Busy and Lazy

Been some time since I typed something in here. Since the last Thursday at work, all what I was thinking of is to get some sleep sleep sleep. I'm reflecting back on my life now as I see so much time was spent without typing a single poem, or writing some lines in my story or doing translation. All what I was thinking of is my vacation.
I will fly to Ireland on the beginning of next Tuesday, 29th of September. I'm so nervous since it is my first travel to be done alone. I'm planning to have my kit with me (tripod and camera) and that makes me a bit nervous about the security procedures... it is like a curse now to be an Arab and going any where else other than the Middle East, I believe. I'm so lazy doing my suit case as I don't really know what to take exactly, but for sure I'm going to take mostly heavy clothes, as I was told the weather will be cold there (I think they don't have a fall season there but winter directly after summer!). The suit case is lying there on my lazyboy open and waiting to be finalized. I got my laptop ready in my backpack... need to do things here and there. My sleeping habit now is a curse... I just don't have a fixed number of hours to sleep or to wake up... and I get frequent headaches on my right side just above the eye.

Despite all of this mess, I felt some urge to go around and do some experiments with my camera here and there. The most annoying thing is that, I figured out you almost have no where to take photos for in Kuwait. Wherever you go, you're going to face a cop or some security guys asking you for some permission to take photos. I was almost going to have a fight with two security guys when they asked me for permission just to take a photo of some corridor near Sharg mall. I managed however to snap other photos before this happens in some nitch that overlooked the marina in Sharg mall:

The image is actually composed of several shots and stitched together to form a panoramic view (small one though). The time was noon (around 2 p.m.) and the sun was almost striking in my direction but since I shot in RAW format I was able to change the WhiteBalance later on (and it was a tideous work) and combine the image and the panoramic view later on again (each angle contains 3 shots for HDR composition later), thus I tried to make the image cooler a bit:


After shooting this view, I went shooting single shots (but 3 exposures each) and changing several focusing modes, but seriously, I don't find much difference in any of them. After all of that I just had to work on one and changed its WB to form a vivid image:

And just for fun, and alone in my room, I worked on some of the old RAW files that I took some time ago for the cats in the house, and of course it was not an HDR or anything, but for fun purposes, it was a good time-killer:

I planned then to do a little experiment. I fixed the tripod on the small ladder in my room and went on capturing several images at several angles for my room in an upper level. It was worthy, and I decided then to do a 360 panorama of my room. But it was hard to do the 360 panorama with my old camera. I think you'd need a special camera or at least a wide-angle lens to take photos with and stitch later on to get more stable images and then covert them into a 3D environment just like in www.photojpl.com. However, the results were not so bad after all:

... And also my full room view:

For the time being, I just packed the camera and the tripod and I'm trying to hold my horses a bit and get prepared to travel. For the time being I'm coping with some stupidity on AIM networks, which some times helps me indeed to laugh a bit. A piece of advice: do not give a farmer, a PC. I've been awake for more than 12 hours now as I'm typing this, and I wish if I can remain awake to go and buy a CF-memory card, but I guess my eyes cannot bear much for the time being. I wish if I can make it!
This could be my last entry before going to Ireland, and I don't know if I will be posting any comments here when I'm there.

Humid...

Today is so DAMN HUMID. These are the simplest words that I can describe it with. Let's see what other beautiful things I had in this day:
1. Pick my sister from the garage (her car's battery went dead last night).
2. Going back home of course and dropping stuff (along with my sister).
3. Aftre coming back to work I had a little rest then went on with my friend driving him here and there to do some paperwork around the campus.
4. I got a heavy dose of unuseful blabbering as usual.

All of that was in a nice, romantic humid weather. Needless to say what happens to my hair in such situations! Made me really uneasy with myself. I'm at home as I'm typing and I'm planning for my next BIG shower. The main problem now is that, in such weather, taking a shower can prove really fatal and you won't be dry again til September comes!
All of that made me really uneasy and I was coping to stay awake and type something for my story. I typed few words but after all I had to give up and take a nap in the office for like 30 minutes at least. On the road, I had to play Twister again, not only because of my absent mind from the tiresome weather, but also for the stupidity and the amazing driving of some people. I had to slow down on the left lane just because I had the mood to make the guy behind me fly off the handle... and guess it worked.

One of the latest discoveries recently, is that Stupidity started to spread over the internet with me finding out that some guys think I'm lying about my identity when I say I'm from Kuwait. Moreover, when I tell them the weather is humid today, they laugh and act the know-it-all and ask "Kuwait? Humid?." I do feel sorry for them really, but I can't help it with such weather today and such mood except to curse them all the time. Let's hope their tomato sauce won't get deeper into their minds.

Away from all of this stupidity, I made ready some of the photos that I took already in the past few days.

The topmost photo is, of course, for the Kuwait towers. This image was combined in HDR and some contrast play is applied after that. To smooth it even more, I had to apply a "surface blur." The final touch, and the hardest, was to blur the front and make the towers show firmly at the back. The idea sounds a bit weird to me because it is typical to see the subject against a blurred background, but not a blurred foreground. My eyes isn't used to it.

The lower image was one of the images I took in the morning of my birthday, where I combined the HDR image and then applied the dramatic effect. A larger image is better to be viewed here, because of the complexity of the subject.

Finally, and because of this MARVELOUS day, I couldn't translate anything in my story. I was planning already to do something, at least one verse if possible, but with all that running up and down I just couldn't do anything at all. Needless to talk about my screwed mood already.

THURSDAY! HERE I COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blackened Image

After being absent yesterday, I tried my best to come early today, as usual, although I've slept almost like none hours. Today, I decided not to bring the big envelope where I keep the papers for Alexander's story and its translation. By this, I'm trying to dedicate more time for my story. Things been slow... so damn slow. I decided to stop fasting for the time being, trying to get more of my energy re-collected hoping that it would help me in the process of writing.

Nightmares of car accidents had been chasing me all the week, and today was no exception. Even though with such dreams, I don't like driving "more safely" at all! Today even was an extra exception, when suddenly I felt the rage inside of me and kept on pushing the accelerator to the max, and if it wasn't for the speed cameras I wouldn't have used the brakes at all. Although it is usual for me to be mad like that in the early hours of the morning because of the stinky drivers I meet daily, but today it was something else that I couldn't understand... a rage like for no reason... or maybe it is a direct effect for my bad sleeping habit. I think I'm going insane soon if I didn't go on vacation soon. The diarrhea is another story as well. I think it is connected to my sleeping. I think my digestive system is not working well because it doesn't take the break it needs while I'm sleeping. I feel just so weak! Well... I'm weak already...

I think I had put the final touch for the first chapter of the story right now. The name I settled for right is "Blackened Image," but yet, this is subject to change later on. Then I think I shall name the first chapter as "The End Begins..." where the "end" here denotes death itself. I don't know yet if what I wrote is long or short, but I think I will write more to it later on when it comes to reviewing again and again. Writing is indeed not an easy task at all... this is a word from a beginner like me.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to work on a new poem... I got the title which was inspired out of nothing... yet, I can't tell what the topic of the poem would be! The title is settled for "Over The Dandelion."

I can foresee some hard days coming work-wise. My colleague is announced to be in a 60 days leave without any notification. In fact, there is a notification. The notification arrived by post from the admins office today, announcing that my colleague is indeed on a leave starting from 18th of July. If she is supposed to be on a leave (automatically) and not attending work, then how she's supposed to be reading the post? Would it be delivered to her house? Come on... this is Kuwait. Talk about Stupidity and it comes right away to your door! :)
The consequences of such matter is that, I have to handle the matters in the center alone. The most behated part in all of this is, answering phones and dealing with papers which she took the burden of. As for me, it was OK for me to go under this sun to any desired destination (almost), but I just hate answering the phone. I think I have some kind of a phobia against it, specially after the many trials that I passed regarding my hearing abilities. Ah well... life goes on... .

I got happy news today! The DHL service called me to re-collect my passport back from the Irish embassy. Can't wait to get back home and see it. I have to pay something like KD20.800 as fees for the Cash-On-Delivery service, but who cares now. I'm almost done with everything. All what I need to do for now I guess, is pack and get prepared for some tiny details. It's going to be a tiresome trip just to reach Dublin. I think I have to book some tickets as well from now, to take a plane from Dublin to Galway, or might as well do it whenever I arrive into Dublin by the Metro. The return of the passport now is not necessarily an indication that I was accepted a Visa, but I don't think I'm going to be refused one!