Ayman Elkhidir

Today, I finish my 25th year of life.
One quarter of a century.
The dawn of an era and the rise of another.

So I finally reached Doha.

The trip from Sharjah to Doha was about 40 minutes long. Not short enough to get bored; and not long enough to have a good nap. Anyhoo, I’m finally here.

Doha Airport is quite nice and fast to get through. I’ve visited several airports this year and the thing I hated most was having to take off my shoes and belt everytime for that metal detector machine; Quite embarrasing actually. Only 2 places where I didn’t have to do that; Dubai Airport and now Doha Airport.

It’s quite hot and humid, not much different that Dubai, but the calmness of the place reminds me of my hometown (Al-Ain). No traffic jams, no noise, except for the same breed of morons on wheels available in Dubai.

Met my sister Eman and my aunt’s family and had a long chat. Haven’t met Aunt Hanan and the family in a few years and their kids are now grown ups. Suha, who I was concious enough when she was born in London, is now getting ready for college.

I’m getting old!

It seems this week will be loads of fun. My uncle Abdul Azim is coming from Afghanistan (No, he’s not a terrorist, he works with the WHO) and his daughter Zina (my cousin) is coming from Sudan in a couple of days. This will be a great gathering for sure.

One lesson I had to learn the hard way.

When I was in Jeddah two weeks back, I checked-in at the hotel and they blocked 2000 Saudi Riyals off my credit, a very normal procedure hotels do. I stayed for 8 nights and on the day I checked out I paid the full amont in cash. That was around 4000 Riyals. I asked them to unblock the 2000 riyals on my credit card and they said they did.

Came back to Dubai, first thing I had on mind was to book tickets to Doha. I’ve always wanted to try to book with Air Arabia online and pay using my credit card. So there I go to AirArabia.com and enter the flight dates I wanted, check the cost, just 477 DHS for the two-way trip. Coooool.

So I continue and enter my credit card details and BANG. “Insufficient Funds” is says.

I go to the bank website and check my account and credit card balance. The statement says 790 DHS of purchases so far, while the balance I have is just over 100 DHS. Knowing that my credit card limit is 3000 DHS (Don’t ask why. Long story), I knew the 2000 DHS were those from the hotel.
So I call the hotel in Saudi Arabia and they keep transferring my call from one another until it reached the same person that picked up the phone in the beginning. Finally I reach a person in accounts and he says the unblock procedure needs about 48 hours to reflect on my account. I beleived him and waited for one more day.

The next day, I log on airarabia.com and do the whole boring procedure and then BANG “Insufficient funds”. How come my funds are still insufficient? I try the bank website, check my account, click on the “Credit Card Balance” link and it says “This service is not available at the moment”.

Okie, now I’m getting a headache and feel this thing will be painful. I call the bank’s customer service and after answering the interrogation-like questions (full name, date of birth, address, my mothers’s father’s middle name!), I tell the lady my story and she goes like: “Oh no.. They shouldn’t say it takes 48 hours. It actually needs 15 days at least. It’s an international VISA thingie”.

So, two choices. Either I go to a travel agent and buy my tickets cash (Hell no!), or I pay my credit card bill (which is not actually a bill, so paying cash for stuff I didn’t buy) and get my credit card working again and this is what I’ll do. I paid 1000 Dhs covering my Credit Card’s bill using the cute deposit machine. 2 days after, I go to airarabia.com and do the procedure for the third time (thanking god the price was still 477 DHS) and BANG “Insufficient Fund”.

Now I got really pissed. I call the bank again, identify myself, answer all the question and then tell the whole long story to the guy who calmly says: “Sir, the 1000 Dhs payment will reflect on your account tonight after 11 PM”. “Is it so?” I reply and hang up the phone.

So, today I finally checked the bank account and found my credit card balance was 1100 DHS. Yipeeee!

I go to airarabia.com. I already know the procedure very well. I enter the flight details and BANG BANG! Two-way ticket cost is now 711 DHS. The same flight I wanted to book on last week for 477 DHS. I have lost 234 DHS because of the delays of the hotel, the bank and the bloody VISA system, so who do you think is to pay for that?

Good day!

So next week I’ll be finishing 2 years of work with Panasonic. I have worked continuously through these two years (except for the two-week leave I took last year). So, I’m treating myself with another (shorter) leave.

I’ll be off to Qatar next Friday – inshalla – for a week for family visit. Actually my sister Eman in there on vacation, staying with my aunt, and several members of the family (uncle, aunt, and cousin) are coming over from Sudan, so it’s going to be a nice gathering. Just can’t miss it!

Yipeeeeeeeee…

I’ve been considering to make the switch for some time now, but last Friday I finally made up my mind and headed to the mobile phones corner in Carrefour and asked for it; my own ETEN M600 PDA.

Switching from a mobile phone to a PDA is a little bit tougher than what I though, even for a professional gadget collector like me. In the beginning, you admire the new features and the new things you can do now. Having your email box in your palm with marvelous synchronization capabilities with your laptop and loads of application that do loads of stuff. But once you really start using it, you miss the single-hand usage (especially while driving) for example. It really pisses me off that I have to use the stylus to choose a contact from my contact list to call. I’m sure there is a way to do that single-handed, perhaps a third-party application.

I found out it had a powerful voice command application, the kind that doesn’t need rehearsals and all. It’s a voice recognition software. So I was walking around my room and giving orders to my handheld secretary: “Call Monica”, “Call Mom at Mobile”, “Play Ya Gareeb”, “Pause”, “Tomorrow’s Appointments”, “Read SMS”.

The other thing is that Windows Mobile 5.0 is really really really very much windows-like. The start menu and applications, the (My Documents) folder, and the windows media player. This is too much for a phone and too less for a laptop but I think once I get used to it I’ll make that little thing do most of the tasks I use my laptop for.

I still have lots to explore and try on this thing. Haven’t tried Skype on it yet. Haven’t browsed the internet on it yet (actually still can’t figure out the settings).

So one more addition to my list of gadgets.