الحد لله, Allāh has granted me tawfīq to donate to Wikipedia.  I wouldn’t mention this except for the fact that I hope others, upon reading this, might give it consideration when they otherwise would not have.  A donation to Wikipedia is tax-deductible, so you can save on your taxes or get more back on them (depending on your situation).  Ultimately, though, the reason why projects like Wikipedia and related Wikimedia Foundation projects should be supported are as I described in my comment upon donating:

Wikipedia and its related projects represent an ideal world where knowledge & information are not controlled to give power only to the few, but rather, they empower the many, ultimately benefiting the world as a whole.

So, if you have the ability, then I strongly encourage you to take the time out to donate to help support Wikipedia and its sister sites.

الحمد الله, and finally, I upgrade my blog to WordPress 3.0.1.  With two boys, our own apartment, full time work, and a few other things (including some motivation issues) I am finding it hard to keep up old habits, despite a desire to continue doing so.

Finding my blog so outdated, though, I wanted to take a step to rectify that, and since HidayahTech is currently running on my ancient server alfaatihah.hidayahonline.net (it’s the first server I ever leased…got it back in August 2004), maintaining software on here is growing more-and-more painful.  I greatly want to move all my sites over to my new server, zaytoon.hidayahonline.net (the current home for Audio Islam, as many of the other sites I host), but that task, too, is proving to be long-running, without only little bits of progress here-and-there from time-to-time.  I suppose that is a topic for another post.  At least HidayahTech is finally a part of the modern era once again!

الحد لله, on Friday, the 11th of Shaʿbān, 1431 (23rd of July, 2010), at 12:40 AM local Columbus time, Allāh blessed us with a healthy, 6 lbs, 14 oz blessing that we’ve named عبد الله (ʿAbdullāh), which, in Arabic, means, “slave of Allāh” (Allāh being the proper name of God).  For the very same reason we’ve named our first son ʿAbdurraḥmān, we chose this name for our second son, in reference to the following ḥadeeth of the Messenger of Allaah, salallaahu ʿalayhi wa sallam:

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Book 025, Number 5315:
Ibn Umar reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The names dearest to Allah are ‘Abdullah and ‘Abd al-Rahman. (link)

Both mother & new son are doing very well, walḥamdulillāh.  The birth of Abdullah was a bit special as we chose to have him delivered at home (i.e., a home birth), and that turned out to be an excellent and blessed decision, alḥamdulillāh.

Note: I strongly apologize for the delay in announcing this birth.  Please forgive us and do not let it detract from your duʿaaʾ for him. No special reason for the delay except that I wanted to have this post ready first.

Note 2: You can see the announcement for our first son here.

Note 3: You can see the birth of ʿAbdurraḥmān noted here.

Assalaamu ʿalaykum wa Rahmatullaahi wa Barakaatuh

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve decided to get back into blogging. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve had much of a presence in the Blogoverse, and part of that is due to just not having the desire to go through, login, and making a post through the traditional WordPress administrative interface. However, until now, I still have not found a blogging client with which I’m totally satisfied. So, I’ve decided to go ahead and give lekhonee another shot.

One aspect for which I have not made an opinion yet is that the interface is basically plain text, and it allows you to post in raw HTML, which isn’t terrible. However, having a rich-text editor really isn’t that difficult to add, so, I’ll just have to see if it’s worth it or not. So, let’s see how it works-out.

الحد لله, I am trying more-and-more these days to practice writing Arabic with actual Arabic letters rather than using cumbersome transliterations.  This is partially due to my father’s abhorrence of transliterating Arabic, lest the skill to actually write Arabic in Arabic be lost.  I agree with him, and besides, it’s a great way to learn the language and get used to using it.  So, as much as possible, I’m going to try to start using more-and-more Arabic, where appropriate, in my typing, by using the actual Arabic letters, إن شاء الله.  If anyone has any questions about what a particular Arabic phrase is, then please post your question.  I will try to include a simple glossary.  Some autolinking would be great, too…let me look for a WordPress plugin for that…

Alḥamdulillāh, I’ve decided that, after upgrading WordPress, I should do a little housekeeping.  As usual, I find a list best presents the ideas I wish to express:

• I upgraded to WordPress 2.8.2 (mentioned here).
• I fixed some posts that had some typos (I usually am good about this, but these had slipped by).
• I deleted some links that really weren’t relevant to me anymore (i.e., Ruby on Rails) and I added some new ones.
• I changed to a new theme (comments welcome!).

I’d like to elaborate a bit more on the last point above, since it merits some discussion and the action is rooted in something I care about deeply.

Previously, for quite some time, I’ve been using the theme “Vidiyal“.  I’ve actually stuck with it for quite some time because of it’s simplicity, elegance, & beauty (in my eyes, at least).  However, a post by the author of the theme really made up my mind for me.  To put it shortly, despite the obligation to release derivative works of WordPress, such as a theme, under the GPL (as that is what WordPress is licensed under), he insists he does not have to.  I’m not so concerned with the legal issue, to be honest, but the insistence not to release the code as free software is what unsettled me.

To be honest, I didn’t really check before using the theme, and I guess I didn’t really care before this.  But now that the issue has been brought to my attention, I have to stick with what I believe is right.  So, I’ve stopped using all non-free (as in freedom) themes, and will only use themes that I know are free software.  I feel this is the better way to go.

I do hope that Sadish and others see that free software, both practically and, more importantly, fundamentally, are important concepts for protecting our freedoms as human beings.  Software freedom is something we should stand up for, and not tolerate being abused or disregarded.

So, with that, I close my rant and resume pretending to be productive.

Alḥamdulillāh, I’ve just successfully upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.8.2, along with several other blogs that I maintain.  I’m really looking forward to the merger of WordPress & WordPress-MU, which, ideally, will make managing multiple WordPress sites on the same server easier to deal with, in shāʾ Allāh.

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve discovered a new WordPress blogging client packaged with Fedora – namely, Lekhonee. There aren’t a lot of formatting options, but it appears you can post using HTML, so that’s a plus, I think. Let’s see how it goes.

Alhamdulillaah, nothing can take away from the blessing & joy of being a father, but one of the obvious side effects of having an infant is the drastic change in priorities.  So, naturally, most of my projects have fallen on the wayside.  Even work has suffered.  But, alhamdulillaah, this just means I have to reshuffle schedules and be more prudent about my time usage – I’m still figuring this out.

To help me get back on track, I wanted to revisit a recent post I had made about unfinished projects.  The two projects that I feel I need to put some extra time into, due to their nature, are the AlMaghrib in Malaysia project as well as the Global Homeschooling project/business idea.  The former needs attention because people are waiting on me for further action, while the latter is important because I am convinced it is the future for my family, in shaaʾ Allaah.  Although the other points on the list are quite important as well (and some are, actually, more important), I am choosing these as examples because I think making progress on them is something of a “low-hanging fruit”.  Therefore, I need to make some kind of schedule or plan for getting both of these done.

As for the AlMaghrib in Malaysia project, the first task I really need to push forward is just getting a website up.  This really isn’t hard, especially for someone like me who has dozens of websites floating around the ‘tubes.  However, what’s held this up is that I wanted AlMaghrib in Malaysia‘s website to be the first one to utilize my new server completely – not just for the web hosting, but also for DNS as well as e-mail.  Sadly, this condition has meant that I haven’t been able to get things going as straightforwardly as I have in the past.  The good news is I do have DNS working on the new server, but not e-mail.  Therefore, my plan is to just launch the website, which, once done, will also make me become more serious about getting e-mail working on that server as well, in shaaʾ Allaah.  But, “launch” in this context may be rather limited in scope, since one of the first things I want to do is have a mailing list for people to jump onto…sigh.

So, the plan for AlMaghrib in Malaysia is:

1. Just get the website up.  DNS is ready to go.  The website, at this point, is really just going to be a blog, which is more than sufficient for our needs.
2. Once the website is up, get e-mail working on the new server ASAP.  Though this may take a lot of work, that’s fine, because it will also benefit a lot of my other sites, which need the same functionality.

As for the Global Homeschooling project, I’ve already gone ahead and purchase a slew of Islamic homeschooling-related domain names, all of which will point to one canonical website name, which will be the one we advertise.  The rest are there for serendipitous searches and/or hits.  I’ve dragged my feet on this one as well mostly because a lot of the work hinges on my wife’s availability, which, now, is understandably quite limited compared to before the birth of our son.  Still, I don’t really accept that as a valid excuse, because the site really should be ready for her as soon as she is ready, so that she can get started filling out the sites with content (which was how we had divided the initial work).

So, the plan for the Global Homeschooling project is:

1. Finish getting the website components up – blog, wiki, school, & whatever else.
2. Make the various website components ready for my wife to use them easily, without her needing me to fix things here-and-there.

Well, at least now it’s down.  I hope to have some results within a week, in shaaʾ Allaah.

Alḥamdulillāh, on Monday, the 19th of Rabīʿ ulʾawwa, 1430 (16th of March, 2009) at 5:38 PM Malaysia local time, Allāh blessed us with a 2.3 kg (~5 lb.) blessing we named ʿAbdurraḥmān (عبد الرحمن), which, in Arabic, means “slave of the Most Merciful”, which is one of the beautiful names of Allāh in Islām.  In fact, the Messenger of Allāh, ṣalallāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may Allāh peace & blessings be upon him) mentioned that the two most beloved names to Allāh are ʿAbdullāh & ʿAbdurraḥmān (slave of Allāh), which is why we chose that name for our first son.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Book 025, Number 5315:
Ibn Umar reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The names dearest to Allah are ‘Abdullah and ‘Abd al-Rahman. (link)

Both mother & son are doing fine, alḥamdulillāh, and we all came home earlier today.

Picture requests will not be honored. 

Alhamdulillaah, to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that I started using Fedora personally with Fedora Core 4, and not 5 like I had previously thought.  This makes me feel better as I’m glad I started using Fedora earlier, because I like to think I recognized the importance of a completely (or as close as possible) free operating system (free here means freedom, not just free of cost).

At the time, I was content running it as a dual-boot system and just playing around with it.  By the time Fedora Core 5 came around, though, I was giving serious thought to using Fedora (Core, at the time) as my primary OS.  The complete transition happened, I believe, with Fedora 7 (which is also the year that Fedora Core & Fedora Extras combined, creating…Fedora!), where I relegated Windows XP to just being a spare OS for the very few things it does that I am unable to do with a completely free operating system (yet).

My experience with Fedora Core 4 was overwhelmingly positive.  I am sure I was impressed by the sheer amount of Free Software that was available for it as well as the elegance of a system that was not originated in Redmond.  I was and still am very pleased with the way Gnome works, and that was a big factor for me at the time as it is now.  I do wonder, though, if I downloaded & installed Fedora Core 4 today, what my experience would be link….hmm…

I remember seeing Fedora first in use as Fedora Core 2, when I was surprised someone was using it, as the name “Fedora Core” made me think it was the core of an operating system, but not the complete one.  I don’t know how or why I picked that up, but it is likely related to the perception that Fedora is not really meant to be used, and it is just a development platform (a blatantly false accusation).  I do know that I heard of Fedora Core when it came out, but again, my perception was likely incorrect at the time, thus causing me to adopt using it until quite late.  I had been using different GNU/Linux distributions since I was a freshman in college (can anyone say 1999?).  At the time, I recall trying “Corel Linux” – yes, I…don’t know what I was thinking.  I do remember it being based on Debian, though.  I also remember it significantly for a large amount of disk activity.  I don’t remember much else other than me deleting it shortly afterward.    Other flavors of GNU/Linux I tried were Red Hat, and that’s about all I can remember now.

So, anyway, this might be a good idea for a meme.  My first Fedora.  Talk about when you first started using it, why you did, and how the experience was.

Alḥamdulillāh, I’ve gone ahead and removed all the microblogging updates to my blogs (the ones titled, “Identi.ca updates for yyyy-mm-dd”).  I thought it would be a neat idea, since I had started using identi.ca, to add some unique content to my blog, but the result was all I was doing was spamming my own blog.  How terrible is that?  Since I already have a sidebar widget that displays my identi.ca activity and anyone can subscribe to my dents directly from the site, I felt the blog updates were just too much.

In an ironic twist, I’ve now enabled my blog to make a dent (the identi.ca term for Twitter’s “tweet”) whenever I make a post using the same plug-in.  In shāʾ Allāh I won’t have the reverse problem.

I have the bad habit of starting things and not completing them.  This is bad for numerous reasons, just a few of which I’ll list shortly.  I will warn you now that as this post is meant to help me organize my thoughts, it will list-heavy, as I do find lists and other types of grouping structures to be beneficial and help in making relationships (e.g., database schemes).

I already know that as I type this I will revisit this post in the future as I will be unable, in one sitting, to be think of all of unfinished projects.  Therefore, I will come back and add to the list as I recall more things (and find the time and desire, a rare combination these days, to update the blog).

For

• Unfinished projects tend to clutter your mind
  • I tend to turn to unfinished projects whenever I work (i.e., get paid to do something) and hit a stumbling block.  This severely hinders my progress on work, which ultimately leads to less getting done.
  • Time when I could be brainstorming solutions is usually spent wondering about these myriad unfinished projects, which, lacking much focus, tend to yield few to no tangible solutions.  This includes walking/riding to the masjid, showering, and other activities that tend to leave the brain free and, ideally, well-suited for addressing beneficial thoughts.
  • If I try to focus on something, I can have a hard time preventing my mind from wandering to these unfinished projects.  This is related to the point about work above.
  • It’s just not healthy to have so many things on the mind at once.  There is a point at which the benefit of multitasking is overshadowed by the overhead of just trying to keep track of everything.  It’s not efficient.
• Having so many unfinished projects means that it can be hard to pick just one to work on.
• Playing catch-up may give a false sense of achievement, because the value of these unfinished projects are not equal, and therefore, I may complete one that is really not that important while one that is more valuable was never completed.  Therefore, just trying to clear out the backlog of projects may yield a net result of close to zero.
• There are many more, and I may amend this list in the future as I recall them.

So, here is the list of my unfinished projects (at least those that I can recall at one point or another).  I am including some thoughts on the different ideas as well.

• Redesign the Audio Islam website
• Write a script to automatically tag all the audio files, especially the ones containing Qurʾān recitation, with reciter & sūrah information
• The Fedora Documentation manpage coverage project
  • This is basically an idea I had related to the Fedora Documentation project to ensure that all executables had an associated man page (manual page, a low-level documentation system for Unix-like operating systems such as GNU/Linux).
  • The first step in this is to canvass the existing packages & executables and see what already has a man page.  I have already started on this, but there is much work left to be done.
  • There are plenty of sources for documentation that can be used as baseline manpages, including the Debian project.  So, this project doesn’t require as much work as it does just coordinating and facilitating.
• A Paltalk replacement
  • Paltalk is a voice conference & chat application (video is also supported, but I don’t care about that right now) that is widely used, but terribly proprietary.
  • My goal is to create or synthesize a replacement for Paltalk using only free software and open technologies
    • The best candidates for this are SIP (for multimedia) and Jabber/XMPP (for text chat).
    • The landscape for software that can do this in a simple fashion is rather bleak, but there are some solutions.
    • I’m currently focused on FreeSWITCH as the SIP server and ejabberd as the chat backend.
    • Linking them such that it will be one service will be quite challenging, and still requires a free software client that has solid support for both SIP & XMPP
      • I’ve been looking mostly at Qutecom, SIP Communicator, and Psi
    • • On GNU/Linux, the Empathy client for the Telepathy framework is outstanding, but, is limited to free-software operating systems.  I think Windows support is a long way out still.
• AlMaghrib in Malaysia
  • I am trying to catalyze the establishment of AlMaghrib Institute seminars in Malaysia (almost surely in Kuala Lumpur, at least at the beginning).
  • I’ve already purchased the domains almaghribinmalaysia.com/net/org, and I just need to get the site setup.
    • To start off, I think just a blog with some information about AlMaghrib is fine.  It can be fleshed-out later.
  • Alḥamdulillāh, there is already a lot of interest both within and without Malaysia.  I have several contacts here that are also excited and may be able to facilitate the first few steps.
    • I see the first step being getting a group of excited & enthusiastic locals to get behind the effort.
    • After that group is identified (and it is really an ongoing process), see about getting the support of existing organizations.
      • From an initial perspective, it seems like this is going to be easy, in shāʾ Allāh.
    • With this support, we will want to schedule some kind of event to gain a wider audience interest.  Something like a conference or teaser seminar, perhaps a week-long program with some of the AlMaghrib instructors.
      • Many of the AlMaghrib instructors are already known or well-known here
      • Having Suhaib Webb might be particularly nice, as his wife is Malaysian.
      • Waleed Basyouni has expressed an interest in coming to Malaysia, and some work is already in progress regarding that, but it may have stalled (temporarily only, in shāʾ Allāh)
      • Yasir Qadhi is another instructor that has some reknown here, apparently (from what I’ve been told).
• HidayahTech
  • My own technology consulting business
  • Although HidayahTech is currently the name of my blog, I have also resolved to use this as the name for my own consulting business.
  • Services will include
    • Audio recording, editing, mastering, and production (I did this, for example, for the Texas Dawah Convention in 2007)
      • I am consider splitting this and other audio-related services into it’s own business, namely, Hidayah Audio
    • Web technologies
      • Hosting (this is generally quite easy)
      • Moodle (an open-source learning mangement system, for putting schools online, for example)
      • Audio services, including hosting my “replacement for Paltalk” solution above
    • Consulting
      • This will include a wide variety of services ranging from system administration, general IT, infrastructure, to web development
      • I may take some partners or hire some friends for this aspect of this business, as I will need help for some points of it
• Global Homeschooling
  • This is my premiere project, if I had to pick one.  I consider this to be something great if I can achieve it, by the Permission of Allāh.
  • To sum it up, I want to develop a system whereby Muslims (and truly, anyone) can homeschool their own children easily.  Homeschooling may be too specific of a term, though, because I want the scale to include a plan that can be implemented by governments.  I would like children, and really anyone, to be able to be educated within their own homes, utilizing the bevy of technology that exists.
  • Technology creates options & opportunities, and this is a belief I take strongly.  Therefore, I think we should utilize it.  I see education as one of the most important investments that can be made, whether it is Islamic or related to the worldly sciences, both of which are important.  I actually believe the distinction to be artificial, but it will take time to get there.
  • So, to put it in a few words, I would like to develop a system of education leveraging technology that is globally accessible allowing education to be released from the confines of school buildings.
• Learn the Python programming language
  • I think learning Python has a high return value on the types of applications I would like to write, including graphical ones.  Also, it is quite the preferred language for many platforms, not the least of which is Red Hat & Fedora.
• Memorize the Qurʾān
  • Please keep in mind that this list isn’t in order of importance…;)
  • I think this is a goal every Muslim should have.  I started this goal, seriously, while I was staying in Egypt with my parents, even semi-regularly visiting the imān of the nearby masjid to review my memorization.  Sadly, since arriving in Malaysia I’ve not really resumed, and I am afraid I may start regressing.  This is the kind of project that can be achieved through a little, regular & constant work every day.  I really should commit to something, even if it is as simple as one āyāh per day.  That would be better than none.

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve just managed to produce my first HDR (high dynamic range) image the results of which I’m pleased with.  Once again, I have CHDK to thank for enabling this feature easily.

Note:  I begin this post with a mildly detailed explanation of the human visual system, HDR & LDR images, and the process to create HDR & tone-mapped images.  The pictures themselves are near the bottom of this post.

First, a little background about HDR.  The way our bodies capture and process imagery is, to put it lightly, amazing.  Starting from when light first hits the cornea through to when we perceive the visual object (not to mention how our brain’s store such visual images, which is far from just keeping a “bunch of bits”), the Words of Allāh resound with truth regarding His Creation:

And it is He who spread the earth and placed therein firmly set mountains and rivers; and from all of the fruits He made therein two mates; He causes the night to cover the day. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. (Alqurʾān 13:3)

Thus, in the way that they are created, our eyes can capture an amazing amount of detail and range in their own way.  The range of regular (so-called “LDR” – low dynamic range) images is quite limited in comparison.  And this is, actually, the vast majority of image-related technologies, be they cameras, display devices, or even image formats such as JPEG.

HDR images, however, are those which do or have the ability to capture image details, specifically color & brightness information, at a much higher level than normal technologies.  Since normal technologies, such as our digital cameras and screens, can not capture nor display HDR images, we have to take a different route to get the information.  One technique is exposure bracketing where one takes a picture of the same scene at different exposure levels, one after another.  The reason for doing this is that, while the normal dynamic range of a camera may be unable to capture the bright, medium, and dark details of an image all at once, it does have the ability to capture these details separately with different settings.

Alhamdulillaah, there is also software that exists that allows you to take these separate LDR images and combine them into one now-HDR image that contains the details from all the separate exposures.  Doing so is not trivial, and it may take one multiple attempts to get something that looks good.  More often than not, the result is eery, because of a technique called tone-mapping.  Tone-mapping is a technique whereby the colors and range of an HDR image are brought down into a simulation of what our eyes would perceive in the scene.  In reality, that’s all but impossible, but it yields some interesting, beautiful, and sometimes striking results.

The specific software I use is the unpronounceable Qtpfsgui (I just say it one letter at a time).  Qtpfsgui is a front end for pfstools, which is an outstanding image toolkit for these kinds of images.  It takes care of aligning, merging, and finally tone-mapping the images one step at a time.  I short-circuited the first two steps (because Qtpfsgui can be fussy sometimes)  by using the command-line tool align_image_stack to align the different exposures (since I moved a bit between exposures) as well as creating the HDR image from the three separate images.  Then, I used Qtpfsgui just for the tone-mapping stage.

The first row of pictures are the original images, taken at -4, 0, & +4 EV settings.  Looking closely, you’ll notice that each range brings out different details: the darkest shows details in the clouds, the middle shows details in the sea, and the brighest shows details in the sand.  These are the separate LDR images at different exposures that I talked-about above.

The second “row”, containing only a single picture, is the result of the several steps I mentioned above to produce an HDR image.  I make no claims into how “real” this image looks, but it does show the details that I was looking for – from the clouds to the sand – in one image.  I also think it looks cool. 

This is the first HDR image I’ve created that I’ve wanted to share, and so I took this opportunity to explain the process too.  If you have any questions, then by all means, please post a comment and then subscribe to the comments so you’ll know when I’ve replied.

As bugs are normal around the house here in Malaysia, I have just gotten used to them for the most part.  Yes, the wall next to me is a veritable graveyard for mosquitoes, but most other insects don’t bother me much, alhamdulillaah.

This includes ants.  Ants are usually very benign, they mind their own business, and they even are basically the bottom chain of clean-up around the house.  That is, anything biological that we failed to remove, they take care of for us.

So, it was only with a casual non-alarm that we regarded the increased amount of ant activity in our bedroom.  They were more apt as of late at finding our food and swarming it, but that’s just ants.  Until I came into the bedroom one day in the afternoon and found the following.

Yes, the ants were invading!  Actually, I quickly discovered that they were actually moving, but in such huge numbers.  I, personally, in my life, have never seen this number of ants before.  I was shocked.  I quickly tried to blow them all out the window, but that really wasn’t so effective.  They just came back, albeit a bit more scattered.  And that did nothing for the enormous amount of antlife that were underneath our light plastic tarp-style tiling.  I do not think I am exaggerating when I say the total count of ants was in the tens of thousands.

You can identify that they’re relocating by the fact that they’ve brought with them their larvae, which, upon close inspection, look like ants, just completely white.

To view a few more pictures (not really revealing much more than the above two), visit this Gallery:

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-terengganu/when-ants-attack/

To see it in live action, click the image below. (WARNING: It’s a huge number of ants.  If you are squeamish, I advise you not to download or watch the video.)

I just finished re-reorganizing my blog categories after pondering the difference between tags & categories.  Incidentally, I will attempt to start using tags on my blog posts as well.  Subsequently, I will be recategorizing a lot of posts that are categorized in both a category as well as its parent, since that is no longer necessary.  Consequently….hehe, just kidding.

I did add a new category called “Blog” under “Personal” for these kinds of updates.

Alhamdulillaah, my wife & I are en route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we’ll be staying one night with her brother & his family before continuing on our way to home in Kuala Terengganu, in shaaʾ Allaah.  Right now we’re in the Kuwait International Airport, and, alhamdulillaah, they have free wifi throughout the airport.  This is even more wonderful given the fact that we have a 7 hour layover here.  Alhamdulillaah.

One thing that I’ve had a hard time getting used during our stay in Egypt and now as we transit through Kuwait is the sheer prevalence of smoking in the society.  Easily one third to one half of all men in Arab society, at least amongst Egyptians & Kuwaitees (according to the sample here in the airport) are chain smokers.  It is so bad that, despite a widespread policy if non-smoking in public places, this rule is completely ignored.  In fact, I would hazard to guess that some of them purposefully smoke right next to the no-smoking sign, as it cannot be a coincidence that we noticed a cluster of them surrounding the very visible sign at the Alexandria Nouzha airport.

Another interesting observation I’ve made during our “brief” stay in the Kuwait airport is that, apparently, I’m far more approachable than most people here, despite not speaking most of the international traveler’s native languages.  First, two Filipino ladies stopped to ask me where a particular flight’s gate was.  Before answering, I was “rescued” by one of the airport staff who quickly showed the ladies to the right (I hope!) gate.

After this, while my wife & I were sitting having some refreshments a few hours before our flight, I one of the Filipino McCafe workers who spoke English quite well approached me asking if I could translate some names from a series of cards printed entirely in Arabic.  I tried to sound out the letters at first, finding them surprisingly difficult and unrecognizable, until she quickly recognized the name and completed it for me.  This continued with approximately eight cards in total.  I realized, after she left, that I had just sounded out the names of the other Filipino staff members to her, which is why she recognized it, and she simply didn’t know how to read the Arabic letters.  For the record, the transliterations of the Latin Filipino names into Arabic letters was quite poor.

The third incident that added to my suspicions about my approachability was when an Arab lady stopped me to ask where she needed to go to get her visa.  I quickly pointed her in the direction she was already going (no more than 10 meters in front of her) and escorted her there, pointing out the sign to her.  She was quite grateful, and I was quite happy for having performed yet another good deed for day.

So, there you have it.  Conclusive, scientific evidence that I am above-average in approachability in the Kuwait airport.

Or..did it have something to do with my attire (dress slacks & shirt, sans tie), which happened to be suspiciously similar to that of other “in-the-know” information types amongst the staff of the airport?

Naaaaah.

Disclaimer: This was written while still at the Kuwait airport, but it was not saved to the blog until after we arrived in Kuala Terengganu.

Alhamdulillaah, we’ve had some good times this past month here in Alexandria.  The weather has been outstanding – the only other times I’ve been here I remember the weather being far warmer on the border of being uncomfortable.  This time we’ve hardly had a day that didn’t feel cool and fresh, alhamdulillaah.

Our routine is a little disrupted here, though, because we do not have Internet access in our new place yet, so we have to travel to another place in order to connect.  So, we get to do some walking, which is good, alhamdulillaah.  It’s only rained on us once, and the rainstorms here are short and not terribly intensive.  A few minutes under an awning will suffice to wait it out while keeping dry.  Many were with us along the street in solidarity.

I’ve been feeling more-and-more disconnected from home, however, as I’ve been away now almost 5 months.  While I definitely enjoy being able to live with my wife and wouldn’t trade it for the world, a part of me yearns for the routine back home as well, especially the activities in the community.  However, as the immigration process for my wife’s visa has not moved since I’ve arrived here, I wonder when it will be that I can bring her to the country.  At this rate, my stay abroad is seeming more-and-more permanent.  I have to say, so far, we are managing, alhamdulillaah.

But anyway, I just wanted to post something here as I’ve been woefully neglecting my blog.  I always get ideas from time to time, but I never get around to putting them down into bits.  Maybe this will help rejuvinate my old routine.

Oh, and here are some JPEG goodies.

Alhamdulillaah, my wife & I arrived safely in Alexandria, Egypt this past Friday to the welcoming arms of my parents, whom I haven’t seen since I left the US back in June.  If you’ll recall, I originally departed on this journey because I could not bring my wife to the US yet, as the immigration process is still ongoing.  Needless to say, we are enjoying happiness upon happiness being with family that we haven’t seen for months, and, in the case of my wife, well over a year.

The last time I was in Egypt was in the Summer of 2001, and I didn’t have a blog, own a camera, or even have a website at the time (other than one through my university department, which is long gone by now).  The only way I kept people updated was via e-mail, interestingly enough!  Alhamdulillaah, now I have so many ways to keep people bored about my current goings-on!

I had forgotten just how big Alexandria is, and also how photogenic.  Our Internet connection is an order of magnitude slower here than it was in Malaysia, but at least it is stable, and we may be upgrading it, in shaaʾ Allaah.  So, updates will be forthcoming, in shaaʾ Allaah, but please be patient – since I’m sure you’ll on the edge of your seats waiting for more media from me…

In the meantime, I leave you with this treat – a view from our balcony.

Panoramic photo of the balcony from our apartment in Alexandria, Egypt in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea

While riding (on a scooter) to a nearby masjid with one of my brothers-in-law, I felt something flew straight into my eye despite the fact that I was wearing my glasses at the time.  I was unable to flush it out while on the bike, and I thought that, like most eye gunk, it would just migrate to the corner of my eye for easy extraction.

As it turned out, I was unable to get it to move, and after returning home, I could still feel it.  I looked in the mirror and was able to spot, rather clearly, a small black speck in my right eye right between my iris and the surrounding white area.  I flushed my eye out with water, and, alhamdulillaah, I was able to get it out.  Surprisingly, it stayed on my finger long enough for me to show it to my wife, brother-in-law, and finally, to take a few pictures.

UFO extracted from my eye

The object is roughly spherical in shape (though it’s hard to tell from the picture), and if I had to guess, I would say it was an insect of some kind, or part of one, given it’s semi-shiny appearance and the few features I was able to make out.

There are too many amazing things about this.  For starters, just the sheer size of the thing and how much trouble it was causing me in my eye.  Also, the fact that it was so easily flushed-out.  And, alhamdulillaah, my eye, though red immediately after I extracted the speck, was fully healed as if nothing happened within hours (and possibly minutes).

Alhamdulillaah for the blessing of sight and for everything else that we take for granted.  How easily could it have been that this would have turned out worse?  Alhamdulillaah ʿala kulli shayʾ.