Golden Cameras for Beirut

A couple of days ago, a story from Annahar newspaper popped up stating that Beirut municipality is buying around 2,000 security cameras for around 40 Million dollars.

Photo taken from the Annahar article

My friend Elie shared a small research he did, on his Facebook page that I would like to share:

Beirut Municipality is buying 1,500 to 2,000 Cameras at $27,000 per Camera, 40.5 Million Dollars in total !! 

I did some research, based on a case study done by Schneider Electric's security camera brand Pelco (One of the biggest brands in this domain).

The case study is about surveillance cameras installed in Italy to help with the security of the G8 summit (Read here: http://www.pelco.com/documents/business-solutions/en/shared/government/g-8-summit.pdf)

The study mentions that two types of cameras were used, so I researched their prices online:
- Spectra III : Costs $1,389.61 ( http://www.amazon.com/Pelco-Schneider-Electric-SD53TCPG1-Spectra/dp/B00FT0JXA4)
- Esprit Camera: Costs $1,861.95 (http://shop.neobits.com/pelco_schneider_electric_es3012_2_pelco_esprit_es3012_2_camera_enclosure_1_fan_s_1_heater_s_1032057567.php)

Let's assume we're going crazy and buying 1,500 pieces of each model (3,000 cameras) instead of a total of 1,500 pieces, and that we're buying them at a full price:

- Spectra III cost: $2,084,415
- Esprit cost : $2,792,925
Total Cost : $4,877,340

Let's assume taxes on these items are 100% + VAT and add some extras, this will bring the total to 10.5 Million Dollars.

Additionally, let’s account for around 7 Millions in Network Design, control rooms, servers and equipment, and another 3 Millions in training and maintenance for the first period. 

Total should not exceed 20 Million dollars with all the above exaggerated costs. I think the offers should be re-considered by the municipality. 

There is pretty much nothing to add to this. What do you think?
It's either we became worthless brains or careless sheep so that this huge corruption takes place.

Baakline Waterfalls

This last weekend, we decided to go discover Baakline's waterfalls and river.

Baakline is a village in Mount Lebanon, Chouf district, 45 kilometers southeast of Beirut. Altitude: 850, 920 high (Source Wikipedia).

How to get there:

Driving from Beirut, you take the Rafic Al-Hariri International Airport road towards the south. You keep going until you get to Damour. Then you take the Deir Al Qamar / Beiteddine junction. It will be around 20 minutes straight drive until you reach the Baakline junction on your right. Here's where you think that you're almost there, but you're not!
It will take you another 20 minutes drive from there to reach the lowest point of the valley where you forget how long this trip was!
You can find it on the GPS as "Baakline Riviere".

What to expect:

The photos will do the job:

      

And here are some from Instagram :D

Yes this is in Lebanon!

Tips:

1. The best time to go there is probably during August and the beginning of September, cause you really HAVE to jump in that water! or else you'll regret it later.
2. Take your food with you, and you can rent tables, chairs and a grill there.
   It will cost you around 15,000 LBP - 20,000 LBP per person (10 USD - 16 USD), depending on the available spot, and if it is during weekends.
   Update (26/08/2015): It costs 20,000 LBP all week long.
3. If you want to go on weekends, it is better to go on a Saturday. It is usually crowded on Sundays.
4. If you don't want to spend the day there, Beiteddine Palace, Kaser Moussa (Moussa Palace), Deir El Qamar and even Barouk Cedars Reserve are nearby.

Contact:

There are 4 different spots (parks or whatever they're called) there, I recommend 'Paradise' (The one in the photos). Call Sleiman on +961 70 013 532
Update (26/08/2015): For more information and reservation call +961 3 924669 and you can check their new Instagram page here.

The Entertainer comes to Lebanon

Yesterday was the launching of 'The Entertainer' at Cherry at the top in Le Gray - Beirut.
If you like to try new places, you might find this interesting.
The Entertainer is a book containing a big variety of offers in many categories.
It started in Dubai and is now in 17 different countries with 21 different books.
As for the Lebanese version, the book has 400 offers from 200 different merchants, with 3 vouchers per each.
The discounts are mainly a buy one get one free, so it's interesting for couples and it costs 120,000 LBP.
These are the categories:
- Fine Dining
- Up Market Bars
- Family and Casual Restaurants
- Cafes and Nightspots
- Sports, Pleasure & Leisure
- Health & Beauty
- Hotel Accommodation

Offers can be used anytime excluding all public holidays, and you can use multiple when with a group.
For more details, check their website: https://www.theentertainerme.com/ and all the rules of use can be found here.

The Entertainer is available at Librairie Antoine, or you can buy it directly from their website here, where it's a bit cheaper than its list price.
It might help you survive Lebanon.

The General Situation

It's been a while!
This is my first post in 2013, and unfortunately, the only thing I'm thinking about is how we are surviving this situation. Elderlies, who lived and participated in the Lebanese war, say that surviving nowadays is harder than during war.

The Situation:

1. Most of the public sector (including teachers), except public authorities and judges, are protesting to get their new grades/salaries lists.
   The schools' parents committee refuses the teachers' protest, and threatens to stop paying to the schools.
   And students turned to vacation mode.
   In my humble opinion, only teachers deserve that raise. Most of the state employees do absolutely nothing at work, and they all leave at 2h00 PM max.
2. Many restaurants and hotels, in and around Beirut closed or will be closing soon. Zaytouna Bay, Kaslik and Broumana had their shares. And Maameltein is a disaster (not its usual kind of disaster).
3. Airport is empty, except for Syrian refugees, who are all over the country (Syrians now make up 10% of the Lebanese population).
4. Gas oil prices are unbelievable.
5. Real estate prices are ridiculous.
6. Those public authorities (Politicians) are still living their war dreams, making all the state institutions their own properties!
   Electricity, Communications, gas oil, tobaccos, ADSL, port... and each and every big project (no matter how insane it is to invest in Lebanon these days) has to have a 51% ownership to one of those warlords, depending on the location.
   There must be a map somewhere that shows under which influence each zone falls,  for example:
   Zgharta, Chouf, Batroun, Aakkar, Tripoli, Saida... (All of them are Beiks and Cheikhs of course)
7. People are being kidnapped everywhere, and the process is well-known now. Kidnappers demand a ransom (1 million dollars usually), the kidnapped's relatives try negotiating a bit, and then give them the amount agreed upon. This process is free of any government/Security Forces intervention, even after freeing the hostage. The same guy will be threatened again in a week or two since kidnappers knew that "2araybino daffi3a".
8. Crazy drivers, angry valet parking, outraged neighbors...
9. Al Assir! (No explanation needed)

And the list goes on and on.

The Solution:

None. The country is so corrupted that I don't believe there is a clear solution anymore.
The solution should start by changing how the public authorities think and how state employees work. Job descriptions can do the job!
And of course those responsible must be held accountable, no matter how equipped they were.
Not voting for the same people, trying to breathe before talking to anyone, and get a gutty minister of interior, not an "Abou Melhem" are some useful ideas too.
Note for Abou Melhem: A law is a law, even if it makes some people sad, or unsatisfied! Being a minister of interior requires making some people, especially criminals, sad sometimes!

And for some reason, it's still hard to leave this country.

The Huge Dispute with Ziad Rahbani

Ziad Rahbani had a concert on the 20th, 21st and the 22nd of December in Event Hill Dbayeh.
I attended the first day, and actually it was a good jazzy show.
A couple of things were a bit annoying but we, or at least I, understand some of those.

Timing:
The concert was scheduled to start at 9h00 pm, but it started at 10h50!
The 20th was a very very rainy day, parking was a nightmare, and everyone was late. So somehow people expected a delay, but i can say, not that much. Ziad apologized at the end of the concert.
Things went totally wrong, when they did the same delay on Saturday, when there weren't any excuses for that, and a huge dispute went on between Ziad and some of the attendees.
You can check that in the YouTube video below:

I'm not saying they have the right to do that, but somehow I agree that someone should have pointed that out. It was pretty impressive how he stayed calm, but waiting for everyone to come for 1 hr 20 mins isn't that justifying argument.

Politics:

A couple of articles were read between the songs, one was criticizing Amine and Samy Gemayel, another one justifying Michel Aoun's alliance, and another describing how God doesn't answer people's prayers.

I disagree with most of his articles, but again, It's Ziad.

Jokes

Three 30 seconds sketches were also performed by three artists. Those guys were part of Ziad's old plays (Nazl El Sourour...). The jokes were either not funny or déjà vus. It is probably because of Facebook.

Music

What made the concert beautiful was the amazing music Ziad played with 10 other musicians, and the nice artists who sang. There was English and Portuguese songs, with some of his known songs now and then, but he barely included his voice in one or two songs.

All in all, the concert was good, but you can expect more from Ziad Rahbani.

Update

Oh and Merry Christmas! Have a great one! :D

Beirut Scary Drive

While driving to work a couple of days ago, a super black tinted BMW with a 4 numbers plate (of course!) passed by, driving insanely in traffic. So I thought:
What if that car  just exploded next to me?
What if that driver was another Wissam El Hassan (may his soul rest in peace)?
What if I was one of the other 9 persons that died in the latest explosion in Ashrafieh?
How can we still drive to Beirut everyday just like nothing happened or might happen?
Is it all about receiving that salary at the end of the month to keep on surviving?
Is it what our life in Lebanon should be about?
Did we become emotionless zombies?
Scary...

The Lebanese Minimum Charge

(I'm back. My last post was back in May, I won't say I didn't have time, i did, but had no mood! hope you still remember me!)

Ever heard of a minimum charge rule elsewhere in the world?
If so, although I never did, we have some very unique standards here in Lebanon.
This happened a couple of weeks ago, but it usually has the same template whenever reserving in almost any restaurant/pub/lounge/night-club in Lebanon:

Them: Sir, each reservation that exceeds 15 persons has to be enrolled in a 35$ formula that includes shared cheese platters and salads (of course in tiny portions) or a 30$ minimum charge.
We require a down payment 48 hours before the reservation and an exact number of attendees a couple of hours before.
Me: What if I reserve twice for 14 persons using two different names?
Them: Hein?!


On a later stage, they informed us that they might reserve a couple of tables in our corner for other clients depending on the number of attendees.
The ridiculous thing is that this happened with a new local lounge in town, and when I went there for the first time, a week before my expected reservation, it was hardly 50% full.
It is not a very well-known fully booked place that can put any boundaries and still be over crowded (I can understand SKYBAR doing that) and it seems it will never be!

My point of view:
Shouldn't they encourage people to come and discover the place before putting some conditions?
Shouldn't they consider that this potential client might bring in 30 others, and that their feedback should be a good marketing tool?! (= more exposure = more clients = more money)
Even if you trained well your bartenders, and mixed some good cocktails, people won't know about it unless they come and enjoy their night. I can develop the best iPhone application ever, but without marketing, especially with a fresh portfolio, my app is worth nothing.

On the other side, Lebanon is suffering one of its worst summer seasons since ever! Protests, electricity cuts, internet issues, phone network issues, lawlessness, tourism failure, high cost of living, weapons, drugs… Instead of making things easier for themselves and for those who can still buy a drink, they double the restrictions!
This country is going down. Prove me wrong.

Lier 7?

Seriously, I’m still wondering and wondering about some of these newly opened roof tops or open air clubs!

Here is how it goes:

- You buy a land, basically in a strategic spot, which is logically “VERY EXPENSIVE”.

- You build a luxurious and pricey building (or open air space) in almost two weeks.

- You do some massive marketing campaigns, including radio ads, websites ads, Lebanese celebrities invitations…

- You organize huge openings where you invite everyone.

- Each weekend you bring some of the international stars for live performances (lately: Ke$ha, Alexander Stan, Adam Clay, …) including dancers, musicians …
By the way, rumors say that one of these artists got paid 200,000 $ for a 30 minutes performance!

The thing is, these clubs open two months per year, and some of these have to vanish before it rains or the place will be ruined!

Can you please explain to me how is this reasonably possible? Especially in an average country with mostly average people?

Thanks!

Save Beirut Heritage - Call for action

"I got this email, and I thought it is worth sharing."

Save Beirut Heritage is calling for a sit in on Sunday May 1st at 12 noon at the previous location of Cinema Vendome, Mar Mikhael Street.
This is a Report of an abomination that happened in the recent days. For Arabic, read this:http://www.al-akhbar.com/?q=node%2F10615

HAR properties managed to obtain a permit of demolition for 3 significant heritage buildings in Mar Mikhayel near the previous cinema Vendome Cinema in order to make space for a 30 story tower called AYA tower (Plot Beirut 663).

The only compromise was to keep the facades; this is unacceptable.

Furthermore, these permits were obtained through political coercion and gross abuse of power by the owners of the plots; namely Mr. Fahed Rafic Hariri, Mr. Michel Pharaon, Mr. Antoine Samaha and Mr. Fouad Zeidan.

You will find attached photos of the recently demolished buildings, feel free to use them in your respective publications. "The photos in this post"

The buildings demolished had been previously classified as architecturally significant by a committee designated by the Ministry of Culture. This same committee resigned once Minister Salim Wardeh succumbed to political pressure and overturned their decision to preserve the buildings. He granted demolition permits.

In the same breath, three more significant buildings were granted permits and are in imminent danger:

1 - A gorgeous building that is owned by Mr. Michel Pharaon in Achrafieh will be demolished so that he could build parking space and raise it by 3 stories.

2 - Sodeco Plot 5, owner by Mr. Michel Pharaon and Mr. Samaha: A beautiful traditional house.

3 - Abdallah Al Yafi's Villa that will be demolished to be 'reconstructed' as part of a 30 floor tower.

Save Beirut Heritage is calling for a sit in on Sunday May 1st at 12 noon at the previous location of Cinema Vendome, Mar Mikhael Street. We as the Green Party of Lebanon Highly encourage the participation in this sit in.

"This is their website: Green party of Lebanon"

Moving SKYBAR

The rumors seem true. SKYBAR is moving to BIEL's first parking on the left.

They took over a huge space in that parking, and it seems it is going to be a massive building!

So now you think: Cool! SKYBAR surrounded by a huge parking! so we can park wherever we want without giving our cars to the valet parking guys!

Well, think twice, I'm sure they'll find their way to wreck your car and make you pay for it ;)

Traffic Hell towards BIEL

The next forum is the yearly International forum of recruitment ‘FORWARD’. And this year, they are introducing for the first time, the Business forum: the business Opportunities, Services & supplies Fair which will be held alongside FORWARD.

Where: BIEL - Beirut

When: from Wednesday the 27^th till Saturday the 30^th of April 2011 starting 4pm until 10pm.

In case you are searching for a job, or willing for a change, check both Forward or Business forums websites for more details. The list of exhibitors is still ‘Coming soon’.

And in case you are not interested, save the date, and try to avoid the Beirut seaside, because it will be a hell of a traffic, since BIELs architects decided to design one tiny entrance for the whole Marina which, by coincidence, contains parking lots for more than 10,000 cars usually used by Downtown employees and sponsors the biggest events in Lebanon!

I personally never benefited from this forum except for some hats and mugs.