Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in isaacc7's LiveJournal:

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Monday, April 16th, 2007
10:37 pm	New blog OK, the new blog is up at my new site. Well, at least the location is new, with the exception of the new blog and some videos(!) it's pretty much the same for right now. It's at: www.isaharr.com Click here to go there directly. It's been fun on livejournal, but I like my digs:-) I'll still be checking back in on you guys over here, ttyl! Isaac (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 8th, 2007
5:59 pm	Almost up... The new site www.isaharr.com is almost up, should be up by later tonight. Some of you might have some problems for a couple of days until the DNS propagates through the systems. I'll be blogging there from now on, barring any sort of problem:-) Make sure you update your bookmarks as the old site will be coming down soon. Isaac (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
9:57 pm	OK, I lied... I think I've been caught in the Easter holiday morass. My new domain still hasn't been activated. I was hoping to finish this this holiday. Oh well, I'll let you know when everything is set up. Isaac (Comment on this)
Friday, April 6th, 2007
11:11 pm	Blogging on hold.. But just for a few days. I'm trying to set up my new site, just waiting for my domain to be activated. I will be hosting my blog on my site, so I'll stop using Livejournal. Don't worry, I'll still check in on you guys that use it:-) Anyway, everything should go live within the next couple of days... I hope. I'll let everyone know when I'm up and running. Isaac (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
8:36 pm	I love technology... I'm sitting here in Yemen watching a play by play of a baseball game (go Cubs!) over the internet... It's like a constantly updated scoreboard. They show where the runners are, updated stats, pitch location, etc. It's quite nice, and the only way I'll be able to experience baseball over here. Thank God the Cubs play a lot of day games... Isaac (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
9:55 pm	Women, veils, bluetooth and Yemen I've been meaning to write a bit about how women dress here for a while. A common thought in the west is that men force women to wear what they wear here. I'm sure that there's a lot of that going on, but I get the distinct feeling that most women here prefer wearing the balto/hijab/veil. Forcing them to not wear them would be like making a woman in the west take off her pants. Walking around in your underwear isn't exactly scandalous, but it sure would be embarrassing to go to the supermarket like that. Wearing the whole getup is considered modest here, going without one of the items of clothing would be horrifying to most women here. Having said that, if a (local) woman doesn't want to wear some of those things, she's in for a very hard time. Her family (male and female) will give her a very hard time and the men on the street will def. give her a hard time. Many women simply can't choose what to wear because of their husband and/or family. As you might imagine, this upsets me considerably... Then there is today's Yemen Times. I'll put the first couple of paragraphs up here... "Fatima, 30, of Sana’a, who asked that her whole name not be revealed, was married and has three kids. Until recently, she was living happily with her family. Then, she was invited to a wedding party in her area. She prepared by putting on makeup and dressing up in a fancy dress to attend the party. At the wedding party, she spent a lovely time with the other women there. A short time later, her husband was at work, when a friend said to him, “if you want to see hot pictures, turn on your Bluetooth.” Bluetooth technology allows users to send information wirelessly from one device to another, say from phone to phone or computer to computer. Fatima’s husband was excited when he received the pictures, but when he saw them, he was surprised and angered in the same time, because he saw his wife in these pictures. He immediately went back to his home and asked his wife how her photographs got out. She did not know that some girls took pictures of her at the wedding party, and then sent them by Bluetooth to every mobile nearby. The husband did not believe her, however, and so he divorced her and the lovely family collapsed. Fatima is just one of the victim’s of the downside of new technology. While Bluetooth can be an excellent tool for working and communicating, it can also create serious problems when used irresponsibly." See the rest of the article here. OK, there are so many problems with this I don't even know where to begin. How about the husband's hypocrisy? What if someone had spied on her while she was dressing/undressing? If the pictures he saw were of her in some sort of state of undress, he probably would have killed her. No exaggeration, I would expect it, and I'm sure that most locals would too. At some point, someone has to say that it isn't a crime to want to see a woman's face, that it isn't unnatural to want to see her hair. In addition, it isn't any sort of moral failing, and it does not reflect badly on a woman if she wants to show her face. There are rumblings along those lines here, but that's in the big city. In the villages, especially further north towards Saudi, this type of talk is not tolerated. Just when I am about to give this culture the benefit of the doubt, something stupid like this comes up. I don't bother discussing it with the locals, it would only piss me off. Today is one of those days that I wonder why this society isn't even worse off than it is. It is shocking to see how low an opinion the men have of women here, it's also shocking that they lay all of the supposed faults with sex drive at the woman's feet. I have read two introductions to Islam for westerners and both have explained the balto/hijab/veil in terms of rape avoidance. According to Islamic thought (and I don't think that this is supported by the Koran but an interpretation from bedouin circles) women are raped because of their beauty. There it is, it is their fault. Make no mistake, if a guy is caught raping a woman, he is going to die. But frequently, the woman is killed to "preserve their honor." So called honor crimes are on the decline, but they are still prevalent. Abdul Summit told me that Yemen is like America in the 70's. Maybe the 1870's, but then again, I don't think we were ever as backwards as they are with women right now... Current Mood: infuriated (2 Comments |Comment on this)
2:18 pm	Well, it happened.. It was just a matter of time really. I went to one of the hotels that is close by for lunch. I sat down and waited for 5 minutes or so. Some guys at another table were eating and greeted me as I came in. Eventually, one of them asked me if I wanted to eat lunch. When I told him yes, I did (was I sitting at one of his tables for the hell of it?) he told me to wait until they were finished with their lunch. Needless to say I didn't wait around. It was one O'Clock, in the middle of lunchtime. On my way out I told them that there was probably another place that actually wanted my money, so I would go there. I understand that there are some (rather large) cultural differences, but really, come on.... Serving a customer when they come in doesn't seem like a huge stretch if you're going to be in the business of serving people. SIGH... Isaac (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
8:15 pm	Thoughts about moving.... The current guys that have moved in are really unhappy with the accommodations. They are going to move to a hotel near Tahreer at the end of this month. For about the same money, they could have a place with two beds and their own bathroom. I've also heard about apartments that are up to half of what I pay now in the old city, although they are unfurnished. I'll have to do some number crunching and see if it's a financial necessity for me to move. There is a lot of appeal to having a nicer place, but I'm afraid that I'd be really isolated. I've met some really cool people living where I live. Luca, Nollaig, Christoph, and Michael have all made my trip much more enjoyable. Of course I've had some housemates that sucked too, but they never seem to stick around that long thank goodness. I think I'll stay in my current place and see who moves in and how long they're staying. That'll help me make up my mind... Isaac (Comment on this)
8:10 pm	New web site hosting? My .mac account is about to expire. When it was free it was OK, but I don't think I'm going to spend the dough on it. The mail service is slow and buggy and it's really expensive. I'll probably switch over to Yahoo mail and find a new service for hosting my site. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good company for that? Isaac (Comment on this)
7:25 pm	Odd day... Went to the supermarket and while I was there I heard Barber's "Adagio for Strings" over the music system... Not exactly great shopping music. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the piece, think of the climatic death scene at the end of "Platoon:. Beautiful music, but not what I expect in a supermarket. On the way home, I swear I saw Rosana Dan Danna from SNL. In Yemen of all places... Yemen does have some wonderful grapes. I saw a bunch and I had to have them, they're beautiful and they are perhaps the best tasting grapes I've ever had. I'll post pictures later on, they really are that amazing... Isaac (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 1st, 2007
5:23 pm	Arabic continues to blow my mind.. So as I learn new words, I try to keep the part of speech in mind. Is it noun, and adjective, adverb, etc. My teachers have been very good at explaining these sorts of things to me, but Abdul Summit (my new teacher) just blew my mind. I noticed that he had a noun where I thought an adjective should be in a sentence. He said, "Oh, but nouns can modify nouns, so can prepositions..." That blew my mind, but sadly, it also made some things make sense as well. Sentence structure is both very loose and very precise at the same time. I'm floundering along and absorbing things bit by bit.... Isaac Current Music: Days Of Rain - Bob Mould (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
5:14 pm	Rain! And new teacher It has actually been rainy here this last week. Cloudy days and rain for a short time 3 or 4 of those days. It's a nice change. We haven't had any real heavy rains yet, but it's enough to disrupt my laundry... Had my first class with my new teacher. It went well, if this is any indication I should do well with the new guy. I'm going to have a mini "Easter Break", it'll be good to take some time off. Maybe I should go somewhere.... Isaac Current Music: Manitoba - Frank Black (Comment on this)
Friday, March 30th, 2007
1:54 pm	Pictures are up! OK, finally got the rest of them up, there's even some wooden boats for you boat people! Isaac (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 29th, 2007
4:04 pm	Correction... There's another problem with the network so all of the pictures are NOT uploaded, again. I'm giving up for today, I'll try again tomorrow. Isaac Current Music: Dumb Little Band - The Mr. T Experience (Comment on this)
3:45 pm	Pictures! OK, the rest of my pictures should be up shortly. I've noticed the fact that all of the pictures I have taken have been snapshots as opposed to "serious" shots. Part of that is due to equipment limitations. The little digicam I have Simply cannot cope with the really wide dynamic range that I routinely see. That together with high noise at high ISOs makes some shots impossible. The bigger reason is that it just isn't a priority for me. I'm actually having fun recording where I've been instead of trying to "accomplish" something. Part of me is really glad I left the huge photo system back home... Isaac (Comment on this)
1:36 pm	Not a good day for appreciating Yemen.. Woke up yesterday morning and we had no water. As I left, they were filling a reserve tank. I came back several hours later and there was water! Brown water, but water... What the hell good is it to have water that you can't use? later that night, the internet across the entire city went down....grrr. The water today is only slightly brown. It never smelled, I assume that it was due to oxidation in the tank outside, but still, ewww! Isaac (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
5:33 pm	Got back today... It was an interesting trip, but things worked out rather oddly. The plan was to drive to Zabeed, look around, spend the night and then go to Houdada early next morning to see the fish souk. ( The rest here. ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
4:53 pm	I might be travelling tomorrow Michael (my remaining housemate) out of the blue asked me if I wanted to go to Houdada tomorrow. It's a smallish fishing village on the Red Sea. Sounds good to me, we might also go to another village nearby and make it a two day trip. We'll have to see if he can arrange a car and driver on such short notice, but I'm optimistic, he's been here many times before and knows a lot of people in these sorts of jobs. With any luck I'll be swimming in the Red Sea this time tomorrow! Isaac (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
7:16 pm	Chinese food... Mmmmm, Michael took me over to a Chinese place today. Next to Mexican food, this is what I have been craving the most. I ordered spring rolls, chicken fried rice, chicken with cashews and some white rice. I expected to take home the extra but I ate all of it instead. I even ate a fair amount of his food! Man was it good, a really nice change from my usual stuff. What else is going on... not much really. I better hit the books, class today was a disaster... Isaac (Comment on this)
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
6:32 pm	Volitile much? My retirement account's value has swung more than 6 percentage points in the last two weeks. I'm on the positive side now (by almost 4%) but wow. One of my housemates swore that he was going into all bonds because of the volatility... I'm sticking to this for the long term, I view this latest up and down as akin to a roller coaster ride... Isaac (Comment on this)