I have 2 days left before I hand over my rental car. 2 days. I've been navigating the roads of this ass backward country full of Cracker Jack licensee drivers for 3 months without incident...and I wait until 2 days before my car is due to do something brilliant like this.

Have you ever been driving through your neighborhood and the county or city suddenly put up a new road sign. There wasn't any type of cautionary "hey there's something new here" warning or light...they just slapped a new do-dad up there. Have you ever been driving through that neighborhood like you had for the last 3 months you lived there and missed that newly placed sign? Don't lie, you know you have!

You see driving is a conditioned response. We go into autopilot mode when taking regular routes. That's how you can go from work to home in a dream like state and not even realize you were driving until you pull up to your house.

For 3 months I've been entering and exiting my little world through a security gate. On the way out, if you have a permit, you use the right late and you drive past the guard hut. There is a giant speed hump to clear, but you just cruise on out. On the way in you usually drive past with a little wave, once again conquering the speed hump, unless it's late a night and the guards can't really see the sticker on your windshield...but anyway the point is you drive out with no problems and you may or may not have to pause on the return journey.

Well APPARENTLY the security company decided to install gate arms in the exit lane for permit holders. The EXIT lane! It was a white pipe. (notice the use of 'was' not 'is'). Not striped, or bright, or noticeable in any way, just white. White blends in with the light sand environment as good as a polar bear's camouflage in the snow.

Are you starting to envision the scene? Are your lips curling from ear to ear in a cheshire grin? Are you starting to chuckle? Yep, Lady Croft blew right through that pipe like a knife through butter! Well, make it frozen butter because I didn't cut the thing off, entirely.

I STILL can't believe it!!! I went up and over the speed hump, then started to accelerate as always. I didn't even SEE the damn thing until it was 2 inches from my windshield, then WWWWWWHACK! Right into my windshield, up and over the hood, and snapped my antenna off the trunk. PISSER!

The guards must have thought I was on crack. I couldn't stop laughing because I realized how absolutely ridiculous it was that I just mowed down a security gate! But honestly, why the fuck did they install an arm on an EXIT lane for permit holders??

I can pass off the scrapes along the top as a dirty car because the car is white. I should be able to buff the marks on the windshield (thank GOD it didn't break!)...but I can't hide the fact the antenna is a mangled bit of aluminum. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER!

I'll just keep laughing about it and say 'hey, at least it wasn't your brand new car!" as I hand over some money for a new antenna.

I had such a great time today sharing my favorite holiday with people who've never heard of it! We held a 'reverse' trick-or-treat program in the halls and it was a big hit. This means some of us res life staffers dressed up in costumes and delivered little treat bags to all the residents rooms. So many of them took pictures of us because they had never heard of Halloween and thought it was really neat. Plus who doesn't like candy!

Last night I did pumpkin carving with my CDAs. None of them had ever done this before so it was a RIOT! It broke my heart at the end, when they were SO proud of their pumpkins and the boys said "Oh man, I'm going to keep mine forever, this is so cool!".....and I had to inform them that it will only last a week or so. I made sure to take a photo of each of them with their pumpkin :)


i found this entertaing candy...take a closer look at the bottom right corner....yeah, nothing like holding a gun to a kid's head eh?


i wasn't feeling good last night, so i made the classic 'sick-o-lantern'


all finished and glow sticks in place


i went as dorothy, so my supervisor decided to be the wicked witch


a lot of kids don't know the wizard of oz and kept thinking i was alice from wonderland....with a dog for rabbit


toto was a BIG hit


because he floated with i walked!


Happy Halloween everyone!

Yes, I still have loads of Greece pics to share but I was having a few issues. Meanwhile here are some recent shots from around Doha.


you don't see that sign every day


i nicknamed this 'pigeon palace'...it's a bird house!


notice that little flag on the light post?
doha put in a bid for the olympics!


down on the corniche


the weather is starting to cool and flowers are starting to bloom


the water really is beautiful here


this is the main post office, aka the bee hive


beautiful sunset!!

heading to the main land via tender boat


i love broken columns


the public toilets...yeah


this would have been the housing complex


overlooking the town center


a central well tucked between some houses


the town amphitheatre which holds 40,000


the BEST public toilet sign i've ever seen in all my travels

Greece was absolutely amazing! My body is still in recovery mode. It was one hell of a workout! Even on a cruise ship with 5 buffet meals a day I managed to lose 5 pounds and I think my ass and calves are tighter than they have ever been. I don't have the time to really get into my adventures with this post but I will drop a few teaser photos.

I really want to give a BIG HUGE THANK YOU to (e:metalpeter) for sending me SPOT coffee beans! I got the package today and it was such a wonderful surprise. Efharisto! (that's thank you in Greek).

Since everyone had already left on their holidays and I still had to work through the weekend I thought...it's time for some office shennanigans. The big cheese will come back to find his office like this :)

Hallelujah! Ramadan is officially OVER! I'm going to eat my lunch by the pool today!!!

I need your input dear estripers. If you know me, you know I love Halloween and usually come up with creative and well prepared costumes. I face interesting obsticles on my path to Halloween happiness here in Doha.

1. I cannot be too obscure, or the people here simply won't get it.

2. I cannot dress like any male character as it would be found offensive.

3. I don't do the trashy hooker outifts anway, but I cannot even wear cool outifts that are too skimpy. In other words, unless I do a camo pant or snow version - I can't do Lara Croft (nor do I have the time now to pull off one of those versions).

4. I don't want to be too generic, i.e. a witch, zombie, vampire, etc.

5. I don't have access to thrift stores.

The things I have going for me are:

1. If it's simple enough, I can sew it.

2. My creativity can help me find alternate materials for producing the costume.

So what do you think? Suggestions!?

The big cheese boss invited everyone in the education division to a sohour this past weekend. Sohour is usually the last meal of the night/day for those fasting during Ramadan. A lot of the hotels make a big deal about the Iftars and Sohours.

Ours was at La Cigale, some new fancy shmancy hotel. It had a lovely entrance and very helpful staff, but I didn't like that I spent my entire meal bouncing up and down everytime someone walked past me. You see, I was seated so carefully on a plexiglass floor bridging two sides of an indoor pool. I guess we were 'lucky' to have this prime locale looking over the entire space. I was just hoping it didn't buckle under the weight and send me plundging into the pool with a big fat table on my head.

3 photos for ya'll. 1. I tried a new fruit. They look like olives but have the texture and flavor of not quite ripe apples. No one was able to explain what they were. 2. the 'floor' i was seated on 3. a rather cool view of that floor via the mirrored ceiling

Man I was really dragging my ass through the day today. I haven't been sleeping well the past few nights. TGIT! My night is over and I can finally go to bed. Before I do that though, I wanted to share my lovely new henna tattoos. We had a Ramadan Bazaar on campus tonight so I got my hands done. It's so pretty!