Posts Tagged With: I.M. Pei

Country no. 45 on my World Karaoke Tour: increasing my Q-rating in Qatar

Posted on May 8, 2017 by H-Bomb

On Doha’s waterfront stands this statue of of Orry Oryx, a mascot who was created for the 2016 Asian Games (which were held in Doha). An oryx is a type of antelope.

What’s the correct way to pronounce “Qatar”? Prior to my brief visit to that tiny nation on the Arabian peninsula, I’d been under the impression that the proper pronunciation was something approximating “Cutter.” But when I was aboard my Qatar Airways flight from Amman, Jordan to Doha, Qatar in January 2017, the narrator of the safety video that was played before takeoff pronounced the name of the airline as “Kah-TAHR Airways” — thus creating an uncertainty in my mind. So I chatted up a couple of the flight attendants to discuss this issue. Those FA’s, residents of the nation in question, agreed with their employer’s video and told me that they too recite the name of their homeland as “Kah-TAHR.” While internet research reveals a continued divide on this issue (see, for example, the results of this google search), I’ve adopted the pronunciation adhered to by Qatar’s flag airline — and by actual Qataris who work for that carrier.

Karaoke and sightseeing in Doha

Regardless of the right way to orally identify the world’s only country whose English name begins with the letter “Q,” I spent a couple of nights in that country — and specifically in its capital city of Doha — during the first week of this year. It was a brief pass-through, shamelessly tacked on to my itinerary in the hopes that I could add another country to my World Karaoke Tour. 🙂 Israel had become country no. 44 on that tour in the waning days of 2016; and after I failed to find karaoke during an otherwise spectacular sojourn in Jordan, it was my aspiration that Kah-TAHR or Cutter (as you prefer) would earn the distinction of becoming the 45th country in which I’d karaoked. Continue reading →

Categories: Airlines, Asia, travel, World Karaoke Tour | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

You can go home again: Revisiting my early childhood in Cleveland

Posted on September 25, 2014 by H-Bomb

10356504_mThe distance between New York City and Cleveland, Ohio is a mere 405 miles, as the crow flies. But when I journeyed between those two cities last month, I traversed more than the space between them on the map. I also went back in time.

In July 1973, when I was three years old, my family moved from Champaign, Illinois to University Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. There we remained for approximately two and one-half years. In January 1976, about two months shy of my sixth birthday, we relocated to New Jersey. I would grow up in the New Jersey town of West Orange (graduating from West Orange High School), and would attend university and law school in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, DC, respectively. Then I would settle in New York City, where I’ve resided ever since. For over 38 and one-half years after my family left Cleveland, I didn’t return there.

On a weekend in August 2014, I finally made it back to “the Cleve.” Before that weekend was out, not only would I have a fun time exploring the city; but I would make it to my childhood home in University Heights! Needless to say, karaoke would be involved in the festivities as well. 🙂 Continue reading →

Categories: North America, travel, World Karaoke Tour | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 54 Comments

H-Bomb’s Friday Photo, week 9: a postmodern pyramid in Paris

Posted on November 30, 2012 by H-Bomb

Another Happy Friday to you, as the holiday season is now upon us.

Today’s featured photo comes from Paris, the City of Lights. Fittingly enough, it’s an image created after dark. The subject is the I.M. Pei-designed entrance pyramid at the Musée du Louvre.

pei pyramid 2

This week, of course, has been all about pyramids here at H-Bomb’s Worldwide Karaoke! Unlike the ones in Giza, which were built with limestone bricks, the pyramid at the Louvre is comprised of 673 panes of glass in a metallic framework. (An urban legend, repeated in a certain low-quality Dan Brown novel whose name I won’t even bother mentioning, claims incorrectly that the Louvre’s pyramid contains 666 panes of glass and therefore draws power from the number of the Beast.) Completed in 1989, Pei’s structure contrasts dramatically with the Baroque architecture of the rest of the museum.

This photo was taken during my visit to Paris in the fall of 2005. When I took it, rain had just fallen, which made for some nice reflections.

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Categories: Europe, H-Bomb's Friday Photo | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

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