cyclone lashing Oman

Powerful Cyclone Phet barrels toward Oman(Reuters) - Tropical cyclone Phet barreled toward the coast of the Gulf Arab state of Oman on Wednesday, strengthening quickly on its way to becoming a powerful category five storm.

WORLD

Phet was not expected to make landfall in Oman, but should instead turn to skim parallel to the Sultanate's shore before roaring northeast toward Pakistan, according to tropical storm watch website www.tropicalstormrisk.com.

Phet would steer clear of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of all seaborne oil trade passes, or about 17 million barrels per day (bpd).

Phet was a Category 3 storm on Wednesday, with sustained winds of over 130 mph. It was expected to become a Category 5 storm, the most powerful with winds of over 156 mph, in the next 24 hours.

Phet would lash Oman's eastern region shores with hurricane-strength winds through Friday before moving northeast. It was expected to weaken before coming ashore just south of Karachi as a Category 3 storm on Sunday.

Oman is a small independent oil producer, pumping about 850,000 bpd. Most of its exports move from the ports of Mina al-Fahal, near the capital of Muscat. The storm was expected to turn northeast before reaching Muscat.

Operations at Oman LNG, the Sultanate's export facility for liquefied natural gas (LNG), were to date unaffected, an Oman LNG spokesperson said.

The three LNG production facilities, known as trains, are based in Sur in the eastern region, closer to the path of the storm. The region is also home to Oman's green back turtle.

"It is business as usual so far with Oman LNG but we are in touch with the authorities to see if there would be any change" Nasser al-Kindy, head of corporate communications at Oman LNG told Reuters.

Oman was battered by powerful Cyclone Gonu in 2007. The storm killed at least 54 people in Oman and Iran.

(Reporting by Saleh al-Shaibany; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

(Source: www.reuters.com)

in Holland

I reached Holland safely this morning. I flew back with my friend Berend. Somehow each of us was able to bring about 180 pounds of luggage on board. The trip was okay. Slept for a bit. Watched a movie called 'Brothers'. It was on my to watch list so that was nice.

Next couple of days I need to find direction, sense and clarity about my life, haha. Well, lets make it not too dramatic.

And I still need to think about what I will do with this blog...?

last week in Oman

My last week here in Oman. Tonight I will pick up my friend Berend from the airport. He decided to come to visit me here last moment. That will be nice. I'll be showing him around a bit here and there. You know, Oman.

A last week in Oman. Wrapping things up for my work here. Saying goodbye to people and places. I mean, I have been through leaving places a couple of times now. And it does feel like cutting yourself loose from something important. Feels like dying a little bit. Although I don't really know how that really feels. But yeah, it will be weird stepping on that airplane and not knowing if or when I will return here. It reminds me of South America, when I was saying good bye there. Its part of the choices I make in life.

sweat baby sweat...

... temperatures are rising. During the day you just don't want to be outside. It is approximately 45 degrees (113F) outside now. Like walking in an oven. Cannot believe that it temperatures are actually going to go up even more. Cannot believing that people used to live here without AC.

Went to the beach yesterday evening for a walk. That was really good though. A nice and cool breeze. Walking in the relatively cool sea water. Hearing gentle touch of the waves touching the sea shore. Good company. Good conversations.

Mentally I am preparing on going back again to Holland. Two and a halve week. Cannot believe it is almost time return. I am going to miss this place greatly.

update

In the last couple of weeks I have been working on my HACCP plan. That is the assignment that I will complete for my graduation project. I think I need about two more weeks of work on that and then I am happy to be done.

Also I have been thinking about what I will be doing after I have graduated. I think before I was kind of worried about it but now I am pretty confident that I will succeed in finding a suitable job for me. Where or what it is going to be? Only God knows.

Then I went to the Royal Symphony Orchestra recently. I went there with Andy from church. Was pretty cool. I took a video and I hope I will update it at some point.

Furthermore it was my birthday this weekend. I celebrated it twice. First was with some people from work. They came over with soda's and snacks. We had a blast till two in the morning. The day after I had a great evening at my boss his house. He invited me to celebrate it at his place. Normally in Oman people don't have the habit of celebrating their birthday. But I guess I am a special case :-) It was actually great fun. It felt like I was at a children's party. Reason: it was Dr. Khalid's kids and some of his nephews and nieces. They bought a real cake with candles for me and the sang 'happy birthday', in which the happy sounds like "habby" because the letter 'p' is not in the Arabic alphabet. It was great celebrating with them. They even were so kind to buy my a present. A nice watch. But don't pin me down on never coming late anymore.

This week I am taking a training. It is a a level 4 in Food Hygiene for Managers. Very extensive. And a great learning experience. I think at some point in my life I could open up a successful food operating business... why not.

About 4 more weeks and I will be going back to Holland. I am looking forward to it. I have no clue of how I am going to spend my time there yet. I guess I will need to find a job somewhere for a while. I know I still have to finish a couple of subjects before I can graduate so that will definitely take some time. And also I am going to cook for a week at the Navigators retreat, which will be held in Germany this year. Pretty cool. Cooking for 250 hungry students. That is going to be soo much fun. And of course, hopefully will result in some happy and well fed people.

Well, that is about it I think. Feel free to drop me a line on my email. Or leave a comment. I love hearing from anyone reading this.

Oh, and last of all. Happy birthday to my sister. We both have the same birthday although there is a six year gap.

Salam and joy to all of you!

hilarious

So our clients did an inspection in one of the kitchens. In their report one of the comments was:

Table for cutting the mutton, chicken and fish in the open area. The area was very dirty because the dove was sitting on the table and making it ugly.

That is the most hilarious thing ever. Yeah, I am working in a real professional business world here. LOL.

Driemaal scheepsrecht... no idea how to translate that in english

So I don't know how this works in life and what it means but I had two remarkable events that seem to be related to each other. Both of them have to do with my car. I know that my style of driving is not what other would consider to be the most safe or considered. And I felt convicted about this. It is one of those things that I have always been aware of. But then I always feel like I am in control over the car. I pay attention very well when I am driving and I feel like I never miss something. But my car, although I am grateful having one here without having to pay anything for it, is really not the best. It is really out of balance and the steering really sucks. But nevertheless I drive with considerable speed. The reason for that is that often in my head I want to be at my destination as soon as possible. A general issue in life that causes problems occasionally. It makes me stressed and feeling like being in a hurry. But the thing is that I picture my destination in my mind and I want to be there right away. All the time and energy needed to bridge the space or time between point A and B feels like a waste.

Now come to think of it, when I was younger I always wanted to have the skill of teleportation. I can remember myself looking at a certain place like halve a mile further and closing my eyes and wishing I was there. To make it even more stupid. I can remember that I was thinking of the passage in the bible where Jesus and his disciples stepped in a boat and instantly reached the other side of the lake. I always thought that if I had enough "faith" whatever that may be would help me to actually acquire this supernatural feature. Until today, I have not.

Apparently this post is not really a case in which I feel stressed or want to reach the destination of having this post finished. As proof I refer to the paragraph described just above and the explanation that I am typing right now. Right now I am more in a mind set that anything works and I am letting "things" (the whole construct of this post) develop in a more organic way. Which means that I kind of know what the outcome is but I don't know how to reach it.

Before returning to the initial point of writing I want to mention that I one of the drawbacks of wanting to be at B while being in the process of reaching there is that it I don't always experience being in transition to the fullest. Consequently I don't always make the most of the learning opportunities and opportunities of enjoying that that particular moment, or rather transition, offers.

So the two interesting occurrences have all to do with driving my car. As mentioned I felt somewhat guilty about not always driving like I think I should. Now what happened was that on friday I was driving and thinking about the fact that I did not want to get into any car accidents. And that I should be more careful about driving. Not more than two minutes later my car is kissing the back of an other car. I was only going 40 KM/H and was fully braking when I say that the car in front of me had come to a full stop. I guess my breaks and tires were not in sound technical condition and while breaking I was just gliding towards the car in front of me. His car undamaged. But the bodywork on my front has a big dent. Nothing major and the guy did not make a big fuzz about it.

And then today I was reminded about the fact that my spare tire was not in my trunk. Some one in the office used it and had not returned it. I knew it was one of those things that I needed to get set but I had not made an effort to solve it yet. And while driving home for my lunch break I was thinking that I'd only had a month and a halve to go here and would assume not having a punctured tire. The moment I got back from my lunch and was about to pull out the parking lot I noticed that my right front tire was flat as an empty balloon.

Fate, the inevitable, punishment, coincidence? All these things automatically run through my head. I've always been skeptical about, well, about many things of which one is superstition. Is there a deeper meaning than just a dented bumper and a flat tire? Is there more to it? Is it a logic consequence of fear being realized since fears inevitably become true when you start focussing on your fears? Is there a Godly plan put in place to teach me something important here? These questions opens whole new spectrum of questions regarding about fate, and Gods involvement in daily mundane life. Any thoughts?

And ofcourse, driemaal scheepsrecht...so what is next?