So anyway, this is more about recreation than weekends. What I've been doing for fun more or less.
The Drive:
We have a quite a few email groups here at MS. One is called Microsoft drivers and the rest are usually for specific car brand owners, like BMW Performance groups, Merc Owner groups, stuff like that. Luckily every now and then someone posts a nice route for a drive for the rest to enjoy. Having had a few sunny days a couple weeks ago I decided to go for one. So I got off work at around 3pm, printed the map and instructions, took my roof down, and started the 1.5 hour drive.
It was simply amazing. The route was out of this world, I never even imagined there are such scenic twisty roads around here. The roads were mostly bi-directional two lane roads (one lane for each direction) and they had all types of corner and elevation variations. It was thrilling to say the least.
Of course I was hooked, so I started campaigning for a group drive on the MS email groups. And it worked! So tomorrow (Saturday), around 2 dozen people who are passionate about driving here at Microsoft are gonna go together for a longer drive on similarily scenic and twisty roads. We're planning on going early in the morning to evade traffic as much as possible. The cars that are coming? Thought you'd never ask. Here's a few of the cars that I know should be there:
Honda S2000, Porsche 911 Carrera4S, A3 3.2 quattro, Porsche Boxster, Mini Cooper, Lotus Elise, Unconfirmed Dodge Viper, Unconfirmed Corvette, Impreza STi, BMW 540, BMW 325, Unconfirmed NSX, RX-7, BMW Z3, and last but definitely not least 2 BMW Z4s.
Needless to say I'm really looking forward to it. I'll make sure we make a few stops to take group photos of the cars. Will definitely post when I'm back from that one.
The Concert
A few weeks ago I heard of a Nawal El Zoghby concert happening in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Seeing that it's around 120 miles away from here we decided to go for it. The concert turned out to be kinda different than what I had in mind. It was a moderate size restraurant where people were seated at tables, more like a hotel ballroom type of concert than a stadium/beach type. Accordingly the average age of attendants was significantly higher than my own. It was still enjoyable, you don't get the "arabic" atmoshphere in a lot of places around here and it was sure fun to be around people singing and dancing to arabic tunes.
A pleasant surprise was that she sounded exactly like you hear the songs on the CD, which is unfortunately not the case for most singers out there these days. I sure respect singers/bands that are not "sound engineering based".
I could also walk away with a few nice photos of Nawal El Zoghby and being so close to the action sure helped. So here goes a couple for your viewing pleasure, click on any photo in the post for a larger version.
That's about it for today. A bien tot.
8 comments:
I love the drive idea :) I'm quite crazy about driving myself. Went from Connecticut to Georgia for thanksgiving on my own, which was a 15 hour-drive going and 20 hours coming back :D Testing out the car and all. It was still new.
Great pic of the car ;)
Respectfully, I will not comment on the list of cars you mentioned. Hope the drive is fun.
You should visit the north west sometime then, we can do a good one together. Don't come driving though, it's a long way :)
It's quite brave the drive you did, but how come it took you 5 more hours on the way back? :D Freeways are very boring though, stupendously straight :)
Thanks for the compliment :) She's photogenic ain't she? I also learned a few digital editing effects from a friend who was studying media at college for maximum "drama" :)
I hope I'll be able to snap a few good photos of that awesome group of cars. It's not often that one is around so many great cars at the same time.
it's great 2 hear that u had fun(ya rab keda 3ala tool).
but i'm rather disappointed cuz in the other blog u said that u were gonna post photos & i thought that they were ur photos not some photos of Nawal el zo3'be :S & ur car(with all due respect 2 ur precious car of course :P).
so,i hope next blog u could post some photos of yours plzzz.
missing u sooo much :x
What an amazing pic ya Chris !!!
I'm not a big fan of cars, yet your car's pic will probably change that :)
Cool post, although I'm still waiting for more how-is-chris-the-egyptian-doing-in-america stuff.
Keep posting.
@Monica, well it's rather difficult for one to take photos of oneself usually so I'm sorry to tell you that these will have to remain a few and far in between :)
@Ramy, Thanks! and this is how he's doing ;)
Well, the drive took 5 more hours because of traffic. It was terrible. I took off from GA 10 PM and by the time I got to NY city, it was rush hour. It was terrible. You really don't want to know :)
But...the whole thing was an experience. I got to listen to "The Grapes of Wrath"...which I think would have taken me months to read. Plus I got to enjoy the car.
I love the effects :) Keep up the fun and the pics.
well i think she sounded like the cd because u was realy listening to the cd and she was moving her lips so they match with the cd :P
this is just a theory taba3an, maybe i am wrong :)
@karim.
it was actually a live concert, with the band and everything :) hehe
but alot of singers do that though, its getting a bit ridiculous lol.
Post a Comment