Sci-fi o-Rama

Emirate air is amazing. Just hands down the classiest flying experience i've ever had. From the helpful stewardesses to the immaculate bathroom with complimentary scented oils and lotions, to the kind Pakistani dude seated next to us, everything was just tops. Highly recommended fir your travel experience.






Stars on the cielings at night time







Second glass of wine and some Iron John







Eliot watching movies

Dubai's airport was cyclopean. Like Kazad-Dum sized. Just unbelievable. Planning ahead at Houston paid off and extensive weighings of the gear and measurements of the bike boxes meant that everything came through perfectly fine on the other side. I'm happy to report both boxes and all gear is present and accounted for!






































Landed in Dubai about 6:50. It's now ten till midnight, and it's hard to say where the time went. After eliot's parents picked us up, we went back to their place and cleaned up before having dinner. Now we're back at the apartment bedding down, less than 24 hours from when we arrived at the airport. This place is built on a scale that's hard to understand. Oppulance, commodity and crass consumerism already seems so rampant that more than once tonight i had to take a break while walking around festival city. Everything here, as Eliot wisely put it, is built like the stuff they CG in most movies. The whole time you feel like your an extra in some grand sci-fi epic that's being filmed just over there a bit.

Location:13 B St,Dubai,United Arab Emirates

borging out

eliot and i commonly come up with our own lengthy short hand for talking about things, often constructed from obscure pop-culture references. i won't even try to sum the meaning or sources for these as they are both multitudinous, tiresome and really not all that funny to anyone else. but one phrase - "borging out" - has become commonplace for us so i thought i'd include it here. to start with, let's examine this video shall we? 

basically, eliot is convinced we're going to look like funky space aliens from beyond the stars to our countryside indian compatriots. i tend to agree - what with our ultra-tight space pants, wheeled black pedal-cows and stripes of space age reflective material.  but when a headset microphone, a bike helmet and a rearview mirror are combined ... well, my friend, you are officially borged out.

i added the nerf gun for giggles. 

back-pack conversion

as eliot mentioned, we put our bags through conversions so that we could take them off the bike and carry them on us.  when we're moving through crowded (and pick-pocket laden) bus and train stations, or moving through a market, it's going to be handy to be able to pick up our bikes and not worry about the stuff on the back getting ripped off. 

the conversion was done by my dear-old mom, becky hicks, on her singer sowing machine that she won in a contest sometime in the way-back-when. the basic premise was to take the main bag and attached straps for a backpack, then add a loop at the top of that bag with a carbiner.  then take the two side bags and clip them into that carabiner, and put a bungy around the whole thing. for added security i may be putting the rain-fly over this so would-be muggers and fiends can't even see the bags. who knows. i'm very happy with the way this turned out and while it's not the most comfortable thing in the world, it is a very effective way to move quickly on foot with all my gear in tow. 

Hindus ... In ... Spaaaaaaaace!

proponents of the ancient astronaut theory (AAT) believe extra-terrestrials (or xeno-terrestrials if you prefer) visited earth a long time ago and basically got our civilization going.  they range from dudes who think it's "possible" to guys like David Icke, who thinks the queen of england is a reptilian space monster from beyond the stars sent to control us (YES REALLY). these guys point to some particular passages in the Vedas (Hindu holy scriptures) that describe Vimanas - flying contraptions that carry the gods (and sometimes humans) around.

pretty cool stuff. apparently, according to the Vedas anyway, Hindu gods made these contraptions and flew around in them "shooting lightning" at each other. not only does this make for laser-shooting crazy-lookin' space gods, (which is the coolest religion *I've* ever heard of), it also sounds a whole lot like, um,  this. 

truly, Truly, TRULY outrageous. *

* it occurs to me that we slip alot of these little jokes in the blog and don't always explain them. you might have noticed a number of blogs are marked with the tag "truly, truly, truly outrageous." to get this, you will want to watch this.   DREW IS MY NAME / NO ONE ELSE IS THE SAAAAAAAAAME!