Beautiful shots. Are you living in Oman?

great mosque!

Message edited on: 09/30/2005 16:24

UVDan, Just a holiday - my husband works here at present.

Love the machine-gun nests on the new building #15. !!!! Great shots btw!

thx, fran great pictures especialy the landscape and architectural pics. do you have more on that old fort?

Beautiful pics. Sadly, there is so much in this world I'll never get to see, but thanks to pics like these I can still pretend.

Amazing pictures, and are all oddly Brycishly inspirational.

Thank you for shareing with us...I wouldn't be too surprised If you see that ocean wave in some Bryce pics...Nice foam...I love the Terragen picture of the valley...hahahaha

Great pics. I lived in Saudi arabia for 3 and a half years. Oman looks a bit mor einteresting version of it. Soem nice moasques. I have a few fond memories from Saudi. We used to do hash's (sort of like a volksmarch) in some of the wadies surrounding Riyadh. The strata were nto nearly as interesting. Remember once seeign everyone jump outof th eway of an Asp. (small posionous snake)

Those are some awesome pics... thanks for sharing them with us Fran... 8)

Interesting there's no people in the pics, but I don't know if they still have a Jones against pictures..looks like that $3.15/gal is being converted to buildings..;)

pakled, Oh, my heart bleeds for you! In the UK we're paying 3 times as much. (piqued) Ian says they dont sell as much oil here as you'd think though. And yes, there's still a Jones. I was taking a picture of a notice on a mountain - a family happened to be picniking underneath and when I snapped the pic, the guy became voluble, but as: a) I didn't understand him, b) I wasn't interested in him and c) it was my last pic and I was already walking away, I took no notice. We escaped quickly in the car.. just in case he felt like following. ggg But actually there's usually no one in sight whatever pic you take - it's a pretty empty country. But that's okay, I prefer it that way, never been too interested in having people in pictures. Dann-O, Ian says they do hash's round here too, but as a civi' he doesn't have to join in. ROFL. ellocolobo, Oh. I hadn't even noticed, but you're right that valley does look very terragen. I have lots of pics from the top of that, it's very high, and actually cold up at the top, very damp too, with the mists rolling over the tops of the mountain. We came down one side and drove right up the other, just for me to take pics. Oh, if anyone wants bigger versions, IM me with your email and I can send zipped biggies. And I have loads and LOADS of waves, I just loved the colour of the ocean so much I must have taken about 100 in Mugsayhl, and some before that in Salalah at the seafront. ysvry, Which old fort do you mean? The crumply one or the ancient massive thing? I have a couple more shots of the crumbly one but they are pretty much the same as we were rushing by in the car at the time. I do have more different angles of the ancient fort at Nizwa, plus a plan that was on the wall inside, looked like it was made out of clay, I have (somewhere) a shot of an ancient well inside that Nizwa fort, with what LOOKED like an ancient goat skin (but probably isn't that old), plus the wattle-like ceilings, a shot of Ian trotting up the inside of that massive tower to the ramparts... oh this and that... Bryster, Machine gun nests??? Where? (Oh and #15 was the wave, so I assume you mean the new house/minipalace) I do expect to be arrested at any moment, since I keep happily snapping interesting looking buildings only to have Ian say "That's a police post, put the camera away!!!" ggg Fran

Also....some Muslims believe that only God can create stuff so for a mere mortal to create an image of 'men'(ie:take photos) is an 'insult to God'. See Taliban/Afgahnistan; They banned tv/vcrs/videocams etc. Hence the only art you'll see is mosaic type stuff.

Message edited on: 10/01/2005 14:51

Message edited on: 10/01/2005 14:52

Bryster, Oh so that's the machine gun nests? You know... whan the houses are plastered and painted I don't usually see any machine guns, either they are well disguised, or they changed their minds about adding them to the general decor... "They banned tv/vcrs/videocams etc. Hence the only art you'll see is mosaic type stuff." Oh really? What are all the paintings of the Sultan doing hanging around then? I guess it's a little less... repressive here. Heck, the Sultan even has girl's schools dotted all over the place.

Brycster the Wahabbi's beleive that and they were the ones who took over Afghanastan. They run Saudi Arabia too. But there is more to Islam than that. Druz's believe in reincarnation the beliefs vary from sect to sect. Shiites like art too. If you go over to CG talk there are a lot of artists from Iran.

s'ok..I know..I'm personally in favor of the folks here who say we should be paying $5 a gallon for gas, should be allowed to..wherever they go, they should pay $5 a gallon, while the rest of us pay less..;) truth be told, whats' a gallon go for in Oman?..j/k..;)

Ah... now you've got something. It IS a LOT less here. We travelled across the entire country for about a tenner - and that involved 4 refils of the tank. Makes a change for us as Brits to be getting fuel for less than everybody else.

Ahem.....Guys! I said ...'SOME Muslims'...etc. No offense to any religeon meant. When I was in Eygypt gas was 0.05p a gallon....mind you, that was in 1975..... What sucks here in the UK is that the Petrol Co's raise the price, but that means the Gov gets MORE tax. The Gov could actually reduce the tax, give us a break and still get the revenue they were planning on getting in the first place.

Real interesting pic Fran. Its very interesting seeing other parts of the world. Especially one's I'll probably never get to visit. @Bryster Its scary sometimes how alike we think. I saw that pic and thought the same thing before I saw your post. Between the ages of 9-12, WWII movies (and the 3 stooges) was all I ever watched. My favourite toys was a huge barrel of those green plastic army men (you the kind that are advertised in the back of comic books). I litterally had hundreds of them and used to re-enact massive battles with my friends. Tax and Gas. Same situation here. Tax accounts for 60% of the cost. Today its @ $1.16.4 per litre CAD.

In addition to some Muslims, I think some Christian groups also follow the 'can't make an image...' rule (Plymouth Brethren? for example). just to clarify - I am not being judgmental or critical in any way, just adding a comment to Bryster's observations, that some religions follow this belief.

Thanks Fran! I didn't know my Mother-in-Law was out there......!

Message edited on: 10/03/2005 15:56

Lessee now - for the fancy one on the right... Cylynder. Boolean with another cylinder. Add a couple of toruses (tori?) for the rims. Boolean 2 spheres together to make a lens-shaped object, flatten it. Replicate in a circle (how many of those are there anyway?), then duplicate and move in "z". Use the 2 to boolean out the wotchamacallems in the ring. Small sphere, replicate in circle, duplicate twice and position to be between the wotchamacallems. Apply textures and some bump-mapping... Would that do it??? Well, you said it might be inspirational. I got lost after I inspired... (takes another deep breath and decides that enough is enough..) Oh, and change DOF... Cheers, Diolma

Diolma: So sorry to hear of your loss. I agree with your previous post; In all their terrorist tirades they convienently forget their own hypocrisy. I'd love to get on one of their websites and give them a mouthful.

So sorry to hear of your loss.

I deleted my previous post. When I awoke this morning, I realised I should never have posted it in this thread, where it was totally inappropriate. I sincerely apologise to FranOnTheEdge for being insensitive. I was a little tired and emotional last night and let my feelings run away with me. Many thanks for your sympathy, though. Cheers, Diolma

At last, at last! I've managed to get back into R'osity! Boy, it's amazing how you miss a place when suddenly you can't get in. diolma, Ah, I wondered where it had gone when I got back in today. Don't worry about it. It turned out to be a really wierd 30th anyway. We went out to a local bar (local as in run by one of the Brits here in his own bayt (bayt=room or set of rooms)) only to find everyone there (about 7 or 9 blokes and 1 wife) who all seemed to be attending a "Cat Murderers Convention" - which for me got really bad at the point where one of the bloke's dog having escaped and been brought back... well, the bloke explained to all and sundry on his return to the bar that he was in someone's bad books as the dog had followed a kitten into a mosque at (his words) 'head banging time' whereupon the dog caught the cat, severely mangling it. Someone asked was the kitten dead, he replied - well it's not very happy. I'm sure it was all very hilarious to everybody else, but there are 4 kittens that have sort of adopted my husband here and they come round everyday, two are getting really friendly one had an accident or fall a while back and I'm happy to say that since I got here it's recovered nicely. The friendliest kitten (black and white) we've named Felix, the next friendliest is Tigger, (since he's striped like a wild cat) the recovered kitten is called Babe since he/she, is the smallest and the last of the four is called Snooty - since he's more standoffish. At that point in the evening - I came back to Ian's bayt. Luckily all four or 'our' kittens came to greet us - so I was able to feel much better I told Ian to go back, as he wanted to talk to his boss - one of the participants at the "Cat Murderers Convention". And I stayed home. You'd think that was quite enough to happen for a 30th wedding aniversary... wouldn't you? But it wasn't over yet... next morning I woke up with my head swimming. And no, it wasn't alcohol, one pint of Killkenney's won't do that to anyone. The dizzyness lasted all day, and is still here today. Ah well... the kittens are alive, we're alive, all our family (as far as I know) is still alive, so things could be worse. Fran...yippeekyay?