Category Archives: Blogging

Anyone Know Why Oman Forum is “Suspended”?

oman forum suspended  This is the page I get when I try accessing the popular Oman Forum at www.omanforum.com .  It’s been like this since the middle of last week.  Anyone know why this hugely popular forum with so much helpful info on Oman has been suspended? 

It wasn’t long ago that the other popular forum, English Sablah, was hacked by “Anonymous from Iraq”.  If you go there, you’ll see this image with loud Arabic music in the background:english sabla hacked  What’s happening to the forums in Oman? What are good sites to get up to date info?

1,000,000 Views!

1000000 views   The funny thing is that I reached one million views on April Fool’s Day! (No joke!)  3 months now with over 50,000 views/month! WOW! Thanks for reading, folks!  It’s been quite a ride!

“Freezing Omanis” Broke 2 World Records Yesterday!

Ameer and Bader  It took time for my camera (as well as my body!) to adjust to the temperature of -20 degree Celsius while in the freezer yesterday. That’s why this 1st pic is a bit blurry.  Here’s a much better pic from their website, Freezing Omanis:FreezingOmanis6   Ameer Abdul Hussain (codename “Penguin“) and Bader al Lawati (codename “Snowflake“) are scheduled to fly out of Oman for their mission to Antartica in just 5 days!!!  Read up on their itinerary here.

In the meantime, here are some pics and one combined video of 3 clips from inside the “evil freezer” in Wadi al Kabir.temperature gauge  Check out the temperature of the freezer unit just before we started.  It reads   -19 degrees Celsius but we were below -20 degrees for a total of over 1 hour and 20 minutes!!!  What makes it more shocking is that it was a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius outside so that’s quite a temperature change for the body to take on!tweeting in the freezer  Let the tweeting begin!  We were blogging under the hashtag #TweeterinaFreezer.  You can follow Freezing Omanis on twitter at www.twitter.com/FreezingOmanis sponsors for Bader  Some of Bader’s sponsorsameers sponsors   Some of Ameer’s sponsorsthe champs       Left to Right: Ameer, Rummy, Maurizio, and Bader.maurizo blogging   This is a pic of Maurizo (wearing his wife’s lovely hat! ;-) ) from Oman Collective Intelligence blogging in the freezer.  Part of the world record breaking attempt dictates that we should all blog and/or tweet while we were in there.  Here’s the blogpost he wrote while in the freezer.  You can find him on twitter here.  Maurizio’s phone was the 1st to freeze in the freezer…Rummy in the freezer   And here’s the charming Rummy from Merge FM.  She cares a lot for the enviromment and tweeted quite a bit from the freezer before her phone became #2 to die from the cold!rummys post  A pic from Rummy’s blog Click here to read the post she wrote from the freezer - well worth a read!  You can follow here on twitter here.  This pic was taken of my son’s mini ipad that I like to kid myself into thinking is mine.  The mini-ipad worked well with no problems at all in -20 degrees Celsius! :-)   I used it for blogging and tweeting as I’m having troubles tweeting with my Blackberry Bold. (?!)hard at work  Everyone hard at work at we begin to really feel the cold! Maurizio even resorts to covering his face giving him that sinister bandit look, haha! Bader Al Lawati can be found on his personal twitter account  here and  Ameer Abdulhussain can be found here.gang with omani flag  Besides myself, this is the rest of the “long haul” gang.  There were 2 others who showed up an hour into the event.

So, mission accomplished! 2 world records: 1) most bloggers/tweeps in a freezer and 2) coldest tweetup ever.  Today the video that was recorded to verify the event is to be shipped to the committee to verify the records.   These records aren’t the hardest to beat but to tell you truth, the records weren’t the goal.  They were simply a great marketing tool to help raise awareness more than anything.  It was a lot of fun and a great honor to be part of such a worthy cause! :-) follow freezing omanis   I’ll leave you with this last reminder (stitched into Bader’s sleeve) to follow Freezing Omanis on their epic journey on their blog

Let’s all show them some support on this trip! :-)   It’s young Omanis like these gents who are paving the wave forward for Oman and ensuring a brighter/cleaner/more responsible future/planet for our kids and I’m glad to call them friends!MPiRe - World Record 2   The record breaking, motley crue on Feb. 21st, 2013.  (Taken from Maurizio’s blog, Oman Collective Intelligence)

1,000,000 Views on Youtube!

I joined youtube on Feb. 13, 2008, almost 5 years ago.  Since then, I have posted a total of 605 videos.  None of them ever went viral, but today the total number of views my videos have received is over one million!  Some of the biggest hits have been:Heart Pumping Action!!! (one of my more controversial videos) (122,580 views): One interesting way Omani men greet one another (76,679 views):Giant Bats of the Philippines Known as “Flying Foxes” (Boracay Island) (54,823 views) Played on Philippines National TV on GMA News: Final Men’s Beach Sepaktawraw Match during the 2nd Asian Beach Games, Muscat, Oman 2010 ( 52,727 views): Bimmah Sinkhole, Oman (37,970 views): Queen Elizabeth II Officially Greeted at al Alam Palace, Muscat, Oman, November 2010 (30,993 views): Cute Omani Girls in Festive Costume Grinding Away! (At Muscat Festival) (28,299 views):Illegal Green Turtle Killing Caught on Film in Flim, Oman (24,854 views): Mary Had a Baby (Negro Spiritual) sung by Muscat Christian Harmony & Muscat Men’s Chorus at the Indian Embassy (21,974 views): Sir Tom Jones “Save the Last Dance for Me” Live in Muscat, Oman (21,669 views): Don Moen and His Wife, Laura, Receiving Gift of Appreciation from the Church in Oman (19,447 views): Procession through Old Muscat, Oman for Elizabeth II (17,766 views): Traditional Arabic Music on “The QANOON” at the American Ambassador’s Residence (12,690 views): New Year’s Eve “Hand Mime” presentation to the Power of Your Love in Bosch Hall, Muscat, Oman (10,743 views): The Sport of Luggage Tossing at Jinnah International Airport in Kirachi, Pakistan (10,575 views): Womens Beach Volleyball Gold Medal Match at 2nd Asian Beach Games, Muscat, Oman! (10,198 views):

Thanks for all the views! A lot of these videos got viewed by readers of this blog.  The next milestone is 1.5 million views! :-)

“Andy in Oman” – 2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 450,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 8 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.  In its last full week of 2012, this blog had 12,155 views and in the last month it reached 50,237 views.

A big thanks to all the readers out there, whether you are a “silent reader” or an avid commenter.  Amazing that so many of you keep coming back! ;-)   A big thanks to the #1 blogger in Oman, Muscat Mutterings, who sends a fair bit of traffic my way. Other high referring sites have been Dhofari Gucci and CatBirdinOman (aka “Nomad in Nizwa“). Cathy has found herself on the top referring sites list AND #1 on the most active commenter list! :-) (Sounds like you’ve won yourself a free dinner with the Browns, if you’re interested, Cathy!)   Wishing all of you and yours a blessed 2013 free from harm, worry, misery and defeat  and instead filled with the blessings, provisions, protection and victory of/from God!