THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Saudi Arabia is difficult to describe to people.  The typical idea of a desert usually doesn't really represent the country, or at least the Eastern Province, very well.

I was driving to work a couple of weeks ago and took a picture of the road ahead.  This is about 10 miles from the new factory where I now work.

The road signs point to all of the places one can drive from this part of the country: Kuwait, Riyadh, Abqaiq, the airport, and on and on.  In the distance a new housing development is almost completed.  No rolling dunes of sand though; just a lot of dust and rock.  It's peaceful at night, and even more peaceful on Friday mornings, when prayers take place.

That is one empty road, but peaceful as well!  If you remember my blog on Saudi driving, then you can understand how nice Friday mornings are for cruising.  This is on my way to water polo at 7am, so even more empty than normal.

Fast forward to last week and I was on my way to Hong Kong for my second, and final, Regional Business Environment Course for my Thunderbird MBA.  Talk about a difference!  After 5 days of intensive class we were treated to a Bay Cruise and light show.  The light show turned out to just be all of the skyline buildings firing-up, but it was still incredible.

One of the buildings was enormous.  It seemed to loom over us the entire time we were on the boat.

There were a load of Korean and Chinese tourists on the boat, which lead to some awesome dance sessions to watch later in the evening.  Sadly I have no pictures of that melee.

I visited Hong Kong with my Dad in 1987 and it was still a budding city; the bay was incredible, but there was still growth to come.  As you can see from the pictures above, there is very little room for anything now.  One thing that did make it through time are the old boats that the local citizens have used for centuries.  I captured one with my camera.

I had a great trip and learned a lot in my class.  I'm now back in Saudi Arabia, plugging away in my job again.  More adventures are soon to come!

FINALLY

I had a chance to check on my 1952 Panhead on my last trip to Houston.  I was back in town getting my visit visa to Saudi Arabia renewed.  The trip ended-up being quite exhausting as I started my first week of work and hustled around getting my personal items moved (thanks Mom and Dad!).

On my last day in Houston I stopped by MC Creations just to see if the old Panhead was running.  I wasn't sure what to expect; the last time in town the bike still had little knicks and knacks left untended.  Much to my surprise the bike was finished and running.  I got to kick start this bike to life after 15 years of patient part collection and construction.  Here it is everyone.  How about that custom seat that Gregg and his guys at MC Creations made for me...a nice surprise.

MOVIN, MOVIN, MOVIN

On August 1st I submitted my resignation to Wilson Supply.  I had worked at Wilson for 10 years.  It was very difficult to step in a new direction, but I received an amazing opportunity to move into manufacturing, a segment of business I have always been interested in.

Flowserve Company approached me to be the General Manager of their Saudi Arabia JV facility.  I leaped at the opportunity.  They had built a first class valve manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia and had rightfully set their sights high.  With all of the energy construction work going on in Saudi Arabia, this was a very wise move by Flowserve.  Here's a picture of the factory from the street.

Unfortunately, one piece of my package was not as advantageous as I would have preferred: My personal items in storage would not be paid for by Flowserve.  I would have to find a place to put my personal items, or I would have to take over the monthly storage fee.

I went into action mode and my parents jumped-in as well.  We decided to move most of my items to a new home we'd jointly purchased in Park City, Utah.  My Mom and Dad were action-superstars.  We coordinated with the moving company to unpack all of the key items I wanted to move (the balance remained in storage) and be ready to load them into a U-Haul that my Mom and Dad would drive from Houston to Park City.  Priorities were being juggled and flights were in full-swing; I flew into Houston from Saudi Arabia to take care of my visa and help move while my parents flew in from Utah.  Etter efficiency was in high gear.

After two wonderful days complete with dinner and laughs, we met at Road Runner storage company and watched them load up my personal items.  Road Runner was awesome and my Mom and Dad were ready to go by mid-afternoon (save for some super-support from friends to get my records as well - SHOUT OUT!).  By that time the realization of a 3-day drive in a U-Haul at 60mph had set in and loopiness had taken over.

Three days later my Mom and Dad rumbled and bumbled into Park City, personal items in tow!  They spent the next couple of weeks moving, shifting, rearranging and constructing.  The house gladly accepted all of my personal items and my Mom rocked at fitting my stuff into the otherwise rugged theme of the house:

Classic Porsche posters - CHECK

Music pictures and Record player - CHECK

Water Polo stuff and Hanging Globe Man - CHECK!

Chevelle - CHECK!  Yes, the old Chevelle was brought-up a week after my parents arrived and is resting in the garage.  Sorry no pictures of old faithful

Books - CHECK!!! A towering feat that pretty much wiped-out my movin' Mom and Dad when unloading the U-Haul

Awesome scenery...already present....

So things are settled and now I'm working away at my new job.  Mom and Dad, thank you for such a wonderful time in Houston and for being the backbone of this entire effort.

WOW!!! IS THIS LIFE IN SAUDI ARABIA!!!

A few weeks ago I was firing-up the day with my typical Yahoo headline scan; it was the weekend and I was relaxing with the TV on, ready to catch-up on some school work.  One of the titles on the Yahoo front page was the following:

July 7, 2011

Early this morning, the Sun erupted with an explosion I can only describe as ginormous. We’re in no danger from it, but the size and scope of this thing are simply spectacular.

The article then went on to explain some of the technical details.  Blah, blah, blah.  About halfway down the article this picture was attached. 

Under this rather intimidating and frightening photo was just the word "Yowza!"  Now I'm pretty sure "Yowza" isn't a scientific term, but it does do some justice to the imensity of this event in the scientific realm.  A couple of other key phrases from the article:

This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the Sun.

and the equally drastic....

Note the size of it, too: while it started from a small region on the Sun’s surface, it quickly expanded into a plume easily as big as the Sun itself! I’d estimate its size at well over a million kilometers across.

Fast forward a week and I'm in the office working away.  Altaf comes into my office following his lunch break.  He is sweating fountains of liquid from his forehead, neck, hair, eyeballs, toes, etc. 

"It is hot.  And it's humid!  Very hot."

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's hot here from April to October.  Nothing new.  A couple of hours later I closed up shop and headed for home.  I walked out of the building into a world class hair dryer blasting at my body.  Within 100 yards I was sweating profusely.  By the time I had arrived at my car, I was wiping off my head every 3 seconds.  I quickly went into "Heat-Combat Mode".  The first step is to air out the car.  I fired on the motor, blasted the A/C and let it AIIIRRRR.

Step 2 of the airing process is to roll down the windows.  This is an extreme measure, required only when there is a chance that the driver may pass out once in the car with the door closed.  I went with the window roll-down to be safe.

I was oozing more and more sweat as I waited for the 2-step airing process to finish.  After a couple of minutes I was ready to jump into my mobile heater oven.  I grabbed a quick photo as I climbed in.

It's a little hard to read, but it says "43".  Translated to Farenheit, that's a very manageable 109.  Child's play for Saudi Arabia.  But I was sweating like crazy.  What was the humidity factor in this mama?

Later that evening I stepped out of my apartment to head to my car and crossed paths with my neighbor.  A 4 year veteran in Saudi Arabia, he quickly commented, "It is brutally hot mate.  Do you know what the temperature was today with the humidity factor included (rhetorical)?  58 degrees!!  It basically felt like it was 136 degrees Farenheit today!"  You know what, I pondered, that is close to the temperature on the sun I bet...

So apparently that explosion on the sun got to Earth faster than scientists predicted, or at least it got to Saudi Arabia quicker.  But hey, the good news is that we were back to a dry heat today - it was 43 and it felt great!  I can deal with that.

MEMORIES OF SUMMERS PAST

If you haven't caught my last post, it's a must read.  Goals abound my friends!  My biggest physical goal is a 200 meter butterfly.  Training is now hitting full tilt at the Oasis.

Summertime around here is pretty mellow.  A lot of families head back to their home country for 3-4 weeks of R&R.  School is out and swim team ends (in fact this weekend we have no water polo because the Saudi Nationals are taking place at the Dharhan pool where we normally practice).  On Wednesday evenings from late May - August the Oasis puts on a pool party.  A large buffet, 100 kids screaming, parents relaxing and a gigantic blow-up play center dominate the pool.

This past Wednesday I watched the Khobar Lasers (the Oasis swim team) finish up their last practice before Nationals and then watched the set-up crew get the pool ready for the first party of the summer.  "No swimming here tonight.  I guess I'll head to Al Hada."

So I trudge down the main entry way towards Al Hada and lo and behold, my feathered friends are back!

There was some serious in-fighting going on here, not to mention that this is in the entryway to Al Hada.  I literally had to walk around to the exit to get in the door.  They were squawking at each other, at me, at the sun, at the cars...insane.

So every Wednesday evening this summer I get to check-in with my aggressive little friends....I'm getting my towel ready for battle again!

HEATING UP IN 2011!

Ok, so you read the title of this blog title and figured we were talking weather right?  Well it was 115 one day last week, but it's since dropped back down to a manageable 104-105.  We can all do that right?  Hey, it's only May still and we've got 4-1/2 more months of burning heat to go...

Well actually this is an update on a previously unpublished post about my goals for 2011.  I took the time this year to actually write down some personal goals and I'm trying my best to stick to them.  I've never been a resolution guy at the start of the year, and I've never been one to write down goals.  I tend to keep things that I want to accomplish at the front of my thoughts and just plow forward.  Well a friend at work emailed me his goals out of the blue earlier this year and I really liked them, so I decided to think through some expansive goals this year.....Drum roll......

1. Play 1 song on the guitar - A close friend of mine, as well as my loving sister, think that "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls is the perfect starter.  Great.  This is a wonderful acoustic guitar song, but not the easiest kick-off to my strumming career.  I've got the first lick down though, then it heads towards scratching and grinding...but I'm on my way!  I'm stammering through a few chords below.

2. Complete all Thunderbird courses - So far so good.  A trip to Switzerland, a tough battle with Data Management, and I'm still on track.

3. Read 6 books (1 Business, 1 Fiction, 1 History, 1 Business History, 1 War History) - I've read Andrew Sorkin's Too Big To Fail as well as Last of the Tycoons, so I've got Business History taken care of.  I'm currently reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, so I'm on my way to knocking History off the list as well.  American Negotiating Strategies will take care of Business, so I've got to choose a War History and a Fiction novel.  These aren't the only books I'll read, I'm just making a point to have a nice balance on top of the normal topics I like to dive into.

4. Swim a 200 Butterfly - Yama Hama!  Yep, I've added a whopper to the list.  Late last year my loving Mother sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal about how people are now swimming butterfly in place of freestyle.  Gag.  For some reason it intrigued me enough to drop this doozy into my 2011 Goals.

Now for those of you who don't know me, I'm quite the B-Swimmer.  While my giggling sister was slashing her way to victories at County, North Coast Championships, Junior Nationals, and others, I was sloshing my way to 36th place at North Coast and a sound victory at Junior County ("Junior" is self explanatory here), which ultimately placed me at about 48th fastest in the whole area.  If doubters exist, my Mom even busted-out some awesome photos of my past glory.

I'm not the first one in here, but second is ok for me, smack dab in lane #4, where the burners swim.  I claimed victory in this bad boy, along with style-points for most ineffective dive entry.  The spread-arms, head-smacking-water entry is a trademark of mine.

So I'm heading to the pool every night and my yardage is up significantly.  I've actually started to consider a run at the 2012 Water Polo World FINA Championships in Italy with a team from Los Angeles.  I'd play in the 35-40 league, which is very, very competitive, so I'd have to be in very good shape.  I'm up to 2500 meters in a little under an hour, but I'll need to probably be doing double days if I really wanted to play.  I figured I'd give it 6 months and see where I'm at, then make a decision.

Anyway, this mid-life charge to water polo glory can only be supported by Goal #4, the looming 200 meter butterfly.  I am up to a full 75 and it feels like the Grim Reaper has visited during this swim; my "turtling" (an almost verticle, hunched-arm, lactic-acid induced state of swimming) is in full-force the last 10 meters.  I figure a 100 meter by the end of June and I'm on the downhill slope.  Like Rocky Balboa, in order to stay pumped-up for my title bout, I've pulled out an inspirational photo.

Now if that doesn't get you fired-up, I don't know what will.  Stay tuned for some awesome, regular updates everyone!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Loyal friends and followers, I apologize for being absent for over 2 months!  Have no fear though, I do have some new tales to tell.

Back in February my Dad began to notice that I was dragging from the challenges of operating alone in a foreign country.  One day via email he wrote the magical words, "Do you want me to come and visit you?"  This was a perfect offer at a perfect time.

I was due to head back to Houston for some corporate meetings in early April.  My Dad decided to time the trip with my return from Houston back to the Middle East.  We spent over 6 weeks preparing for all the different parts of the trip.  What started as a jaunt through Oman, Bahrain and Dubai became a whirlwind trip that started in Jordan and ended in Istanbul. 

My Dad's final plans started with a Air Turkey flight from Los Angeles to Amman, Jordan.  After Jordan he would catch-up with me in Doha for some 1-way flights, starting with Muscat, then Dubai and then finally we would both spend some time in Istanbul. 

The trip started in rocky fashion when Air Turkey didn't have my Dad's ticket.  3 hours and lots of waiting finally produced a seat, which insured that the trip stayed on original schedule.  My Dad's trip through Jordan was awesome.  He visited Petra, the Dead Sea, the location of Jesus' Baptism and Mt. Nebo.  I was still in Houston as I read his daily updates.  Dad hired a driver and they became buds driving all over the country for 3 days.  As much as I was excited for this part of the trip, meeting up with Dad in Doha was where the fun would begin.

I landed in Doha on April 16th.  I hurried to my connecting flight to Muscat.  Dad wasn't on the plane yet when I boarded, but the next bus would deliver him!  On the way to Muscat together.  Recovering from sleep depravation and travel exhaustion, Dad and I soaked up 2 days with Unni in Muscat.  We started with an awesome coffee on the beach.

My dad then headed to the Grand Mosque while Unni and I did some work at the office.

After Oman we headed to Dubai, where we caught up on some R&R with Tommy Broussard and his wife Vicki.  They are great hosts and the chance to sit out on their balcony and watch the sun set is indescribable.  Dubai wasn't an early target for my Dad's trip, but I think after seeing the city he was glad to make it a stopover.  The sheer magnitude of the city's growth is staggering.  Cranes and buildings are everywhere.  From the tallest building, to the world's most recognizable hotel, to an indoor ski slope, the city is one of a kind and worth a quick 2 day visit.

From Dubai we took off for Istanbul, Turkey.  Neither of us had been to Turkey and the trip proved to be well worth it.  Istanbul sits on two continents, the only city in the world positioned this way.  Half of the city is in Europe and half of the city is in Asia.

We started our first day with visits of the old mosques and churches.  Below is the famous Blue Mosque.

Below is the Haggia Sophia, which was originally a Christian church, then a mosque, and now a little of both as the Turkish government has worked to restore the building to it's original state.

Below is the inside of the Haggia Sophia.  You can see the mix of Islamic and Christian decorations.

On the third day we took a visit to the famous cistern that the Romans built back in 300AD.  This underground waterway was amazing - HUGE beyond expectations. 

Two of the pillars in the cistern are famous for their base: Medusa!

After the cistern we headed to the Asian side of the city.  Can you imagine, we take a 15 minute boat ride and we've gone from Europe to Asia.  Awesome stuff.  Here's a picture of the famous lighthouse with the old city in the background.



On Sunday my Dad headed to Istanbul's International Airport and journeyed home.  I took a Finance Final and then headed to the airport myself for the measley 3 hour flight back to Dubai.  It was hot when I got out of the airport in Dubai...like 100 degrees hot.  A big difference from the 30-40 degree temperatures in Turkey.  Truth be told though, I would last through any cold weather to hang out with my Dad. 

Thanks so much Dad for coming to the Middle East.  I can't express how much our time together meant for me.  See you in Utah!