Long Beach Urban Fitness Challenge

I was invited by Cory to be a member of his team for the Long Beach Urban Challenge. I will admit I was not very excited about doing this race because I have not been to the gym regularly for the past month.


http://urbanfitnesschallenge.com/

This is our Pre-race photo. The tall person standing next to me is Nick, he is one of Cory's former students who was home for Christmas from MIT (he plays water polo and is only 21). Then there is Cory. And on the end is another Nick who is a kick boxer who goes to the same gym as we do. We were all fresh and clean here. Eli got in the photo so that Paula could take it. I think that he thought that he was going on the challenge.

To start the challenge we were given some instructions. Paula had not left yet, so she photographed us reading the inital instructions. We were still fresh and clean here.

3 hours later, some kayaking, some biking and many miles of running down this is what we looked like...

I have to admit that I was not really excited about this challenge, but it was a lot of fun. I would do it again. We were the second fastest team. We actually won first place in the race because the team ahead of us did not follow the instructions on the first challenge. Out team followed all instructions, ran the whole way and still beat the rest of the teams. It was a very fun day!! Thanks for the invite Cory.

First time out of JFK airport in New York

December in Manhattan... all I can say is cold, cold, cold... I am basically freezing my axx off.
Fun city, but frigid in December. This is cold looks like in the day.
This is cold looks like at night.

Heading home today

Today I fly home. Delta flight from Dubai to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to Los Angeles. See you guy's soon.

Wednesdays Adventure

I had a thought that you might not be able to picture where the UAE is. So I have copies a map here.

Tired of taking a taxi everywhere because it is to far to walk anywhere today is Big Red Bus day. Mom had such a good tour on it in Paris that I thought that it might be a nice way to see Dubai.

I caught the bus at the Wafi shopping mall. It is a very new mall that is attached to a Raffels Hotel. The mall seems to have an Egyptian theme.

This is me on the bus. It is great to ride a bus with 70 year old tourist's both American and British.

Here are some photo' s on the way to the first stop the Jumeirah Mosque.

This was a boy's school.

This was in the back yard of some very ruch person's house. I am not sure if you can see it, buit there are metal statues of African animals everywhere.

This was the Jumeirah Mosque. I did not get off of the bus because you can only tour it on Thursdays. So walking around it in almost 100 degree weather did not sound like much fun.

I am glad to see that we are exporting McDonalds to the Middle East.

Paula - this is for you. I thought that it was pretty interesteg that they would have a sign on this.

This is the tour of Mosques. There seems to be one every half mile.

This is Jumerah Beach.

Another Mosque.

KFC in the desert.

Yet another mosque.

First sighting of the Burj Al Arab hotel.

Hey guess what another Mosque.

This is a yacht that was parked outside the Burj Al Arab hotel. Here I am on the top deck of the bus.

This hotel is quite massive, but it is dusty.

This is the entrance to the Souk Madinat Jumeirah. This is the fun part of Dubai, which is an hour away from where I am staying. Everyone keeps telling me what a great place this is at night with all of the shopping and restaraunts.

This is an action shot of me negotiating at the Souk.

The areas of the Souk have canals around it where you could take a boat or just enjoy the ambiance.

The Bus went onto the Palm Island here. I did not know that you actually had to get out to the manmade island my tunnel or bridge.

This is the underground tunnel that takes you to the Atlantis Hotel and Resort on the Palm.

In case you have never seen the Persian Gulf here it is. Very blue compared to the California coast.

This is a photo driving away from the Atlantis Hotel and Resort.

Self photo on the Big Red Bus.

Again a photo of the Burj Dubai.

I think that I have now seen everything in Dubai except the old fort and a camel race. It would be ok if I never made it back, but I know how you can spend a couple of days here.

If I were in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - this is my golden ticket. It is the invitation to the Dubai Air Show Gala Event. Only 3,000 people are invited and I am one of the ones going. To quote from the invitation:

"Under the patronage of HH (His Highness) Shekh Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai,

You are cordially invited to the 11th Dubai Airshow Gala Dinner..... "

I have to admit that I am pretty excited about this event.

This is the view from the area right before security at the Dubai Air Show Gala Event.

Here I am in a sneak shot at the table.

The stage is lite in purple here. It was pretty awesome.

Here is a photo of my gala attire. Check out the necklace. I was very happy not to be wearing a suit jacket.

I tried to sneak in a photo of the George Benson conert. I was sitting to far away. I will say though that if you have the cash a private concert is the way to go. People were danceing and getting to go on stage to get their photo taken with George.

This is on the way to the taxi at the end of hte reception. I was trying to not get a photo of me, but of the 2 people in traditional white dress driving in the golf cart behind me. But so many people were watching this is how I had to get the photo.

Last event for me of the Dubai Air Show. I have to say it was spectacular.

George Benson's concert