Golf and Friends

The first hole on the Majlis course. Here are the rental clubs (Ping G10s) they gave me.

I am practicing on the range before our tee time.

Two crazy looking buildings in Doha. They look like they might fall down.

Here is a large project going on in Doha called The Pearl. The picture is taken from a middle "island". Large buildings are built on the surrounding land (Pearl) which allows large ships to come in and out at will.

Here is my Thanksgiving meal spent with the Byrd's. We ate at a traditional Arabic restaurant where you sit on the floor.

Scuba and Golf

We are getting off the scuba ship that took us 20 minutes out to sea. The ocean was clear in parts and very dark and red in parts. We would be swimming in clear water then come upon "red algae" patches where it would get totally dark.

Here is the hotel where we based our scuba dives from. We are on the east side of the UAE scuba diving in the Persian Gulf.

Here is another picture of the tallest building in the world at around 800 meters or 25 football fields.

Here is a picture of Ken Byrd (Amy's dad) at the Doha Golf Course. They will also host a professional golf event here on the way to Dubai.

Another great fairway shot. The professional golfer behind us put the ball within 3 feet of the cup.

Downtown Doha

They sell these falcons at the local market. The are used as hunting pets. They can start at $3,000 and go up from there.

Here is a downtown shot of Doha.

TAMUQ Basketball Team

This is a picture of the TAMUQ basketball team after we won the 4 team tournament. The little guy holding the basketball is the son of one of the faculty members.

D&B

This past weekend we took the youth group (31 middle school and high school kids) out on an overnight retreat into the desert. We went dune bashing in cars, sand boarding (like snow boarding but in the sand), played capture the flag, and went swimming. Eight of the kids got stung by jelly fish. We saw these guys 4-wheeling in front of us.

We are in SUVs going up and down sand dunes. The key to sand duning is going straight down the dunes. If you start going sideways down a steep dune, there is a better chance of flipping the car. Before we took the SUVs out in the sand, we deflate our tires quite a bit so that we could get better traction on the sand.

Sand, sand, and more sand.

Here is a picture of the sunrise out in the desert. One of the highschool girls from the youth group is shown in the picture.

Here is the tent we ate in when we spent the night out in the desert. We had rice, chicken, beef kabob, water, and fruit.

Desert Retreat

This picture almost looks like it could be in Hawaii. However, it is in the southeast part of Qatar at a place called Sealine.

This is the tent where all the guys slept on the retreat.

This picture shows one of the few places in the world where a large desert of sand meets the ocean. The guy in the picture was one of our drivers.

Here is the name of the camp, and a picture of the youth group as we are first arriving.

Another picture of camp.

Tennis and Sand

Here is a warning sticker on the front seat of the SUV I was sitting in to go dune bashing. However, I couldn't read it.

The first 10 minutes we were sand bashing, one of the drivers went sideways down a dune and put too much pressure on the front right wheel. It caused the tire to come off of the hub.

Although the picture is blurry (I was sitting up on the third deck), it shows Venus Williams playing tennis is Doha. Doha hosted the end of the year tournament for the top 8 ranked women tennis players in the world. Venus won the tournament and $1.5 million. Venus's sister Serena was also playing, but she had an injury and had to withdrawal.

Here is a larger picture of the stadium. A 21 year old girl from Serbia is playing a girl from Russia. The Russian won.

Here is a picture of 2 weird-shaped objects outside the Cornell University building. I have no idea what they are, they just look neat.