Spent a week in Chicago working at the home campus. It was great to see how they do things back here.

It was super great to have some time to spend with Joy and the family. I came in last Friday and Virginia met me at the airport with Joy. I was pretty tired that day, so I went to take a nap and slept for many, many hours. Saturday started by me breaking my glasses, so I spend a few hours at lenscrafters getting new ones. Sunday was Easter, so I headed out to my parents for the day. It was good to see them again. Lots of the family was there. It was good to see Joy playing with everyone. She is a great kid.

The work week went kind of quick. I was scheduled with a lot of meeting and class visits, but got a lot of useful information. Early Friday I headed out on my plane for my next destination.

I will be heading back to the US at the end of next week. I’ll be in Chicago/Evanston to do some work at the home campus for a week, and then I am off to Vegas for NAB. Should be a fun little trip.

I’ll get a chance to see Joy and family. 🙂

Might even get a chance to get a good Cheeseburger. Mmmm.

We had the big inaugural ceremony tonight for Northwestern University in Qatar. It was a very good night. A lot of the higher ups talked about the partnership between NU and the Qatar Foundation. Seems like a really good fit from both sides. Seems like everyone, especially the students, win on this one. There were also videos of the students that talked about why they chose NU-Q and why they like it so far. Her Highness Sheikha Moza was there for the ceremony. She is the one who started Qatar Foundation, and seems to be leading the country in a very steady path toward a brighter future. I like that they take a long view of investing here. The full payoff of bringing in good universities can take years to come to fruition, but they are confident in their investments.

There was also a great dinner catered by the Ritz. Started with lobster. I am not much of a shell fish type, but it was pretty good. Then they moved onto lamb with potatoes. Dessert was a delicious chocolate cake thing. Mmmm. Some students from Evanston did some musical theater numbers to finish it up.

After dinner, I got a chance to talk with some of the staff and students. Seems like everyone had a good time.

Getting home was a little adventure. I went upstairs to pick up my laptop and wound up leaving my keycard in my office. The problem is that you need the card to get out of the parking lot. I had to follow close behind a co-worker to get out of the gate in order to get out. I’ll have to figure something our tomorrow to get back in.

Went out on a Dhow tonight. That is what they call the traditional wooden fishing boats that are docked at on the Corniche. The higher-ups from the main campus are over here for the inaugural ceremony tomorrow. It was a beautiful night. There was a pretty stiff breeze, but it wasn’t too cold. There were three boats and we were supposed to be out for two hours. Our boat got stuck on a sand bar about ten minutes into the trip and we were stuck for about 45 minutes. We finally had to hop on another boat that pulled up close to us. I think everyone still had a good time. We did manage to get out for around an hour which was nice. The city at night is beautiful.

After the boat ride we went out to dinner at some place that I can’t pronounce. Started with some delicious hummus, then onto some spiced meats and rice, some chicken and steak (with fries) and finished off with some spicy dessert type thing. The kept bringing out food. I didn’t think I would be able to walk after eating all that, but I made it home and am off to bed.

We had a couple of visitors to the school this week. They both came and talked to the students.

First one was Thomas Hoegh. He runs Arts Alliance, a venture capitalist company. He is also an alum of Northwestern. He came to talk about his new movie, id – Identity of the Soul. The movie is shown on five large screens and surround sound. Looks like a good project. I’ll have to check it out if it comes to Doha.

We also got a visit from Seymour Hersch, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist. He talked about breaking the My Lai Massacre story during the Vietnam War.

I like working at a place that gets such interesting people to stop by.

Hello everyone. I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Thursday. Probably doesn’t mean much to the folks in the States, but over here in Doha the week ends on Thursday so now it is time to relax.

Had a pretty busy week with lots of late nights. I am glad that it is over. Now back to American Idol.

Day started off with a video crew in the building. They are doing a project for the NUQ opening ceremony. It was good to see people with gear working on a project. Helped them out with a little equipment, but they seemed like a really good group.

Also went on a field trip to Al Jazeera Children Channel. I tagged along with the comm students. It was a very impressive studio, and I was equally impressed with the amount of work being done. Seemed like all of their studios were in use and every department was very busy getting work done to get shows on the air. Seems like it is a really good operation. It was all in Arabic, so I have no idea what was being said on air, but it looked fun. I also like the idea that they are dedicated to providing educational programming. It is entirely funded by the Qatar Foundation (same thing that is funding all of Education City). This allows them to concentrate on good programming without having to bow to the will of underwriters.

Then when I got back, I had to do a little shoot for Student Services. The students wanted to send a little video back to the home campus for an event that they are doing. It wasn’t much of a set up, but it is always nice to do some production work. Working with students, and researching equipment are some of my favorite parts of my job, but sometimes I like to get out and do some production work.

After the shoot, I checked out the karaoke night that the students were having. It was the first time that I had ever seen karaoke being done without alcohol involved (except for American Idol). They were also grilling, so I decided to have a hot dog. It was my first hot dog in Qatar. I think that I’d rather have one in Wrigley.