to the other side of the world, then we stay a stone’s throw from the beach of the beautiful Sunshine Coast, yet the boys’ favourite experience of this holiday may in fact be that they get to sleep on the top of bunk beds.

It was a bit disturbing though that when Lewis woke up and climbed down from his bunk bed, he walked toward the very loud sound of my Mum’s snoring and tried to join her in bed saying “Daddy, Daddy”.

On our first morning up the coast I made the most of the early morning and went for a run. There’s something magic about the sea breeze and a sunrise. Something that maybe only the east coast of Australia can provide. I made it around to Bulcock Beach, where the wind was blowing quite strongly. It was lovely to be able to enjoy such a nice breeze in my face. When the wind is that strong in Dubai you really must head for cover or you’ll choke or be blinded from dust. Here you could breath it in, and my lungs said thank you.

Corey managed to take some time off while we were in town, so we had a sneaking suspicion we’d get to go fishing. Lewis must have been tired for it as he nodded off while we were going almost full speed at the hands of Corey’s new 125 horse-power motor – altho I don’t believe horses have hands. Seeing Lewis asleep, Myles let out a “pffft”, then perhaps inspired by Captain Haddock from TinTin he explained disapprovingly that Lewis is a “Typical Land-Lover”.

We think Myles took honors again in the fishing stakes, with a catch of several bream, an estuary cod and a small blue-dotted stingray. Altho there could be a small protest, since a couple of these fish he caught were on a line someone else baited, cast, and finished the winding in. Particularly with the stingray. Myles remembered very well that Steve Irwin was killed by the barb of a stingray. So he really wanted to make sure that it was kept well away from us – which seemed like Corey’s plan anyway. I was Myles’s assistant in bringing the ray in, what a fight they put on!

On one of the nights we went out for dinner at Corey’s restaurant. The barman that served me looked familiar, a bit like someone I went to school with. Soon after, my brother confirmed it was indeed that kid I went to school with, and it was good to catch up with him and hear about his young family. However my brother saying his name, Dean [Surname] rang no bells. It wasn’t until later when I heard someone say, “seeya Deano” that I realised I only ever knew him through his nickname.

We made our way back to the Brisbane vicinity a day before our flight. We had important shopping to do. Expats have a responsibility when they’re in their home country to buy up certain supplies for their countrymen. For Aussies in Dubai I had a list of the usual items, Twisties, Cherry Ripes, Picnics, Bushells teabags, and for this trip, promite, and Easter Eggs. Although there are enough Christian expats here in Dubai to get plenty of eggs here, you can still pick up things overseas at a fraction of the local price.

With that done there was just one thing remaining on our agenda before having to leave. My parents bought tickets for the kids to see the How To Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular. It was great. I was amazed at how life-like they can now make such big robots move. I saw more than a few couples going to see it without a kid in sight, which is probably a good sign of the show’s popularity.

Then we took our return flight home on a completely filled Boeing 777-300 ER. The boys were amazing for me again and this time slept for maybe four hours. This allowed me to even take a nap, after drinking a handful of red wines to help the process. 🙂 Although Emirates has by far the world’s best in-flight entertainment, it was interesting to watch Lewis trying to navigate through the menus, movies, and games. Three year olds don’t know better, so they automatically swipe and pinch, like it’s an iPhone or iPad. The ICE system isn’t quite there yet buddy.

We had a lovely trip to Australia, one I’m sure the kids will always remember.
We’ll get sadly dragged back into Dubai reality tomorrow, all three boys have their dental appointments. :-/ then Sunday it’s back to work, school, and nursery for us. We’d probably get through the first day back easier if only we could swap who goes to each to these places.

[Joke] Mobile Commuting

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After a busy day John settled down in his train from Waterloo for a nap as far as his destination at Winchester, when the chap sitting near him hauled out his mobile and started up:- “Hi darling it’s Peter, I’m on the train – yes, I know it’s the 6.30 and I’m late but I had a long meeting. No, not with that floozie from the typing pool, with the boss. No darling you’re the only one in my life – yes, I’m sure, cross my heart” etc., etc.
This was still going on as the train passed by Wimbledon, when the young woman opposite,
driven beyond endurance, yelled at the top of her voice –
“Hey, Peter, turn that bloody phone off and come back to bed!!”

Marathon PB at Dubai Marathon, 27 January 2012

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Yesterday at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon I crushed my running goal of 3:30. I crossed the line in a net result of 3:23.32 – which I’m very happy with. The time’s 15 minutes faster than my former best, in 2007; and 35 mins better than my last marathon just over 2 years ago.

I’m not sure why more people don’t run marathons. In the morning for breakfast I ate a whole family block of chocolate, guilt-free. I can justify eating almost anything providing it has high carbs. I guess as my running will now reduce, that diet will be a luxury of the past.

I’ve now run three marathons in three countries. And I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up, but at the starting line of each I’ve shed a tear or two thinking how fortunate I am to be in a position to do this.

My music collection didn’t really help me in such an emotional moment, hearing John Butler singing about having to believe. That was resolved with the next track “Don’t worry be happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

Sadly my iPhone lost its GPS signal for a moment, so my GPS girlfriend was overwhelmingly pleased thinking I was on world record pace. Once the distance is miscalculated there’s no recovery, she’ll tell wrong information every kilometer. This was a bit of a pain, as my phone had become my training partner for the past three months. It was now just a very distracting iPod. The music was at least helpful. Gloria Gaynor singing “I will survive” was timely and encouraging.

On the timing part, I did have the backup of my stop watch, so I could keep an eye on the times of my kilometer splits.

Marathoners generally have an A and B goal, so if things don’t go to plan, there’s still something to aim for. This year a guy ran wearing a 10kg rhinoceros suit to raise awareness for Save The Rhino. So most people also had a C goal in this run to not be beaten by a rhino. I saw him getting assembled at the start line, then thankfully not again for the rest of the day.

The run was fantastic. I ran the majority of training runs required in the three months before the race, so all the hard work was done. In the race I could just relax and enjoy – which I did. Although there weren’t large crowds of spectators throughout, there were still enough people screaming encouragement. Including my family who had come out bearing animal masks, vuvuzellas, and a “Go Daddy Go” sign. Being a Dubai Creek Strider also helped immensely, as wearing the team “vest” got plenty of vocal support from the extended Striders community.

The night before I asked my two sons if they could write some encouragement on my arms, which I could look down and see if I got tired. Myles wrote “Go Ryan” with a smiley, Lewis scribbled all over the other arm, which allegedly said “Go Ryan” also.

It was probably not the most well-executed plan. When I woke up race day at 4am stumbling into the bathroom I laughed out loud when my eyes focused. My face had in permanent pen a mirror image of Go Ryan, where my face must have rested on my arm.
It did come off.

It was tough to stick with the plan of breaking marathon into three parts, running slow, not so slow, then fast. The first 7kms was relatively slow, but then I’d say the rest was a fast medium pace, until the last 4kms when I had to fight to not be too slow. The training prepared me well, but there’s no getting around the fact that 42.2kms is a freaking long way to make the body run. The crowd were cheering the loudest towards the end, which was appreciated. With 3kms to go I caught up with a guy from the club who was struggling more than me. He came back with a bit of a sprint which helped me find an auto drive setting, which pushed me to the finish. On the line I couldn’t help but just stand in a triumphant, relieved, fatigued, blissful, agony. (I hardly even heard my club mate call me a bastard)

My family joined me. Then I hobbled to the Dubai Mall carpark. It seemed like a second marathon – along the way giving an understanding nod to other runners hobbling also.

My mind was a bit of a blur also. As I was walking, I heard a voice behind me say Ryan a few times. All I could register though was, I know that name. It was a colleague who ran the marathon also. I cursed the fact he was walking so comfortably, perhaps the benefits of more experience – this was his fifth marathon in recent years.

Once home I cracked open a beer, had a lovely hot shower to wash off the litre of dried sweat, then had a very relaxing bath. My bath may have been 15 minutes, or 5 hours – I have no idea.

That night we had a bunch of friends over for a belated Aussie Day BBQ. I proudly wore my finisher’s medal, which got some mocking. The kids though were very impressed. They spotted on the medal the number 2 of the year, 2012 and assumed I finished in second place. I went with it. So Ayele Abshero Biza won the marathon in a course record of 2:04.23, then I came in next, 80 minutes later. 🙂

One of the 10 year old girls put it nicely, and said it looked like I just got out of bed. Quite different to all the women who just told me I looked like [expletive].

Realistically, I have no future running goals at this stage. I guess somewhere there is a desire to run the next marathon, and I wonder if I can achieve the next PB, sub 3:20. Pain in my legs and one foot is doing a fine job to mask such desires for the moment.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and well wishes. To state something beyond obvious, I couldn’t have run the marathon without the support of many people.

Movie: Van Dieman’s Land

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I just finished watching Van Dieman’s Land. It was terrible.

Elle and I caught a trailer for the film some time ago, which gave the false impression it would be interesting.

And Van Dieman’s Land – AKA Tasmania – being Elle’s home state in Australia, we also thought it’d be nice to see some familiar beautiful scenery and hear some historical accounts.  We were mistaken.

The story tracks the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness. Then it tracked the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness.

It was monotonous. Until things got even harder and food become more scarce. So, as you do when in this situation while bush walking through Tasmania, you start knocking off your mates one by one and eating them.  The only piece of suspence was who was next to become stew.

In fact, as there was an absence of any other storyline, perhaps they should have named the flick, “Guys walking through bush, eating each other”.

  • Rating: 0.5/5
  • Tags: Australia, Tasmania, cannibalism

40th UAE National Day

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates formation.

Although it’s been a short history, it’s been an amazing story of progress and prosperity.

The local Emiratis celebrate the event through revving the turbos in their hotted up cars to deafening levels, and by covering them with masses of crazy string, and snow in a can.

It was truly a lot of fun. We found a good vantage point on Beach Road, which at 6pm was already pumping with a car park of amazingly decorated cars in all directions. They weren’t literally car parks, just cars not moving.

There were so many amazing cars painted in the Red, Green, White & Black of the UAE flag, or adorned with patriotic stickers of the Nation’s rulers. No expats seemed to take the celebration to such limits, we at least had UAE flags hanging off the windows – like many others had.

It was interesting to see the local guys focus quite a lot of their spraying of crazy string on certain seemingly non-descript cars. We worked out later it was the cars of local Emirati women – which were only able to be spotted through the extremely dark window tinting.

Another trick the guys with snow in a can had was to walk down the line of cars that are stuck in traffic. Then when they reach a car with their windows down, they let the car have it and fill it with as much snow and string until the car’s windows close. I learned this first hand when they got me! I’ve never noticed before how extremely slowly our electric windows go up, when you need them up. It was all a lot of fun.

It made me think though, a night like that couldn’t work in Australia. Here no cars were spared, in Australia I imagine quite a few folks would be protective of their cars and fights would probably ensue. And the partying that we saw on show was totally alcohol-free. In Australia, the addition of alcohol – such as at our own Australia Day celebrations – more often than not eventually turns such large public events into a bit of a disaster, once people become too far gone.

The celebrations started around 6pm, but they’re still going now at 2:15am. We’re not sure what time this will stop.

Happy 40th birthday UAE. Thanks for having us and my family. You don’t look a day over 35. 😉

Here’s to the next 40!

Ferrari World – 26 November 2011

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We’ve had a friend from Australia stay with us, who happens to be an extremely huge Ferrari and formula 1 racing fan. So today we went with him to Ferrari World, which possibly made his day or decade. Lewis at three years is at the age where he’s really interested in cars. It was nothing though, next to someone who has watched and collected Ferrari cars for most of his life.

Myles loving to drive me in his classic Ferrari

Being a public holiday we feared the place would be overflowing with people. We were happily wrong. The entire place was free from huge queues until well after lunch – which suited us.

I learned from my last visit, to go very early to the Formula Rosso ride – the fastest roller coaster in the world. Last time we left it until quite late in the day, and the line was estimated by the staff to take more than two hours to go through.

However long the wait, it’s probably worth it! What a mind-blowing ride. I’m used to screams when roller coasters take off.  This ride was practically silent for the first 10 seconds. The 247km/hr within 2 seconds puts everyone into some exhilarating form of silent cardiac arrest. In those sorts of situations I try to tense right up.  In this case, there was nothing I could do except grimace and try to recall how to breathe. The other shocking point is, most speedy rides very soon after they hit their top speed, they slow down. The Formula Rosso on the other hand explodes you from stationary to the speed of light, but keeps going.  It then disproves Einstein and accelerates even faster for a few seconds longer than you think you can cope with.
I can’t recommend this ride enough.  Some of the rides have a warning for people with heart conditions. I fear people wouldn’t truly know they have a heart condition until they’re on this ride.  And then it’d all be too late.

My mate and I both concluded that after that ride we were happy enough to go home without seeing or doing anything further.

It wasn’t surprising, all other rides failed to live up to that experience.

We decided not to though. We did see the rest of the rides.  I had been before so I didn’t need to do everything again.  Instead I spent most of my time following the kids between driving various Ferrari replicas.  Both boys looked way too comfortable driving Ferraris.  Hopefully they get over this before they’re driving age.

In my humble opinion, the only thing which was not truly amazing in the Ferrari-sense of the word was the La Garra show. La Garra is a high energy acrobatic, roller blade, and grungy percussion thing. All the crazy kid performers were very exciting as they jumped around and pumped up the crowd, but I couldn’t help but think ‘what’s all this about?’.  Ferrari to me, and the rest of the Ferrari World experience is about the prestige of one of the finest high quality, most highly sought after vehicles.  The show was more high school musical meets Formula 1 pit lane.

Lewis getting the hang of driving a Ferrari too quickly for my liking.Myles loving to drive me in his classic Ferrari

Ferrari World is always a good day out.  Or day in I should say, give it’s the world’s largest indoor theme park.  But unless you have an unlimited budget, it’s not something you would want to do too often.

Lewis no longer a toddler, he’s proudly within the AED 120 category – I mean, Children’s category.

The boys are at the perfect age to really enjoy the place.  In fact, it was a very difficult task to get Lewis out – as the final photo of the day illustrates well.

Old London Town

London, what a magical city.

It’s almost indescribable, but there is a buzz to this place which I’ve not really experienced elsewhere.

Monday evening I woke up at 3:30am to Skype my family back in Dubai. Quite unexpectedly, when I came down to the ground floor wifi at this ungodly hour, there were a dozen glamorous people partying in the hotel bar near reception. And the party-goers were not stopping any time soon.

We first arrived Sunday afternoon by train, then caught a couple different tubes in the underground to get close to our Hotel Russell accommodation. Actually, calling it an underground is a bit of an understatement. More like middle earth. Where we got off at Russell Square, there was a 175 stair climb back to the surface. It was no surprise everyone took the lift.

My free time around the conference was limited. I was able to maximize this though, through going for a morning run. Running through a large unfamiliar city I focus almost extreme levels of attention taking mental notes of my surroundings. It worked, I didn’t get lost. I was so happy to run along the Thames and see the Millennium Dome, Big Ben, Old Parliament House. In fact everywhere you look there’s historical things of interest. My boss, and tour guide, was describing a building as being “not that old”, it was built in 1901 – 110 years ago.

After my run I had time to check out a local newspaper. Well two local papers actually. The Times so I could read the local news, and The Sun so I could see some boobs. To be honest I felt like a bit of a prude seeing journalism mixed with nudity. Having said that, I probably couldn’t write on here the name of some of the adult magazines which the news stand stocked on the shelf above.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the quality of journalism overall. On the TV news the first story was about impending political elections, followed by an interview by a hopeful participant of the X-factor.

The news coverage of football went beyond impressive. I now believe people when they say that the UK sees football like religion, only more important.

Once again I was spoilt by fantastic weather, OR people lie about the UK raining 90% of the time and it’s bloody awful the rest of the time. The chirpy weather girl shared that it’s been London’s warmest end to September since 1985. Quite likely some Dubai weather went across with me. You’re welcome, my British friends.

Quick UK trip September 2011

I’ve had the opportunity to attend a two day conference in London. But I figured making the most of my trip, and using the Friday & Saturday of my Dubai weekend to also see Cardiff, Wales.

My flight to Birmingham was extremely busy – just like all our flights to the UK. I saw the passenger numbers, and there was only one free seat in the entire plane.

The flight route took us over Bahrain, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, before Europe. I managed to get a window seat, and enjoyed watching a lot of the country side. Afghanistan especially, looked incredible. It seemed to have an amazing variety of scenery. I particularly loved the harsh and mountainous terrain.

A sure sign of a good flight is when it seems to take no time at all – which this flight did. A good movie helps for at least part of the way.

Once I got through Customs at Birmingham, I somehow sparked the attention of a security guard. He asked many questions about my reason for the visit, my line of work, UK itinerary, and how often I visit Australia. He seemed happy enough with my answers to let me through after only a couple of minutes – no rubber gloves needed. I must have an untrustworthy face. When I was leaving Brisbane International Airport last time out of the 8 of us family and friends, I was the only one to get special attention from security, which involved a pat down. The guy was impressed with the Liverpool stickers adorning Myles’s suitcase – so perhaps he did spared me further attention. (And I suppose he did have soft hands so it wasn’t a total loss – joking).

I pre-booked my train tickets to get to Bristol Parkway on the way to Cardiff on the web. Everything was incredibly simple to get me there. One slight glitch occurred when I overlooked the fact that I was getting on the train an hour earlier than planned. I blame jet lag, or being stupid. When the ticket collector explained my mistake he was kind enough to lend me his phone to call my boss who would pick me up at the other end. Talk about English courtesy.

In just two days traveling from Birmingham into, and around Cardiff, I’ve already marked off quite a few of the items in my game of British Bingo:

  • “innit”
  • egg butty
  • “one should”
  • fancy a pint.

I’m still waiting to hear mentions of:

  • core blimey
  • pukka
  • “guvnor”.

So far I’ve visited the National History Museum, St Fagans; the absolutely awe-inspiring Wales Millennium Centre to see Welsh National Opera perform Don Giovanni; Millennium Stadium (which I can prove with an “I entered the dragon’s lair” lanyard). One disappointment of this fine tour was the stadium’s hallowed grass was completely gone. The pitch was well into the process of being removed by an industrious team of four diggers. Well I originally thought it was a downer, until our tour guide proudly announced the slurry of mud we were seeing was such a rare opportunity. 😉

I also had a good look around the city centre. Sadly I missed visiting Cardiff Castle, due to the very popular “Cheese Fest” being held inside the castle walls this weekend. This (National) festival had so much interest the queue going inside began a few hundred metres down the street. It would have been nice to see, but perhaps I may come back some day with the rest of the family.

Wales has a rich and proud mining heritage. The mines produce coal and, judging by signage in the Welsh language, an excess of consonants.

The weather has been a real treat. Apparently I brought the weather with me. The week, and several weeks before I came there were many consecutive days of rain. I’m glad I could bring this for the people of Cardiff. Take it as part-payment for allowing me to have an enjoyable visit to the city.

Tomorrow we hit Old London Town, so I’ll be sure to have more updates then.