Briefly unidentified flying objects

This week in Norway, folks got an interesting show in the early morning sky. A spinning disc appeared to rise over the horizon, trailed by a tail of bluish light. It floated there for a few minutes, then disappeared into an expanding circle of blackness. No sound was heard.

The science-fiction aficionado in me would have loved it if the aliens had landed shortly thereafter. The space aficionado in me said, "hey, that looks like a tumbling rocket."

So let's sort out what actually happened. Here is a time-lapse photo of the event:

You are getting sleeeeepy....

A huge alien pinwheel with a tractor beam, right? It's an impressive display. Video, though, showed that the most striking elements of the photo were, for the most part, artifacts of taking a long exposure:

Spin, spin, spin, poof.

It sure looks like something venting gases, dunnit? A rocket, maybe? But the Russians--the only people with North Sea-based launch capability--shrugged and said, "it wasn't us." Hmmm.

Meanwhile, here is a computer simulation of a rocket stage with a semi-functional booster engine and a propellant leak or misfiring guidance rocket. Look familiar?

Physics at its most dizzying.

In the end, it turns out that the Russians were just shrugging for public benefit. They had, indeed, launched a rocket from a submarine in the North Sea and it had, in fact, not worked precisely as it was designed to.

So there were no aliens. But at least it was a pretty light show for a cold December morning.

Of Killers, shisha and 70-degree weather in December

Last night was the second concert I have attended in Abu Dhabi, stops in the lairs of various cover bands notwithstanding: The Killers, stopping by at the end of a world tour.

I wouldn't describe myself as a massive fan of the band, but let me tell you why it was a great show.

The thing about going to a concert in Abu Dhabi is that most of the crowd--say four-fifths--are there just because it's a concert in Abu Dhabi. They probably know the band's hit singles, but don't celebrate the band's entire catalog.

As a result, pretty much any band is walking uphill when it comes to getting the crowd involved. Last night was no exception. The Killers came out with a lot of energy, flashing lights and oddball background videos, but the crowd seemed content to basically sway and clap. I did my part by waving my hands in the air in a manner that suggested I had no great personal stake in the situation's outcome.

But. The Killers are from Las Vegas, the home of showmanship, and frontman Brandon Flowers is a showman. Over the course of the evening--they played for at least an hour and a half--he cajoled more and more energy out of the crowd with sing-alongs and general onstage bounciness.

Somewhere between "quiet crowd" and "rocking crowd."

By the time the encore came around, everyone's hands were in the air. And they cared. The three-song extra set concluded with "When You Were Young," a fine song by itself, which was amplified by some serious pyrotechnics. Contrast that to Kings of Leon, who I like better as a band, but who, despite playing to a much bigger audience, basically just came out, strummed an hour of music and walked offstage.

So last night's show was beautiful. And then we walked through the extremely manicured and extremely enormous grounds of the Emirates Palace Hotel to its beach bar for shisha and post-concert cocktails...

... and were joined a half-hour later by the band, who sat at the next cabana over.

I have been struggling through this entire post not to make a pun on the band's name, and I'm not going to blow it now. Let's just say it was a ki... great night.

It's beginning to look nothing like Christmas

I woke up this morning not to a light dusting of snow and prancing reindeer (half of which are common in Chicago this time of year) but to... a sandstorm and no prancing of any kind.

Apparently there are very few sandstorms in the winter. I already sat through a three-day storm in the summer that was less a storm and more a giant cloud of grit. Today's sand event involves more windswept particles, complete with little eddies drifting across the road. Almost like snow, but not quite.

I did, however, spend a good two hours mailing packages this morning, proving that no matter where on Earth you are, the holiday traditions remain the same.

Getting culture at the mall

On National Day, I gently complained that the UAE wasn't doing enough to make its culture accessible--at least in the form of tourist trinketry--to visitors and non-native residents.

Yesterday, I got my first bit of exposure to actual Bedouin tradition. Of course, it was in the mall.

A group of Emirati drummers had formed a drum line and were parading around the mall's central fountain. They were chanting rhythmically in Arabic. They were bobbing to the music. They were prepared to twirl canes and swords and axes, at least based on the objects stacked nearby.

It looked like this, but with fewer fake guns:



And that's really all I want. A little flash. A little dance. A little culture. I don't even care if it's at the mall--at least we could sip Barista coffee as we watched.

More DIY

I know I have probably bragged about this stuff too much. And I already have a (literally) big head.

But I can't help but feel pretty good about fixing the rattle in our car's door. I did this by taking the door paneling off--something I never would have considered doing, say, a year ago. But what can I say. I watched a Filipino speaker-installation guy do it, so what was stopping me? Besides, of course, a fear that I would unplug something important or not be able to put the door back together or simply, you know, burst into flames or something.

Happily, neither of those scenarios emerged. I saw that the power-window motor had a loose bolt in the doorframe. I tightened it. I replaced all the door paneling. I high-fived myself.

And that is the story of how I did something useful on my day off. All by myself.

Made in the UAE--or not

Happy National Day, world. Today is the 38th anniversary of the formation of the United Arab Emirates, and an occasion for great celebration and car-decorating.

The eyes of the sheikhs will guide the driver.

It's kind of remarkable. Consider what it would be like to take part in the Philadelphia festivities in 1816. There are plenty of people out there waving flags who lived on this island when it was just Abu Dhabi, not really a nation, not really a state, just a place with no roads and lots of oil.

The country has come a long way in a short amount of time. A lot of things have been done right--a focus on education, a liberalization of views toward women, building infrastructure, health care, social programs of all stripes. Some things have gone badly--I'm looking at you, Abu Dhabi street planners.

But one interesting facet of life here has become evident in my recent travels. Here in the UAE, we consume. People elsewhere, they manufacture. That, I suppose, is why the announcement of a massive airplane parts plant in Al Ain a few weeks ago was such a big deal.

This dichotomy has been made sharply evident lately. In Oman, there was a lot of stuff for sale that was Omani. Made in Oman. Used by Omanis. And so on. While doing some shopping for Christmas presents (have you been good this year, Friends of the Blog?) in Abu Dhabi, everything was made elsewhere. Even the shibriya, or traditional Arabic daggers, carried by the Bedouin for centuries, are made in Syria. Yes, even the antique ones.

But Damascus is good at steel, you say. OK, fair point. How does that explain all the Lebanese hookahs, then? The incense burners made in India?

So, on this Dec. 2, big ups to Sheikh Zayed for cobbling together a country from nothing. Tall glass buildings do not the soul of a nation make, however. Preserve the traditions. Sell them to tourists if you have to. But don't import Arabia when you ARE Arabia.

The desert, it is large

No pics from Oman. Yet. Be patient, grasshopper.

Meanwhile, a word about the Empty Quarter.

Most of it, as far as I can tell, is in Saudi Arabia. It is a vast place. Vast and, you might have guessed, quite empty. So empty, in fact, that a huge meteor blew up a chunk of it a while back in an explosion big enough to have obliterated a medium-sized city... but no one noticed until the crater was discovered decades later. True story.

Just before Thanksgiving, we stayed at a hotel about 10 kilometers into the UAE's bit of the Empty Quarter. The place was called Qasr al Sarab, which means Mirage Palace (roughly) and it really is in the middle of nowhere. So much so that if you set off walking in most directions, you would die of thirst before you even saw another living thing that wasn't a scruffy looking bush.

Here's a view from the hotel:

That pool of water? It's manmade.*

So. In short, it was a trip. Majestic dunes, absolute desolation. Of course, it's a lot easier to be awed by such things when you're sitting poolside with a mojito.

*No, I didn't take the picture. But I was with the people who did.