Well, I knew this trip was coming for a while. My bosses had been talking about it, but nothing concrete had been stated until a week or so ago. The details were finally worked out early last week, and now I’m working to get prepared.

I’m leaving for Dubai on Thursday, and will be returning the following Friday.

The company I work for has a joint venture out there, and one of the things that needs to be done out there is to get the computer systems operational and also get their databases set up and the like. While I doubt I’ll have a week’s worth of work to do, it’s better to be out there longer than necessary than have to make a return trip later on, especially considering it’s a fifteen hour flight from Houston to Dubai. I still need to get with my coworkers to decide what exact software I need to take with me, but I should have that all taken care of by the end of the day tomorrow.

Mostly, now, my preparations are something of a personal nature. I’m finishing up converting movies into an iPod-friendly format; I’m taking the iPod as well as the iPhone because the iPod has ten times the storage space, which means it can carry all of the movies I want to watch. So far this weekend I’ve converted the Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy, The Towering Inferno, and the original Star Wars trilogy. In the next day or two, I need to pick up a couple of new pairs of tan slacks, plus maybe a new pair of shoes and a panama hat. Most of my clothing tends to be on the dark side, which doesn’t help in temperatures of 100-110 F. I also should get an airline power adapter for my iPhone and iPod.

I’ll still be online from there, of course. I plan on taking a camera with me, plus the iPhone has its own camera. I’ll make the occasional Twitter posting and site posting. I just don’t plan on doing as much Twitter posting as usual, as the data service on the iPhone will be disabled (unless I go through a wifi access point). Still, I will be checking email and instant messages. Just don’t try to call me unless you absolutely have to. ;-)

This should be an interesting experience. I’ve never travelled quite this far; ten hour flights are old hat to me, as I’ve been to England more times than I can count. I’ve never been to the Middle East before, though, and I’m hoping a fifteen hour flight is as doable for me as a ten hour flight is. Still, I’m truly looking forward to it, and plan to make the most of it. Right now it’s looking like I’ll be staying at the Courtyard by Marriott; it’s not in the center of the city, but it is close to the facility and it does have a shuttle to/from the Mall of the Emirates. Seeing as I’ll be there on a Saturday, maybe I’ll have time to look around there. We’ll see.

In any event, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll let you all know how it turns out. :-)

My father’s birthday was a week and a half ago. Unfortunately, this year, he decided not to put a birthday list up, so neither my mom nor I knew what exactly to get him. Mom was cut a break thanks to the fact that Cirque du Soleil’s show Saltimbanco is coming to town in a couple of months, so her present to him was tickets to that show. For me, though, I was still a bit in the lurch. However, soon, an idea came to me.

Whenever I call Dad while on my way home from work, he answers the phone with, “Dirty Dave’s Bar and Grill… how may we serve you?” By this time, he usually already has gotten his scotch out and has had a drink or two. He’s also said recently that if he were to open a bar, he would call it Dirty Dave’s Bar and Grill. With that in mind, I did a bit of research, found what I was looking for, and placed an order… only to find that considering how long I had taken to figure it out, the gift would arrive well after his birthday. So, on his birthday proper, I warned him the gift would be late, but said no more.

During the time waiting for it to arrive, Mom happened to mention to me that his thoughts as to what it might be were completely wrong. He was assuming that it was a Star Wars DVD or something similar that was on backorder.

Anyway, the gift arrived yesterday. When I got home, I put the plain brown box on the kitchen table, and said, “Happy birthday.” He looked at me with a look of puzzlement, especially when he saw the label on the box that said “GLASS: HANDLE WITH CARE”. He opened it, and dug through the packing, and smiled when he saw two scotch glasses and two beer glasses. He unwrapped the bubble wrap from a scotch glass carefully… and then grinned in surprise and elation when he saw that the glass had the words “Dirty Dave’s Bar and Grill” etched on them. :-)

He’s since had one drink of scotch from one of the glasses, but then asked me tonight if I minded if he just kept them for show pieces, as they’re nice glasses and he didn’t want them to be damaged. Of course, they’re his glasses, so I told him I didn’t mind what he did with them. In any event, he’s extremely happy about them, so I think I can consider that a job well done.

On another note, I won’t go into details (though Louie for one will get a kick out of it), but seeing as she didn’t know my father’s name was Dave, Misty made an assumption as to what “Dirty Dave” referred to that was hysterical and somewhat true, if completely wrong. When I told Mom and Dad about it tonight, they damn near died laughing. I have to admit that I didn’t even think of that one…

All in all, I think Dad’s very happy with his birthday gift this year. I just hope I don’t have to outdo myself next year…