Dubide Time

Satwa

2010-09-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a story that I'm relatively happy with. Vanessa says she found a typo, but she hasn't shown me where yet:

http://gulfnews.com/about-gulf-news/al-nisr-portfolio/freehold-monthly/articles/redevelopment-plans-for-lively-satwa-1.678814

My pal Silvia took this picture, which appears in the article. We'd been standing on the corner shooting passersby for a while, and the shop keepers were watching us intently from inside. Over time, a crowd began to gather, as curious onlookers waited to see what exactly we were photographing. Eventually Silvia waved the staff of the store over, and the group shot wound up being the best image of the day.

On another note, the baby hasn't arrived yet, the due date is the 28th so any time now. I'll see if I can get Vanessa to sign off on a recent shot of her, because her belly is looking pretty awesome.

Freedom Sucks

2010-07-17T04:53:00.000-07:00

A coworker of Vanessa's told me recently that new developments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are built with separate parking lots for the ladies, even though they're not yet permitted to drive. According to this same person, KSA is very close to giving women, I mean womyn, the right to drive-- there's just one potentate who objects, so they're currently deadlocked on this issue.

I don't know how accurate that is, as I've never been there and I don't particularly want to go. While there are things that are objectionable about the UAE from a freedom loving, or even just freedom fry munching perspective, this country is much more tolerant than it typically receives credit for. Women drive, hold important positions in government, and are not forced to cover up, at least not by Johnny, nay, Abdul Law. Walk around Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and you will see women from all different cultures wearing all different styles of dress. There are prohibitions on certain types of revealing clothing, but in Dubai, for better or worse, those rules go largely unheeded.

Recently women in KSA have threatened to nurse their hired drivers because, according to religious guidelines, this nullifies the taboo of the two genders mixing outside family bonds. When someone dines on your breast milk, they are rendered family. You've heard of common law marriage, well this is common law adoption only, there's no 18 year expiration date on the "baby."

I'm not sure if the ladies of KSA will go through with it, but I have to wonder, do the drivers have any say in the matter?

Skeleton City

2010-06-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

I don't think these buildings have changed appreciatively in the year that I've been driving past them. While living in a perpetual construction site is one of the challenges of Dubai, it's also one of the things that keeps it interesting. The sculpted and over-landscaped vision of modernity that is creeping across this country still succumbs to dust at odd intervals, as new structures often adjoin job sites. The Marina in particular is full of underpopulated, yet completed residential towers that peer out into the skeletal frames of neighboring works-in-progress.

The city has the flavor of a lunar colony founded by a reformed pit boss. Neon lights trail off into temporary roadways ruptured by Dubai's uniquely convoluted progress. Each week the previous bypass is jackhammered into oblivion to make way for a new work around, a new concrete bandage.

The Metro is open, albeit with many lines still to follow, and the world's tallest building has already closed for repairs despite the fact that none of the floors are fitted out. While Dubai might be somewhat rushed, it's unfair to call it unaccomplished, as the city represents a remarkable achievement. What's difficult, is imagining a Dubai that could ever feel complete, and I guess no place ever really is.

Girl's Night In

2010-05-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

Rents in Dubai have come down significantly since we first moved here, and we now live in a much nicer, larger space. Our room provides sanctuary from the city's madness, with its stunt driving, endless construction, and damp heat. Today is the first really hot day since last summer, with humidity at 42% and an apparent temperature of 107 °C.

With the impending summer blaze nearly upon us, I'm reminded how Dubai is a place of interior spaces built to replicate the outdoors. This is a place where people spend an alarming amount of time indoors and the architecture reflects that, not just at Ski Dubai. For instance, I recently wrote an article about an apartment tower with six large gardens for the tenants to enjoy-- all of which are indoors. You live here and you feel contained almost all the time which is why, even though our room is a container too, it's important that it be something more than that-- that it's our home. For now.

One side effect of our general disinterest in Dubai's night life, is that we've seen a lifetime worth of bad television here, including several episodes of MTV Cribs. This in part because we have free satellite TV included with our place, but with a pretty poor selection of channels, at least for English speakers. It's also because, for whatever reason, we find life a little bit more fatiguing here, so we rest a lot. In some ways, life in Dubai is like perpetually living in an episode of Cribs, in that you're constantly in awe of the garish shit that people buy.

To add insult to injury, when we're not watching people say things like "you gotta see this, this is my other Hummer," much of what we select falls under MBC4's "Girl's Night In" programing line up. So not only do I feel guilty for watching a bunch of crap, there's a not so subtle suggestion that I'm not man enough for the testosterone fueled smorgasbord over at MBC Action.

At first I thought Girl's Night In was on Thursday nights, the last day of the working week here in the UAE. But then I realized that the MBC family of channels is actually based in Saudi Arabia, which is an altogether different place than Dubai. I think the best way I can put this is to say that every night in Saudi Arabia is girl's night in-- or else. Even if we set aside prohibitions on traveling outside the home without a male family member or other escort (such as a hired driver,) there's still the fact that women can't drive there. And so, what I wrongly assumed was a sort of Friday night line up, is really an every night line up, sponsored by Clean and Clear.

Girl's Night Out, sponsored by Paris Hilton's Champagne-in-a-can, can be viewed on the public stoning channel.

Safe driving in the Lebanese Alps

2010-05-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

The morning after I arrived back in Dubai from our last visit to California, I had to leave on a trip to drive Volvos in Beirut. In reality, we would spend little time in the city, which has a reputation as the nightlife capital of the Middle East (whoop-dee-doo), traveling instead to a ski resort about an hour and a half outside of town. You can find my thoughts on the C-30 here if you're curious.

Two summers ago I stood in a small San Francisco rug shop talking with my friend Jason about the prospects of moving to Dubai. Jason is American but holds an Iranian passport courtesy of his Dad, and at that time was the only person I knew who'd ever really spent time in this region. I bring this up because I remember that Jason, who fully expected to visit during our tenure here (and in fact now lives in Tehran and comes through regularly) mentioned the possibility of a field trip to Beirut. My reaction at that time was to calmly reply, whatareyoufuckingnuts?

Living in Dubai changes your perspective in a lot of ways. For instance, I've been forced to get over my mall allergy because, for many of life's necessities (free wi-fi and the simple act of leaving the house) there's no where better to go, especially in the summer months. But what really happens here is that you're forced to confront your own xenophobia towards the Arab world, a place that, for all it's peculiarities, is just another assembled mass of status obsessed, distracted, over-caffeinated people who want to eat cheese burgers and watch Oprah.

So yes, Beirut is a place that people go to on a regular basis because, as Jason told me that evening a few years ago, "it's not like they don't know when things are going to start blowing up." When I was in LA on the Cadillac trip last year, I befriended a younger Lebanese journalist who said something similar: "I think there will be war again before too long, it's inevitable. But then, we're used to it. Last time people kept going out to the clubs and living their lives, we just stayed away from certain areas."

Nothing was exploding while I was in Beirut, and it seemed like a a city that would merit further investigation. On the surface Beirut felt a lot more modern than Fes, perhaps a little like Tangier but without the Medina, but then I really only saw it from the cab so who knows.

This I can say for certain, Lebanon has some very nice mountain terrain and ski resorts. After we drove each of the four Volvos, which is too many for one day if you ask me, we then had lunch and a short break before mounting quad bikes and tearing off into the cold and sunny afternoon. And so we noisily and somewhat stinkingly traversed what would have been a very good hike. Which isn't to say that it wasn't fun, it was.

After a while we stopped for a snack that had been trucked in on an old Land Rover Defender, which belonged to the hotel. This was some what unusual, as often on these types of trips you'll find that every vehicle is from the host company's family of products. But this was a smaller scale trip and we kept finding ourselves dining or departing under giant banners depicting GM products. If anything, it was refreshing to be in an environment that was a little less obsessed with branding. Also, the food was good and that always wins me over.

Swimming Bird

2010-05-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

The day after the Hud-hud's visit, Rajan found this green fellow (or lady) waterlogged and exhausted in the pool. Rajan nursed the bird back to health, noting that "this bird very like banana." Rajan was elated to care for the bird, and I'm sure the bird was pleased to have been rescued. We suspect he or she is some sort of Parakeet, but I should send a picture to Jane for identification as the Green Parakeets I've found by searching online seem to have a different colored bill. Raj called it a Myna Bird, but my internet research does not support his findings.

Hud-hud

2010-04-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

This Hud-hud, or Hoopoe, so identified by our ecologist pal Jane, came to visit the other day, just outside a bank of second story windows. As is common in most of of Dubai's buildings, our villa has highly reflective glass windows, and this Hud-hud seemed to be attempting to commune with his (or her?) reflection. He (there's something very male about all that plumage) also seemed to have no idea I was there at first, and then became very excited by the sound of my camera's shutter, hopping up and down and pecking at his reflection. According to the link referenced above, the Hud-hud is mentioned in the Quran as the messenger of prophets and, even before I read that, I felt lucky to have gotten so close to him. He was, for nearly an hour, our honored guest.

Overheard in the elevator

2010-04-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

As I've noted before, even though English is commonly spoken in Dubai, a good many conversations conducted in English are complete train wrecks. The names below are purely imagined, but protect the bereaved nonetheless:

"Hi Sally."

"Oh, Pearl-- you're back. Have you been on leave?"

"Yes, my Father passed away and I was home for the funeral."

"Oh great! Where did you go?"

"Sorry? No, my father had a heart attack quite suddenly and he didn't make it."

"Oh yeah? Is he ok?"

"No, like I said, he died."

"I'm sorry. Was he old?"

"No, not really."

[silence]

Morocco - Fes

2010-04-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to remember if anyone in Fes was actually wearing a fez--- I don't think so. The sage scholars at wikipedia are apparently unsure if there's an etymological connection between the two and, since I stayed at a budget hotel, even the door man lacked a fez. Apparently higher end tourist hotels make their door men wear one.

The many artisans that populate the city's crumbling medina seem to make almost everything other than those iconic hats. We did visit a ceramics factory, where I was interested to see how the ornate tile mosaics for which Morocco is known are fabricated (I still don't really understand it). At the end of the tour we came to the gift shop, where I bought a cereal bowl. Shopping, or my total lack of interest in it, would be a common theme as I toured the medina. I would be led to some shop or workshop, where I would see someone making something in a particularly low tech and interesting fashion, and then they'd want me to buy something. Mostly I resisted, returning home with, albeit cliché, but highly succesful husband-to-wife gifts like a scarf and cereal bowl. Why just this morning Vanessa was wearing her new scarf while enjoying a heap of muesli from her moroccan crock.

Fes is famous for its tannery, with its colorful dye vats and sulphuric stink. To reach the view pictured above, I was led through one in a long series of inconsequential looking doors, up a ladder-like stairway, to a leather goods shop with open air views of the tanners at work below. It's almost as if the lack of signage in the Medina is designed to support the tour guide industry.

This is the conversation I had at the leather goods shop---leather shop doesn't seem right in this context, as there were no chaps in evidence. Also, I find the term "ass-less chaps" to be redundant:

"Sir, how about a nice leather jacket?"

"Oh, I don't think so."

"Maybe this one here." He holds up a sort of all leather, primary colored (all of them) letterman jacket. Something not unlike this.

"No, that's too hot for where I live."

"Where do you live?"

"Dubai."

"Oh no, sir. Not too hot for Dubai." Knits brow.

"Yeah, it's going to be like 42 degree centigrade there soon." That's 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

"No problem, jacket not too hot for 42 degrees."

So, needless to say, Vanessa wasn't sporting a new pair of Moroccan slippers, or letterman jacket, while she ate her muesli. She already has a The Abyss cast and crew letterman jacket, but it's not here with us in Dubai. Similarly, I didn't buy a rug, or one of the ornate pressed metal plates that I viewed at subsequent shops. The latter sales pitches weren't quite as reality-adverse as what I experienced at the leather goods shop, but the truth is that we have exactly the same stuff for sale in Dubai, and I'm not particularly tempted to acquire more belongings at this stage of our residency here. I suppose I could have made an exception for the puppy, but he wasn't for sale.

At the madrassa in the medina

2010-04-16T02:23:00.000-07:00

While in Fes I took a tour of the medina, or old city. With its narrow, circuitous lanes, it's nearly impossible to navigate the medina on your own, as many of its most interesting sites reside beyond closed doors.

In the medina I saw a lot of interesting things, but among them I thought this madrassa deserved a post of its own. Not so much because I have a lot to say about it but, well, look at it.

The windows above the courtyard are actually the dormitory of the school, representing the most striking architectural view of any dormitory I've ever seen. Morocco has moved on to more secular modes of education, so most old madrassas are no longer used for religous instruction. In fact this one is just a tourist attraction at this point. We did see a group of students lining up at another madrassa, but I was told it is mainly used to house foreign students.

Morocco - Tangier

2010-04-13T04:41:00.000-07:00

Spain's slow drizzle evolved into a downpour as I boarded the boat for Morocco. I was pleased to find myself once again aboard a ferry, having commuted to San Francisco that way one summer several years ago. For some reason, I thought the weather would improve once I got to Morocco and, while the sun was shining on my arrival, it was a brief dry moment in what would be a particularly wet trip.

I hadn't made any arrangements for a hotel, so once I was safely aground in Tangier, I caved in and hired one of the several guides shilling at the ferry terminal, selecting mine more for his festive hat and cowboy boots than anything else. I'd corresponded with our Moroccan friend Omar via email prior to the trip, and he'd warned me that there would be touts everywhere, and that they could be both aggressive and annoying. Omar also explained that official tour guides would be able to produce a badge identifying their official status, and that it might be worth asking for, even if it could be fake.

After seeing his badge, I hired Rashid to be my guide and, after I withdrew local currency from an ATM, he led me to an overpriced taxi and we zipped off to an internet cafe. If you find yourself under-scheduled and accosted by dubious helpers in a foreign land, the internet cafe is a great refuge. For one thing, I was able to begin work on my Audi article, as the deadline would fall during the trip. I had mostly written off my time in Tangier as a travel day anyway, and wanted to free up time for Fez. Additionally, I was able to read several less than enthusiastic reviews of the hotel that Rashid was pushing, and book a place of my own selection. Working on my article was also part of my strategy for dumping Rashid, I would simply wait him out. Eventually it worked, I explained to him that I'd made a hotel reservation, and that I planned to work for a few more hours, and he went away quietly enough after naming his price. Rashid was the first of many Moroccans to reject my Euros in coin form, for some reason they're not accepted in Morocco, which I found annoying since the bills are welcomed.

After roughing in my Audi review, I walked to a cafe for a decent but unremarkable dinner, and then caught a taxi to my hotel. Fares are double at night in morocco, at least in the usually more affordable petite taxis, and I was a little taken aback when the driver pointed at the meter and asked for twice as much. Still, the prices weren't as high as Rashid's Mercedes driving cohort had commanded, and I was too tired to care. The driver didn't know quite where the hotel was, and at one point we drove down a narrow street in the medina, only to back out in lurching, clutch smoldering fashion, when it became clear that we were headed the wrong way.

The hotel had a crumbling charm that was inversely proportionate to its lack of insulation. The common areas were both shabby and ornate, making the even shabbier, but not at all ornate guest rooms a bit underwhelming. Still, I was safe and dry, and drifted off to sleep with german coverage of the winter olympics murmuring in the background. In the absence of travel partners, the winter olympics would become my constant companion throughout the trip, biathlon its chief personality defect.

Costa Del Sol, Spain: Audi A8 Drive event

2010-03-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Hotel Finca de Cortesin is probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, and I've stayed at some swanky (and not so swanky) pads since becoming an automotive journalist. My pal Reg, a seasoned reporter and interviewer, claims that in the old days, organizations like GM would tote journalists about in their private jets, and that events could last a week, rather than the current standard of one, maybe two nights. The good folks at Audi Middle East have, at least at the events I've attended with them, added a second night at their own expense, which helps cushion the blow of traveling so far, for such a short amount of time. And so we spent a second night at a nice, if less memorable and quite empty, resort hotel. I missed dinner that night because Reg kept buying pints and telling tales of war zone bartenders and Rolls Royce sporting johns on the prowl in the GCC.

Think of me at the first joint, a lovely sprawling golf resort, plotting to depart from Spain's Costa Del Sol, where it was raining, for the crumbling, under-insulated but not charmless hotels of Morocco. I enjoyed driving the A8, which is a powerful and fine tuned machine, and was pleased to navigate the winding mountain roads above the coast with the car completely to myself. Not that I would have minded driving with a partner, as often happens, but more often than not these press trips afford you very little time alone, something I'm used to having plenty of.

I enjoyed the luxury hotel and my time in Spain, a country whose language I can speak passably. From there I went to a place where I didn't speak the language, where nearly everyone I met was hustling me for a few Dirham, and where hot showers could be undertaken only during prescribed hours. I was prepared for this contrast, but admit that, after four cold nights in Fes and Tangier on the cheap, I was ready for warm, clean, and thoroughly plastic Dubai. Still, I enjoyed Morocco quite a bit, and look forward to writing more about it.

Munich, 2011 Touareg Launch

2010-03-06T23:53:00.001-08:00

My brief time in Munich started off quietly as a group of us, led by our very kind and well organized hosts from VW, wandered the hushed, snow covered streets in search of a tourist bus that would show us the city from a relatively warm and dry vantage point. When we did eventually find the bus, they wouldn't take us aboard for some reason, so we had carrot cake and walked around instead.

That evening, as I dusted off my 'job interview' duds ('journalist on the go' was wrinkled and sodden at home) I found that, not only does Germany get most of the Saudi Arabia based movie channels that regularly bring us classic films like Short Circuit 2, and Christmas Caper (starring Shannon Doherty, and gracing the small screen this March) here in Dubai, they also have some very odd televised costume parties that we don't have access to in the desert.

The event itself was surprising due to its particularly American choice of themes, which included a Late Night style interview format, hosted by the "David Letterman of Germany" and featuring a Late Night style band led by Germany-renowned percusionist and moustache farmer, Leslie Mandoki. Several of the interviews were conducted before a monument valley inspired backdrop, in front of which I insisted on being photographed, making for an awkward pause in the proceedings. My ego duly sated, they brought out performance artist Kseniya Simonova, whose deft hands craft evolving sand pictorials that are quite impressive in their scope and speed.

Throughout the evening, blue-jean and gingham clad servers in kiddie cowboy hats navigated the crowd, handing out a variety of tasty, if unexpected and ultimately forgettable (I just remember that they were odd, but good) appetizers. Our obliging hosts, in that unabashedly blunt German fashion, asked several of the attending VIPs who they were, culminating in my favorite reply: "Oh yes, now I remember. She's a very famous boxer." The evening closed with the music of Justin Timbalike who, sporting his trade marked fedora, shredded the violin alongside the Mandoki Players. We were gifted with Justin's CD on our way out, and most of us wrongly assumed it was the press kit and therefore didn't bother to hunt down the actual press kit. A press kit, or more specifically the Press Release, is what a journalist typically combines with a thesaurus to produce a magazine article. It was awesome. If you ever have the chance to attend a corporate launch party in Munich, the answer is "ja!"

New Year's Day Carnival

2010-01-20T23:43:00.000-08:00

Everybody loves a parade, right? Well, I don't. In fact, while I definitely enjoyed the New Year's Day carnival in Kochi, I actually found the crowd, which seemed to outnumber the parade participants by about ten to one, much more interesting than the parade itself. There were circus floats, dancers, men dressed in drag (women aren't allowed to participate), the cast of Avatar, and many others in colorful, often homemade costumes, but that wasn't quite as compelling as the excitement of the crowd and sheer mass of bodies thronged together. I don't really like being in a crowd, and for the most part managed to skirt this one. As always, the locals were kind and facilitating. At one point we found ourselves inescapably deep into the parade crowd, and Vanessa was able to appeal to the wall of onlookers to let us pass through to safety, or really, lower anxiety. I don't mean to overstate this, it's not like I have a proper phobia, but rather, sometimes when I find myself surrounded on all sides by human bodies, I wonder, "why did I come here?" And so, the edge of the crowd was really much more my speed.

The mood was celebratory, everywhere we went people were excited to put their English into practice, wishing us a "Happy New Year," and grinning at our replies. The kids were out in force and, without exception, once one youngster had their picture taken they all wanted in, huddling together and mugging for the camera. Perhaps the day's most infectious good mood was emanating from the Michael Jackson memorial dance float, where in particular, a nattily dressed gent in a tweed sports coat and straw hat was demonstrating some serious moves. Bill had opted out, and after about an hour and a half I could see why, having had my fill of the excitement. All in all, we were glad we went.

Dining Out

2010-01-17T00:59:00.000-08:00

Learning a language often requires admitting to the person with whom you're attempting to converse that the grammatical intricacy of their speech, or perhaps just their vocabulary or sheer velocity of air and spittle, exceeds your level of comprehension. The problem in Dubai is that you have far more practitioners of Dubaian Pidgin English than of the language's more well constructed iterations (I myself speak American Screaming Eagle of Freedom English).

At times, I've found myself stooping to fragmented cave-person English (respect, ladies) in order to get my point across, often coupled with hand gestures. Many guest workers, employed in the service industry, seem deathly afraid of admitting when they don't understand a request. I empathize, and suspect that in part, it's because their employment is predicated on their English fluency, so in a sense, they are protecting their jobs by giving you horrible service. The following doesn't qualify as horrible, but it is a depiction of a fairly normal service experience in Dubai--- the food at this restaurant is very much above average:

"Yes Mahm?"

"We'll have one red cabbage salad, one pumpkin salad, and a hamburger."

Look of total incomprehension. Brow knits for approximately 45 seconds.

"You mean cheeseburger, mahm?" Going out on a limb.

"Uhh, no. This here..." Points to menu.

"Oh, you mean the beef burger?"Accompanied by look of relief. I guess Hamburger sounds like a pork product if your knowledge of German metropolises and/or sandwich history is lacking.

"Uhh, yeah. That one."

"Anything to drink?"

"Yes, one large water and one headache remedy juice."

"Ahh... let me check on the headache remedy." Walks to juice bar, returning about five minutes later.

"Ok Mahm, we can make that juice for you."

Ten Minutes elapse.

"Sorry Mahm, but we don't have fresh onion juice for the headache remedy."

"Well, can't you make some?"

"Ahh, sorry but no fresh onion juice. No onions."

"But this restaurant is in inside a grocery store."

"Yes but... juicer broken."

Kerala Back Waters

2010-01-13T02:20:00.000-08:00

On the morning of New Year's Eve, Mahesh bundled us into his mighty Jeep, and carried us into town to meet our pre-arranged taxi to the Kerala backwaters. Hoping to avoid bathing our luggage in the thick layer of dust that covered the trunk of our driver's Hindustan Ambassador, a model which was once India's ubiquitous sedan, we loaded our bags into the forward passenger seat, only to learn that we would be sharing the ride with a young couple from Finland. The Fins turned out to be worthy conversationalists, and we apprised one another of our recent adventures for the first half of the journey. Conversation eventually faltered, and the driver, hoping to enhance the already daring thrill-ride he was providing us with, inserted a CD of early nineties techno into the Ambassador's aftermarket sound system. Having studiously avoided both raves and DJ culture, I'm not sure why all the tunes were familiar to me, but I suspect that movies and advertising are at least partially to blame.

Arriving at the tour operator's compound, we loaded our now dusty cloth duffle bag (one of those quilted jobs) onto the houseboat which, from what I can tell, was technically a large punt. At about 8,000 rupees ($175) per night, the backwaters trip was by far the most expensive thing that we did in India, and it was well worth it. I would love to go back sometime to spend multiple nights on the boat, and Bill has indicated that the prices are a good deal lower in the off season.

The brackish backwaters alternate seasonally between shrimp farming and rice paddies, and have a dark, reflective quality that gives the fecund tropical landscape a pleasing bilateral symmetry. We trolled along quietly, our motor-less vessel propelled by a pair of boatmen wielding impressive lengths of bamboo. At one point, the forward boatman's pole became lodged in the bottom, and went whap-whap-whapping down the side of the boat until the aft boatman was able to rescue it for him. This, and a bit of pre-party sound system calibration around the marsh, were the only (minor) intrusions into what was a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable experience.

Vanessa and I were reminded very much our own favorite non-profit as we skimmed along, surrounded by alternating combinations by reeds, flowers, palms, houses, villages, canoes, birds, children, chickens, trains, cattle, passing Fins in their own extremely well appointed punt, and of course, the water itself. Lunch time brought another pleasant surprise, as our crew brought out huge portions of excellent, almost vegetarian fare-- in fact we ate all but completely vegetarian in India and, as I've said before, thoroughly enjoyed every meal.

That night we sat on the deck listening to dancing and drumming in the distance, watching the occasional bright swirling of flashlights and small fireworks on the shore. We'd brought a bottle of good champagne from the Dubai airport duty free and, decadent infidels that we are, managed to drink half the bottle between the two of us. The boatmen found the bottle tipped over on the deck the next morning and, after checking with us, one of the crew adopted the now empty bottle as a decoration for his home. He'd given us a tour of his house the night before, and we'd been surprised to see that his mantle was already adorned with the box from that very same bottle of Veuve Clicquot, in addition to a few other Clicquot cartons of unknown origin. We felt honored to be welcomed into our host's home, which was full of interesting found and handmade objects, including hand carved models of a cruise ship and an electric guitar. He also had a whole gang of very relaxed looking pigs under his care.

The Kerala backwaters are not so different from those in Quintana Roo or, if you squint, Petaluma, but to my knowledge neither of those places offer such a restful overnight experience on the water. If you ever have the chance to go, do so. Try to opt for a punt rather than a motorboat, as backwater tourism is big business in Kerala, and keeping the number of outboards to a minimum will help preserve this stunning spot.

India, Kerala, Kochi

2010-01-11T04:16:00.000-08:00

I think I've been hesitant to write about India, because to do so requires acknowledging the fact that I'm no longer there. I'm physically in Dubai, but my mind is elsewhere-- partly in Kochi, partly in Albany.

Kerala, which boasts the worlds first democratically elected communist party, was the first Indian state to abolish the caste system, installing a social safety net that yet sways in the breezes of financial chaos. We didn't see much of the state, spending our time in and around Kochi, but in general, we found people were incredibly warm, genuinely returning a smile in a way that is largely absent in Dubai. Interestingly, a great number of Dubai's enormous Indian population are from Kerala, and we encountered several families in Kochi who had relatives working here, contributing to the household incomes at home at some personal cost. In fact, we live with one such person.

Our hosts, Bill and Mahesh, a former wigmaker to the stars, and award winning music video director respectively, were exactly the sort of easy-going, engaging, and welcoming hosts that one can only hope for. They toted us all over Kochi on their bike and scooter, Ness and I clinging to their backs like baby baboons traveling with their mothers. The roads in India are a little like the wilds of Africa, perhaps during a stampede, with drivers veering boldly into oncoming traffic to overtake slower tuk tuks and all kinds of vehicles in various states of repair. In this way, Bill and Mahesh were able guardians, transporting us not just to safety, but to our delicious daily breakfast of uppumavu, idly, curry, and chai masala every morning.

The decor of our breakfast spot was one part jail cell, and another part wood shed, with a layer of grease on the walls that looked a bit like the high water line in a flood zone. The proprietors of this spot are to be commended, as they eclipsed the funk to flavor ratio of my favorite taquerias and noodle stalls, serving up some of the best food I've had, for the least amount of money, in the most unlikely and yet inviting setting. Later in the day, we'd make an inevitable visit to Kashi for coffee and possibly cake. According to Bill, and I readily believe this, Kashi is one of the best cafes not just in Kerala, but probably in India as a whole. To sum up, we ate well, really well, and with out any gastronomical taxation to speak of. I can't wait to go back.

Masked Swordsmen and the Reluctant Prostitute

2009-11-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

This story caught my eye today, not just for it's swashbuckling bravado and abusive misogyny, but because it's the first time I've read anything about the Dubai Police breaking up a prostitution ring. The standard water-cooler rumor is that Dubai, despite occasionally imprisoning its largely law abiding residents for displays of public affection, tacitly approves of prostitution in light of the city's huge guest worker population, many of whom are ostensibly away from their wives for long stretches. I don't see how someone making around $250/month by high estimates, in what is one of the world's most overpriced cities, could possibly afford the attentions of a working lady, but others have suggested that there's a certain amount of sharing going on. And yet the economics of that arrangement seem unlikely as well, since no one ever got rich offering a 'twenty-five for the price of one' special.

While all this is purely speculative, it seems unfair to blame (or thank, depending on your perspective) Dubai's poorest, least mobile residents for the city's reputedly large sex trade. It seems more likely that, not only must there be a large segment of middle income clientele, but that someone at the, uh, top is making quite a lot of money running these brothels. I don't mean to make light of the real issue here; human trafficking, FKA slavery. This is a problem that the United States should be doing a lot more to address, including offering asylum to the victims, rather than sending them back to their abusers to try again. What is unique to Dubai though, is the complexity of moral tight rope walking around issues of what a professor of mine once termed, "applied friction." Bravo to the Dubai P.D. for breaking up this mob of knife wielding slave-drivers, but as long as the government is going to turn a blind eye to a bustling trade in sex for money, could they also think about unblocking flickr?

Little Boss Man

2009-10-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Omar stomps into class one morning, slams his backpack down on the desk, and seethes like a disappointed middle manager. It's the first week of Ramadan, and although he's just a pup, he's been fasting for a few days. Not all children fast, but this is a chance for him to be measurably precocious, rather than just a smart ass, and his parents have (possibly) talked him into it. The kid's behind in English, Math, and height, but he makes up for it with Napoleonic glee.

Feature Omar at the campus coffee shop, where I stupidly shell out $4.60 for coffee drinks each school day. I can't leave him in class when it's time for my break, so I take him with me. He immediately climbs up on the counter, grabs a sucker, and asks:

"How much this one?"

"Four Dirhams, Sir," replies the thirtyish guest worker to the eight year old local. Work visas are tenuous here, and the service people generally seem afraid of the locals, even the kids.

"Maybe no Dirham?" Suggests Omar, whose soul is that of an imperious but charming used car salesman.

The woman eventually gives in, but when I intervene, paying full price for the sucker he no longer wants it, and I throw it in a desk drawer where it sits for weeks. Later, he'll find it one day when I've hidden all the pens in an effort to end "drawing time," and he's ransacked my desk trying to recover them.

Omar is a master negotiator, and like most practitioners of that trade, he's not satisfied getting what he wants, but must get what he wants on his terms. In one of many gross misestimations of my powers, he seems to think that, not only do I control time, but that despite wielding such a mighty power, I'm easily duped:

"How many left in class?"

"About an hour," I reply, neglecting to correct his horrible grammar.

"How about ten minutes?" Omar suggests.

"Omar, I can't make your Mom come any sooner."

"OK. Fifteen minutes."

Now it's the fifth day of Ramadan, and the winking subtext of our banter has gone flat. Although fasting is the stereotypical excuse offered to explain erratic behavior during the holy month, I'm fairly certain Omar simply objects to having had to come to class at all. To be fair, we were supposed to be done by now, but his family, with little or no notice, postponed a week of classes and went to Abu Dhabi. It's only an hour and forty minutes away, but the highway is fraught with menace. As a result, Omar is stuck in an Arabian version of Summer School, and doggedly rebuts my lame attempts to play the Freddy Shoop role:

"Bromar, my man, how are you today?"

"I am not Bromar, I am Omar" he replies. Although incredulous at first, Omar eventually catches on, and we cultivate a game in which he perfects his mock outrage at my nicknaming attempts.

"OK, you call me Boss Man, and I'll call you Little Boss Man."

"I am not Little Boss Man."

I suggest this one day during break, after we've both checked our hair in the mirrored wall of the elevator interior. This particular vanity is mostly theater, and I play it up, mussing and then repairing my coif, taking my sunglasses on and off, until he eventually does the same. To my secret delight, he does eventually call me Boss Man, but only when he's trying to wheel and deal with me, hoping to engender good will.

"Omar... USA number 1!" I say, now content to simply wind him up.

"No. Is number five." My used car salesman is blossoming into a diplomat.

We have our schtick down by the time Ramadan rolls around and I'm flummoxed by Omar's demonstrative unhappiness on this particular day. Omar has been my most challenging student to date, in part because he's my first real student. I've taught guitar lessons, and I've done a bit of tutoring for people switching from Windows to OS X, but I've never taught something as legitimate as the English Language. When things go poorly in the classroom, I'm momentarily stung anew by my utter lack of credentials or formal training. In fact, my mere employment in Dubai's huge educational money machine makes me skeptical of the machine itself and, paradoxically, less concerned about having to wing it every single day. And yet today, when I can't even get the kid to lift his head off the desk, I do wonder about my presence in a place that calls itself 'Knowledge Village.'

Normally, when Omar fixates on some deficiency of logic in the workbook, or simply refuses to work, we turn to the white board, where he draws blocky SUVs with seemingly dripping exhaust pipes that turn out to be machine guns. A few weeks in, when I discover his insane love of lions, I draw several for him; lions giving the thumbs up while riding BMX bicycles, bicycles that have caught mad air off launch ramps, launch ramps that send said bicycles flying over the heads of other lions who look on in awe. And so on.

This morning I can tell that none of that is going to work. So I simply pick up one of his books and read to myself, opting not to spar with the Mohammed Ali of teacher-student combat. It takes at least half an hour, but it works, and he eventually requests his single favorite assignment, perhaps the only one this willful child has ever completed in entirety; Animal Quiz Show.

Years ago, I read an article about how Blue's Clues was developed to be stickier than, say, Sesame Street, by use of simple repetition. I may have this wrong, as my memory has a creative bent, but Blue's Clues was designed to be a superior learning tool, in large part because it repeats the same episode five days a week. Apparently bludgeoning repetition works well for kids.

In place of a Masters in Education, I have this article that I read years ago and at least partly remember. I seize on this little chunk of knowledge, and it becomes the rationale for allowing Omar to repeat Animal Quiz Show, sometimes as much as five times per lesson. Omar has long ago memorized every answer, so one day when his Father shows up to sit in on the last few minutes of class, Omar appears to have become an English speaking dynamo, and nails each answer with feigned earnestness.

Later, on a subsequent visit, Omar's father, an exceedingly kind person and genuinely concerned parent of the sort you would hope to encounter on any continent, informs me that he's forgotten my Ramadan gift in the car, but that when his wife comes to pick up Omar for the final class later that week, she'll have my new English language edition of the Koran with her.

The nature of the gift is not entirely unexpected, as Omar has asked a few culturally curious questions that suggest a somewhat religious home life. Questions like:

"How do you pray?" Which I wasn't quite sure how to answer, so I showed him a few poses which I've never actually struck, but that describe a sort of TV version of American prayer-- whatever that is.

And, "You eat pig?" To which I respond, "Oh yeah, pig, cat, dog, canary, gila monster, whatever you got." I then had to explain what a gila monster is.

I was surprised when the gift did arrive, and turned out not to be for me at all, at least not directly. "For your wife," explained Omar's Mom, handing me a giant gift bag that contained a cylinder full of musky Arab perfume, a scarf that Vanessa ended up really liking, a sequined dress from India that we gave to a co-worker of Vanessa's (who loved it) and a tiny, pink, telephone-shaped bedside clock that looks like it might have belonged to an anachronistic Marie Antoinette. There may have been some other stuff in there too, but there weren't any religious texts. I'm not sure what happened to the Koran, which I'd been looking forward to thumbing through if not actually reading, but it was very kind of them nonetheless.

I found Omar's family as charming and thoroughly enjoyable as they were unpredictable. I'd fallen sideways into teaching, as the freelance market had gone soft, and by this point I'd given up on actually meeting any Emaratis. One morning Omar's Mom dropped off Omar and his six year old brother Salim, simply asking "you don't mind, do you?" I didn't really, although Salim had already been prohibited from auditing the class, as the first day had proved far too chaotic with both brothers running around the classroom and constantly glomming all the dry erase markers. Omar wound up being decently focused on Animal Quiz Show that day, while Salim drew monkeys on the board, so it worked out alright.

I've had a lot of writing work lately, as things seem to be coming back, but I hope to pick up a few classes when we get back from our upcoming trip. I have no idea what I'm doing, the pay is not great, and the success of the student is really ultimately up to them anyway-- but I like doing it. I figure, if I can't shape young minds, I can at least scar them. To be fair, Omar was by far the youngest of my students, who ran as old as mid-forties and averaged somewhere around eighteen. I like to think that, although Omar basically refused to do the work, our constant teasing, negotiating, and declarations of disbelief in the other's behavior all comprised an education of sorts. It was, at the very least, all conducted in English.

Strange Glee Pt. II

2009-10-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

First off, if anyone reading this didn't receive a visit from me during my recent whirlwind business trip, please know that it was partly because I was really busy, partly because I'm coming through again in November (when I won't have to work,) and lastly because I spent all my free time with the very charming Sonia Glass, whose antics are beyond description.

So with that out of the way, allow me to tell you that I'm not dying to own the new Cadillac SRX Crossover SUV, nor am I dying to own any car in particular, which means that my doe-eyed, yet ambivalent appreciation of luxury cars is for sale to the highest bidder. I do feel a new kinship with the Cadillac folks, who pampered me with business class flights (at least 48 hours of raw travel time) and two nights at the plush (yet stuffy in a golf-widow sort of way) Westlake Four Seasons. All this atop a raft of bailout greenbacks that we Americans helped lash together this winter, when the stormy waters of the global economy grew so very cold.

How could I say anything bad about the car after that? Aside from rejecting calls for a hybrid version due to lack of phsyical space, the real canard here, and it's one that Cadillac itself would love to disprove, is that Caddies only appeal to men over forty. This is factually and statistically debunked by the fact that my Grandmother, Ann, bought herself a woefully misundertood Cadillac Cimaron circa 1982, a vehicle that currently ranks number thirty five on Time Magazine's list of the 50 worst cars of all time. Personally, I rate the car very highly and feel that it might still represent a good buy on the used market. Although I wasn't yet old enough to drive when my Grandmother owned the car, I did particularly enjoy the smiling hamburger character that she kept suction cupped to the dash (she was, among other things, an iconoclast in the age of Garfield) but also because the only time I remember riding in the car we went to See's Candy.

So, I'm not really a car guy per se. I loved my three Volvo's, none of which were parts cars thank you very much, and I love my barebones pickup truck because it allows me to show up anywhere I want unannounced, just as long as I come bearing pizza in an insulated bag. Also, it helps to have some kind of ball cap. Towards the end of my California sojourn, when I found myself pinned to the passenger seat of Richard's (a good friend of the family down in Encinitas) monstrous Ford GT, where I couldn't help but grin the way one does on the Gravitron. So yes, I did enjoy yet another V8 engine, but keep in mind, the car was at HOV lane capacity (as a two seater,) which I imagine is usually the case, as I sincerely doubt Richard is at a loss for passengers on his land rocket. Richard doesn't commute in the thing, or use it to push hapless expats off the road, so he gets a pass from me. On the off chance that he happens to see this; thanks again!

The strange glee of enjoying things you would never buy or want in a million years.

2009-08-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

Unlike a Rolls Royce product launch, which is basically a nice lunch and a couple minutes sitting in one of the world's most luxurious cars, the kind folks at Range Rover actually let you drive-- in fact they let you drive up and down a series of improbably steep ravines. For anyone interested, the actual article can be found here. Still, choosing to drive a car with a V8 engine every day is ridiculous, you might as well burn tires in your backyard.

The Fisherman's Casita

2009-08-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

We spent our most memorable day in Mallorca at Juan's casita in Estaca, a rustic cabin in a small fisherman's retreat nestled into steep cliffs above the Mediterranean. As we followed our incredibly generous hostess along the road from Palma, winding our way up a verdant mountain highway, we enjoyed the calming effect of a landscape that was not quite, but almost familiar. It's difficult to express the relief one feels in simply getting out of the desert. The engulfing sameness of the sand has only heightened since our return to Dubai, as the Iraqi desert continues to blow into the UAE, casting a gauzy shadow over the landscape. Lately, it looks as if the temperature outside might be closer to a winter day in San Francisco rather than the 110 degree plus heat of summer. But there in Mallorca, as we wound our way slowly down the one lane road to the coast, the weather was clear and inviting. At the start of the private road, Kitty unlocked the gate and we made our way down a tree lined dirt track until the progressively worse road conditions, and lack of space to park caused us to pull off and take up our bags on foot.

Walking down the path to the casita we were met with a stunning vista of the centuries old retreat, and could scarcely believe our luck as invited guests. When I first spoke to Kitty about the casita, she seemed slightly worried that we wouldn't like it, as it's not brand new or particularly luxurious. In actuality, it was for us, burned out on Dubai's pompous facades, a perfect place to spend a relaxing afternoon.

The first thing we did was pile five of us, three adults and two pre-teen boy's, into Juan's (Juan is Kitty's brother) kayak, so that we could paddle out past an embargo of jellyfish for a sting-free swim. Once we'd all disembarked and enjoyed the sea, we realized that we'd overestimated the capacity of the kayak, and were taking on water. Additionally, we managed to capsize three times as the fifth person scrambling back into the kayak kept proving too much for the vessel's precarious stability. By the third time we flipped, we'd managed to lose all of Juan's goggles. (Sorry Juan!)

Finally we arrived at a plan-- Kitty and I got off the kayak, while Vanessa and the boys paddled to the nearest stretch of shoreline. Once there, Vanessa unloaded the boys and headed back out to retrieve us from where we were dog paddling offshore, just out of reach of the jellyfish. Sadly, when Vanessa appeared in the Kayak she was bleeding just under her left orbital as one of the boys had accidently whacked her in the head with his paddle as he left the kayak. The three of us then paddled back to the dock, just managing to keep afloat, and finally dispatching Uncle Juan to fetch the boys once we drained some of the excess water out of the kayak.

Safely ashore, we took a few pictures before heading up to the casita to fix diner. Our brush with disaster wasn't over yet though, as little Martita, Kitty's niece, took a spill off the casita's rocky porch when no one was watching, much to the dismay of her nanny who was just out of arm's reach when Martita overreached for a drawing that had been whisked away by the wind. In the whirl of panic that followed Martita was bundled up and rushed to the nearest clinic, and we later learned that she was indeed fine despite falling at least ten feet onto the rocky steps below. In the rush to get Martita to safety, Kitty had given Jose her keys to the gate, leaving only one remaining set. After the rest of the children had been fed, and assured that their little cousin would be fine, Kitty assembled their gear and led everyone up the winding path only to discover that the running lights were ablaze on our rental car. Worried that we'd be stranded the next day with a dead battery, Kitty trudged back down the path to inform us, and together we walked back up to right the situation.

Unfortunately, this wouldn't be Kitty's last unnecessary trip back down the hill because, as it turned out, she would realize only at the private gate that she'd given Juan her gate key and left us, all the way back down at the casita, with the only copy. And so, poor Kitty returned to us not once, but twice, first retrieving the key, and then, having decided it would be unsafe to hide it at the gate, she drove back down the treacherous path one last time to return the key.

I think if I'd been anywhere else I would have been exhausted by such a crazy day, but on vacation in Mallorca, with the Mediterranean spread out at my feet, I was completely relaxed and ready for whatever adventure would present itself next.

Mallorca & Barcelona

2009-07-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

Upon returning from one of the most relaxing trips we've ever been on, I was struck down by a crushing flu, from which I've only recently recovered. As such, I've been slow to return to my usual duties, and haven't written anything here in a little while. Mallorca and Barcelona were a welcome escape from the hot, dusty monotony of Dubai, and we enjoyed every sunny, obligation free minute if it. Most of the pictures above are from Mallorca, although Vanessa can be spotted in the top most picture as she patrols Barcelona's Boqueria Market for interesting treats.

Just before we left for Spain, our lease expired and we moved out of our overpriced studio and into a sort of high end rooming house. We now have domestic help for the first time, and count on our new pal Rajan for ironing and once weekly cleaning services-- all told, these rather minimal chores cost us 200 AED per month, or about $54.49. We've managed to cut our rent in half, but only after a good bit of wrangling. The transition form living by ourselves, to a shared living environment has been fairly smooth, as the new household is run something like a hotel.

As our lease was set to expire, we'd been looking around and after seeing several places, we informed Nabil that we were thinking of leaving. We used to think of Nabil as our crazy adoptive Arabian Uncle, but upon informing him that we wanted out of our lease, he responded that our lease required three months notice in order to move out. We re-read the contract and found that what it actually said was that we were required to pay the entire balance of the twelve month lease if we left before the lease period ended. I actually took the lease down to the Dubai Municipality rent board, who were very helpful, and informed me that Nabil was, to use the local term, pissing in my ear. So, we now find ourselves estranged from our chainsaw loving Arabian Uncle, and have the remaining task of trying to recover our deposit from him. All in all, it was worth the strife, and we're glad to have moved on.

The Great Wall

2009-06-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy the Lonely Planet series of guidebooks which, by trial and error, have proven much more reliable and accurate for us than most other publisher's efforts. Because we were sweetly gifted with around 487 Dubai guide books prior to our departure (thanks, by the way) we have become something of guide book connoisseurs. Conversely, we've been less lucky with our own purchases since arriving here, as the Gulf's ubiquitous "Explorer" series of guide books, whose jaundiced covers seem inspired by "yachting for dummies"et al, are a disappointment. These books, or at least their Oman and Dubai offerings, are particularly annoying for their lack of common sense landmarks, like say major hospitals, combined with the conspicuous inclusion of entire developments that have yet to be built.

My fellow Oaklanders at LP do let me down from time, in particular by recommending an amnesiac visa agent who is currently sunning himself atop an ill gotten pile of our Dirhams at this very moment. But that's a story that has nothing to do with China, and best left for another time.

The only other disappointment LP has dished out relates to a sin of omission, and one that could easily be fixed in the next addition of LP China. Essentially, the good folks at LP go out of their way to warn travelers against Great Wall bus tours that make excessive stops en route, all of which are geared towards hawking trinkets, adding at least two completely wasted hours to the trip. What LP didn't make clear, was that the bus line that they themselves recommend also includes two of these pointless field trips, leaving you to wonder if hiring a taxi for the day might have been a better option.

With the the price hovering around double the cost of two bus tickets, I'd say that it's well worth considering the taxi option, especially if you're only in town for a few days. Then again, I could see several of our wily Beijing cab drivers pocketing the three hundred Yuan and ditching us at the Wall-- unless a full day fare is paid upon completion? I like that idea though, it's second only to "follow that car" on my list of cinematic taxi arrangements.

In defense of LP, it's possible that the equally wily Chinese tour bus operators changed their routes after publication of the last edition. I did ask at the ticket window if the bus made extra stops, and was told "no stops," but here my sad lack of mandarin is probably to blame. Had I fully understood the situation, a feisty "bu yao" might have been useful. It says something about China's scrappy, ultra-capitalistic street vendors that the only two things we learned to say were hello, (ni hao) and don't want, (bu yao.) Actually, that sums up a large percentage of my interactions with the locals, and yet for the most part the experience is exceedingly pleasant as there always seems to be be some subtle, half winking pretext that the situation is more than slightly ridiculous.

And so, we made our way first to a complimentary lunch that consisted of the only bad food that China seemed to offer-- worse than any of the roach coaches or scary-aki joints I've ever braved, anywhere. Lunch was conveniently served on the campus of a jade factory, so we were given over an hour to wander aisle after aisle of jade walruses and magpies, wondering how much time we'd actually have at the Wall. After another short drive, we spent forty-five minutes sitting outside a wax museum (admission wasn't included or warranted) that has something to do with the ming tombs. Luckily, they had shaded outdoor seating, and I'd brought a book. Actually, that's my one piece of life advice for my lovely niece Sonia-- always carry reading material.

The Great Wall, which can be visited in multiple locations, is mainly accessible through controlled, park-like environments that feature multiple concessions, pay restrooms (although hardly restful, the word toilet is even less appropriate here) and a pit of forlorn looking black bears. Later on, I learned that you can find a guide to take you to the wild, overgrown sections of the Wall, which sounds amazing to me and well worth exploring if we make a second visit.

Before finally ascending the Wall itself, visitors must run one last gamut of commerce. The same stretch actually comes in handy on the way down, and I would recommend the beer and cucumbers, although not the hot dogs, which will probably be obvious.

The Wall itself is staggering, if you ever have the chance to see it, do so. We met a group of Chinese students at the top most part of our section of the Wall, which we reached honestly, eschewing the tram, which looked like a ride at some third rate theme park. Our new friends asked to have their picture taken with Vanessa, and later, after a bit of thought gave us the chinese names "Lucky" and "Flower". I suspect, and would agree, that the name "Lucky" derives mainly from being married to the very lovely "Flower."

That night, after resting up at our palatial, and yet slightly threadbare hotel, we made our way to a roof top restaurant bar that we'd ferreted out during our walk back from the Forbidden City. The view and the food were terrific, and made a fitting end to a very memorable day.

Forbidden City

2009-05-31T01:45:00.000-07:00

Gugong, the Forbidden City, was closed to local hoi polloi and foreign devils alike for over five hundred years. These days Gugong serves as a public exhibit and occasional movie set, which probably has even greater visual impact when full of extras in period costumes. Which isn't to say that we didn't enjoy our day there, it was great in fact, but the seemingly endless chain of enormous courtyards features such a wealth of open space that one can't help wondering how these expanses were populated during imperial reign. Perhaps a re-screening of the film Hero might straighten this out, as director Zhang Yimou's revisionist Forbidden City fills in the empty spaces quite extravagantly. Actually, I'll never forget a film student friend of mine telling me about Shanghai Triad in college because, for the life of me, I couldn't understand the director's name as pronounced by a California native-- "who the hell is Johnny Moe?" I wondered out loud.

Sadly, the interiors of the Forbidden City are still largely off limits, and on the day we visited the reputedly impressive Hall of Supreme Harmony was closed for tuning, so we missed out on seeing the Dragon Throne, where the Emperor would sit drinking oolong while hosting marathon D&D sessions. The exhibits that were open that day were fairly pedestrian, and the real highlight of the Forbidden City comes at the end when you arrive at its mercifully shaded and inviting Imperial Garden. In fact, if possible, I'd suggest starting here as it's my favorite part. For the Chinese tourists, Vanessa and I seemed a part of Gugong's exotic confines, and several families requested that we join them in there group photos. Sadly, I don't have copies.

The side streets around the Forbidden City are equally interesting, and after passing back through Gugong's towering walls we navigated a constant bombardment of shilling rickshaw pilots, finally turning off the main road, and strolling along a quiet side street. Beijing's Dongcheng area, which is home to Gugong and some of the oldest structures in the city, was bustling with workers, street vendors, some sort of photo shoot, and any number of fellow flâneurs. Stopping in at a few small markets along the way, shopkeepers held fast to insanely inflated prices for beverages, trying to charge us around six times the going rate. Eventually, we flagged down a cab, stopping at a shopping center on the way back to the hotel, where we bought water, beer, and a new pair of sneakers to replace my ill advised white slip-ons, which Dubai had quickly sullied.

Later that evening we took a cab to a great Thai restaurant called Purple Haze, making our selection not so much in honor of my dorky, Hendrix obsessed 12 year old self, but because it was well recommended and deservedly so. As always, we managed to order way too much food, and left feeling sleepy and sated. In fact, I've rarely slept as wells I did in China, where each day held long stretches of walking punctuated by a series of excellent meals.

Shanhgai Finale

2009-05-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

When we boarded the plane for Shanghai I had fairly mild expectations, not because I wasn't excited to visit China, but because the trip had already been rescheduled twice and I'd gotten in the habit of assuming it might not happen at all. Even if I had sat day dreaming of panda bears, chow mein, and firecrackers, I would have been disappointed because we didn't see any of those things.

We did however, see a host of other things that I have yet to describe. And so, before I start posting pictures of our time in Beijing, I thought I would round things out with the following pictures, which include; a sign that I liked, a jazz club that we found ourselves at, a fencing match that I attended in my complimentary Baolong Home Hotel slippers, and a wall made out of recycled suitcases. These are all actually things that I fully expected to see-- it was so obvious.

Shanghai, day 2

2009-05-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

While Vanessa was busy learning about China's informal, yet largely effective recycling program, I made my way to the Shanghai Museum where my fellow explorers were at least as interesting as the exhibits. The Museum offers floor after floor of ceramics, traditional paintings, archaic currencies, seals, furniture and calligraphy, some of which are remarkable not just for their craftsmanship and aesthetic, but also for the distant century in which they were completed.

Directly outside the museum I was approached by the couple pictured below, who initiated a a friendly conversation with me, eventually inviting me to tea. He introduced himself as Tiger, and I can't quite remember what she said her name was, but we can call her Lilly. Tiger and Lilly are tea bandits, desparados who prey upon hapless tourists by luring them into tea houses and ordering delicious food. Actually, they were incredibly nice and helped me figure out how to get to the Youyuan Gardens and Bazaar in Old Town, where I had the most amazing steamed dumplings and paid around a dollar for my entire lunch. Perhaps that helps put the tea house scam into perspective, as they're reputedly quite expensive and the tea bandit's job is to basically get you there, order a lot of food, and then plead poverty when the check arrives. I presume the bandits get a kick back from the tea house, but it could be as simple as a free lunch. In any event, Tiger gave me his digits and offered to hook me up with some sweet tickets to see the Shanghai Acrobats, where his friend has the connect. (Sorry, I watch Weeds, The Wire, and Breaking Bad 18 hours a day, every day, in that order; so the lingo is starting to stick).

Youyan Gardens was only going to be open for an hour longer by the time I found it, as Tiger's directions turned out to be good, but not great. After filling up on dumplings I opted to wander around the market, enjoying the golden hues of the late afternoon. Old Town was abuzz with street vendors, cyclists, carts, students and laconic cab drivers, one of whom I ultimately overpaid just so that he'd drive my exhausted carcass back to the hotel. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be something interesting going on and I spent much of the afternoon glued to my camera. This proved particularly handy when a knock off watch peddler refused to leave me alone. I turned the camera on him, and by the 9th or 10th shot he wandered off to bother someone else. You can see his picture directly below the shot of Snake Eyes asking a cop for directions.

That evening we tried to visit a particularly well regarded Shanghaiese restaurant, but found that they'd closed early for the approaching May Day holiday. Unfazed, we took a picture in front of its massive facade with our host and his food critic pal. I can't remember the name of the restaurant where we wound up, but it was very good as well, and we had our first taste of jelly fish (tastes exactly like blackberry jam). As with all good traveling experiences, almost every meal in Shanghai was a new and toothsome adventure. Some of my favorite restaurants are taquerias and little noodle shops, so for me China was teeming with great food in just the kind of nondescript locales that I enjoy.

Shanghai, day 1

2009-05-17T01:24:00.001-07:00

Arriving at Shanghai's tidy Pudong airport one is immediately rewarded with that illusive sense of finally being elsewhere, a feeling that is of great relief to those of us who reside in a place that is, maddeningly, both everywhere and nowhere. Within a minute of disembarking we had the camera out and Ness was snapping pictures of the recycling bins. Shanghai, a surprisingly colonial city in appearance, feels bureaucratically communistic and yet aggressively capitalistic, both ancient and modern, eastern and western, and yet wholly Chinese. Refreshingly, China has very little of Dubai's identity crisis, and seems to be a place that is much more comfortable with contradiction.

Jing'an Temple, pictured below, embodies China's history of contradiction, and has survived almost complete destruction twice in the last 200 years, most recently at the hands of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. Currently in a state of incomplete renovation, this Buddhist temple's chubby Siddhartha remains exiled in a WWII era bunker that lies beneath the massive stone steps leading to the temple's largest chamber. I spent nearly half a day at the temple taking pictures, and then set out on foot, in thrall to the swarming bicycles, sidewalk marauding moped maneuverers, and overall metropolitan enormity of Shanghai. Excepting an airport hotel in Chicago, I hadn't been anywhere near a real city in around nine months.

I found the temple accidentally on my first day time foray outside the hotel, when my dual purpose of caffeinating and orienting myself led me to a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on the edge of Shanghai's French Concession. Chain restaurants help make cities and suburban areas into exactly the kind of soulless nowhere and everywhere places that exhaust my inexhaustible patience. I have the patience to stay in bed until it's really time to get up, the patience to watch entire baseball games (really only at the park), and the patience to post photographs first and text later; in other words an unyielding patience that drives more productive people to drink. I do not have the patience to eat at TGIFridays on three continents, or to join those who routinely seek the comfort of the familiar over the tangy, unexpected sweetness of something new. As in all my pursuits, I'm both imperfect and hypocritical, having eaten at more than one Cracker Barrel during my time on the east coast.

And yet for coffee, I make an exception-- such are the compromises of an addict. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Shanghai, looks a lot like CB&TL Dubai, which looks a lot like the frat boy/investment banker filled CB&TL on Fillmore in San Francisco which, unsurprisingly, looks a lot like the CB&TL in Los Feliz. And yet the Shanghai branch had one redeeming quality, which is that it afforded a view of the densely packed bicycles and scooters lining the street, which made it impossible to forget that I was in two wheeler loving China, the Costco of human populations.

That night we ate at a Sushi restaurant near the hotel, and wandered into a night club that throbbed with the sound of a competent(ish) funk cover band. The unmistakably cavernous sound of a poorly attended concert stoked both my empathy and resolve to keep it to one drink. With it's koi pond, grasping indoor flora, prayer flags, and chandeliers, the venue itself was infinitely more interesting than the recycled tunes. With The Commodores bouncing around in our heads, we shambled off to the cozy confines of the Baolong Home Hotel.

The Crack in the Sky

2009-04-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

I've finally figured out what Dubai's ultimate aspirational landmark signifies-- it's the giant crack in the sky that marks the end times. The sky isn't falling though, not yet anyway. It just has a lighning bolt shaped rift in its fabric, a rift not unlike the one that has threatened to swallow your local economy. Seen from the edge of town, the Burj Dubai appears almost complete through the gauzy haze of Dubai's soiled air, however it's very much still under construction.

We managed to recover our camera in time for a recent over night in Al Ain, however this picture of the skyline at dusk is about all that we came home with. We did very much enjoy some time away from our increasingly cramped apartment, which now includes one of those pink yoga ball things as a sort of ottoman. I like to sit on the coach with my legs stretched out, balanced precariously on the yoga ball, which happens to be across the room in the kitchen. As a result, I've gotten really good at fixing snacks with my feet, which is one of the perks of being six two-ish. The downside is bumping your head a lot. In fact, I was born with a normal size head, but it has since become so calloused through abuse that, as you can see in most pictures, it is now roughly twice the width of a yoga ball. I'm seriously thinking of becoming an anchorman, or possibly making a run for congress.

My giant cranium did fit nicely in the shiny Audi Q5 that my new best german friends (BGFs) saw fit to lend me for review. While I admit a sense of relief upon reclaiming possession of our noticeably smaller Subaru, the Audi was exceedingly comfortable, offered more features than I had time or patience to enjoy, and would have been more than sporty enough to get several speeding tickets, had I not religiously used the cruise control to rein in its turbo charged 4 cylinder engine.

Rumors have been circulating that revenue strapped Dubai has been issuing an unusual number of dodgy tickets lately, and Ness did in fact get a parking ticket in the exact spot where she's been parking since she started her job last summer. Anyway, it was nice to have use of the Audi for our trip, and if you absolutely have to own an flashy luxury SUV, this one at least isn't hideously ugly like the American offerings. But really, the car that Dubai makes me want to own is a VW micro bus. An old, weather beaten one, with a "Too slow? Too bad." bumper sticker-- we could use the affordable housing.

Dragon Boating

2009-04-19T23:49:00.001-07:00

On a recent hazy Friday morning we had our first taste of dragon boat racing, rowing on behalf of a mostly rookie team organized by our friend Francis. Dragon boating is a fairly enjoyable form of rowing that, perhaps like other team rowing events, requires that team members row precisely in time with each other. If you lose the rhythm each person's effort will start to counteract that of their cohorts, making for the sort of team building metaphor that might give a motivational speaker the strength to get out of bed in the morning, but probably not. I can't say that our timing was excellent, but the crew of good ol' number three never quite came in dead last and that's good enough for me.

In the topmost picture you can see the hull of an immense wooden boat being constructed on the opposite shore. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of these beauties, but from the water they were quite impressive. And really, that was the best part of the race for me; being out on the water at an hour when I'm typically contemplating the inside of my eyelids.

Dubai has become a favorite target in the UK press of late, causing enough of a stir that the Sheikh held a Q&A with local journalists over the weekend, something he reportedly hasn't done since 2001. I haven't read the Q&A yet, but one perhaps telling criticism is that international journalists were apparently not invited to participate. Among the headlines in yesterday's news cycle, were the Sheikh's pronouncement that the worst of the credit crunch is over, and a report by Colliers International that residential real estate prices in Dubai have dropped by 40%. While it's very difficult to know what will happen in the next few months, one definite possibility is that you may be seeing us a bit sooner than expected.

One of the main reasons we came to Dubai was for the travel opportunities, and later this month we will be traveling to China for Nessa's job. Dubai is an excellent hub for visiting much of the world, and quite often does an excellent job of making you wish you were somewhere else. We hope to take advantage of being here by taking a few more trips before our time in the middle east comes to a close. Here's hoping China is just one of a few interesting destinations on our horizon.

One more reason to become a shut-in

2009-03-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

Our camera is on loan to some friends with a new baby, so here's a picture I took one day at the mall near our house. Judging by the wreaths, this must have been sometime around December, when the siren song of Christmas was wailing out of the shops here. Normally, wailing is left to the Muezzin, who's call to prayer excites the ether several times a day. Dubai is, if anything, a place of many contradictions. For instance, aside from certain designated free zones, which are typically several km outside the city itself, all businesses here are established in partnership with an Emarati local. If, for instance, I were to open my dream business; The Haiku Hut, purveyor of mercifully brief poetry, I would have to find a local business partner. Fine right? No reason that local businesses shouldn't benefit local people. Actually, local business is a bit of a stretch when you're talking about Ikea, or The Dubai Hilton, as all companies, large and small must play by this rule. It gets interesting in the case of hotels, as they have long been the locus of exception, which is to say, the places where people go to drink.

Recently, I met a coworker of Vanessa's for the first time, on one of her office's weekly after hours offsite meetings which, subject to UK rules, involve more than a few pints. Alcohol is currently a distant third to coffee and claritin, in my party regimen, and I had one unpronounceable beer before the two of us felt the call of the pillow. This coworker, who's name wouldn't mean anything to you anyway, thoroughly enjoyed himself until grabbing a cab home in the wee hours. He then spent the next fourteen or so hours sleeping off the night's excess, and then cabbed back to his car at the hotel where we'd been encamped. Somewhere between the hotel and his apartment he got into a minor scrape with a stationary object and, wanting to avoid the incredible hassle of an undocumented ding in his car, he called the police right then and there to settle the matter. This turned out to be a huge mistake, as the first thing the police did was give him a breathalyzer, which he failed. Now, failing a breathalyzer test is bad anywhere, but it's especially bad here and, conversely, much easier to do as the legal blood alcohol level in Dubai is zero. Additionally, he was charged with drinking without a license, as all Dubai residents are required to obtain a license to purchase alcohol.

As I recall from my last visit to online traffic school, the legal limit in the US is .08 BAC. So, as the DMV hand book goes, you need to wait at least an hour per drink (and one Pint is two cups and therefore two drinks by this reckoning) before you get behind the wheel, although this varies considerably by body weight etc. Now, that rule of thumb is designed to keep your BAC below .08. After hearing about this person's arrest, I started to wonder how long it would take for the average person to metabolize, excrete, and evaporate one beer completely out of their system, to the point where they'd be in compliance with the zero tolerance laws. Morning after DUIs are apparently quite common all over the world, and it would seem to be a pretty serious peril in the UAE, where it's illegal to drive with any alcohol in your system.

Yesterday we had news that our acquaintance was out of jail. He'd been in a holding cell, one that is currently operating at about five times capacity, for nine days. The holding cell, unlike your typical drunk tank, was one huge general population cell filled with hundreds of criminals of all ilk, including the really bad kind of ilk: murderous ilk. He's now facing deportation, which I suppose could mean the loss of his job, and a hefty fine. His employer had retained an attorney the first day that he was incarcerated, and for whatever reason, it took around nine days for him to be released.

Dubai has long maintained a tension between conservative islamic values and a growing expatriate culture that makes very little concession to local tradition. This tacitly accepting coexistence has been challenged lately, not just by dwindling economic prospects, ostentatious wealth is the one thing 90% of Dubai residents agree on-- they really like it, but also by a tightening of rules governing public behavior. Because new laws in Dubai are announced via press release, and this particular release was only sent to one paper, it appears that no one really knows what the hell is going on. We heard recently that undercover cops, sometimes referred to colloquially as pigs in a blanket, have been questioning and arresting pub crawlers on foot for lacking the proper alcohol license. The bars here will card you if you look under age, but they never check you alcohol license, as it's really only needed at the actual liquor store. Liquor stores are so low profile, and obliquely named here, that it took me months to notice that there's one on either side of our grocery store. I think one of them is called Marine Mercantile, or something like that, and all the windows are painted out-- no Cap'n Cork in Dubai.

It bothers me that local business interests profit significantly from the sale of alcohol, while at the same time local laws create a jackpot (in the Cormac McCarthy sense) in which consuming alcohol can very easily draw a sober driver or a drunk pedestrian into serious legal and financial trouble. I understand that in each case, theoretical or otherwise, the person in question broke the law, what galls me though, is that they did so in an effort to behave responsibly, and fell victim to laws that are not enforced equally, or consistently with international measures of sobriety. I take exception to a great many driving behaviors that place other people's lives in jeopardy, of which driving drunk is the undeniable apex. I would add that, if you sell liquor out of one side of your mouth, and then throw your customers in jail, with the assumption of guilt rather than innocence, for what is at least sometimes responsible behavior, leaving them in confinement for seemingly random lengths of time; well, then you may resemble Vonnegut's famous asterisk.

Warmer, dustier, and less affluent

2009-03-15T03:36:00.001-07:00

The weather is warming up here, and is still very pleasant, although rising temperatures have helped lower visibility significantly, giving the town a closed in, almost claustrophobic feeling. This winter the sky had returned with its wide blue canopy, only to contract slowly in lockstep with the Dubai economy. Air conditioners are whirring and cooling again with greater regularity, raising Dubai's always impressive noise floor by several decibels. While news agencies have reported a great exodus of expatriate workers, many of whom have reportedly abandoned there sizable UAE debts, I can't say that is has effected my own routine as the major thoroughfares, grocery stores, and movie theaters that I frequent seem equally over impacted. Vanessa's commute has been improved by diminished traffic, so the lack of change I can observe on foot, as I make my daily circuit of wealthy Jumeriah 3, is obviously limited. I do get the sense that the already impatient, aggressive style of driving that characterizes Dubai's highways has worsened, as if the general population's tolerance for one another has been inflamed by the harsh economic climate.

I have been thinking a lot about economic bubbles lately, and my own experience with them. Until recently, I had never thought about things in these terms, but I am now confident that I am a harbinger of economic doom. The first bubble that popped in my presence was known as the dot com boom (DCB). The DCB's feverish, speculation driven gains eroded quickly when I arrived in then start-up crazed Seattle in late 1999. Just after the new year I began working on high profile IPOs as a lowly proofreader. At the time, my small contribution to the dreary futures of companies like homegrocer.com, drugstore.com, and dateafelon.com seemed insignificant, as each company successively went public just as NASDAQ began to implode. Further evidence leads me to believe that this was no mere coincidence.

I stayed in that business for a while before moving on to commercial printing, an arcane practice that involved adhering ink to a material called paper. Paper, a typically white, fabric like sheet with relatively poor tensile strength, was once manufactured all over the US, and was made out of finely sliced trees and noxious chemicals. Shortly after my arrival at that company, which was called Odd Graphics, people stopped reading books and magazines and the word paper fell out of popular usage as printing was quickly eclipsed by a new technology called youtube.

When I moved to Dubai, I discovered that paper still existed in the third world, and that they in fact had a thriving print media market that was willing to employ just about anyone who, like myself, could hum a few bars of a Strunk and White tune. Shortly after my arrival, the world economy promptly cratered, causing a chain reaction that would ultimately detonate Dubai's economic bubble, splattering its ectoplasmic remains across the desert. The harbinger of economic doom had finally come to town. Now, one single question remains on the hooded brow of the one they sometimes call Slim Reaper-- where to next?

Tulum

2009-03-01T01:07:00.000-08:00

We've been back from Mexico for over a week now, but neither of us is back on Dubai time yet. I blame this on our unconscious will not to have returned at all-- we'd rather still be in Mexico, and as a result our bodies are refusing to cooperate. We've been counteracting this problem with a box, yes a box, of red wine that was left over from a baby shower. I don't quite understand drinking at a baby shower, as the guest of honor is well under 21, but maybe that's why I've never been invited to one, I'm a stick in the mud. Our hefty box of "Rain Dance Red," which really isn't bad at all, helps a tad when combined with generic tylenol PM, although this has proven to be a perilous combination. There's been quite a bit of trial and error as we've tried to re-set our internal clocks, and this weekend we initially found ourselves rather wired by these over the counter pills (may cause sleep disturbances) until we ultimately crashed out until almost 3pm the next day.

I don't think I can describe how excellent our trip was, because at the moment, rather than sustaining us, it just makes us more home sick. Still, getting away from Dubai has improved my conception of just what a grand adventure this has been, and continues to be. As reported in the news, these are financially uncertain times in the Gulf, although saying so in print might be illegal in certain countries. One thing that I know first hand, is that enduring lay-offs is hard on the remaining staff, as they're often short handed and saddled with a form of survivor's guilt as the unnatural selection practiced by managers can be terribly confusing. Typically, social outcasts and non-performing office pariahs will flesh out the first wave-- but from there it gets murky. Sometimes, they prey on the old, whose 3% annual salary increases have added up quite handsomely over their 90 odd years of faithful service. So yes, let's get rid of these people, if they had any salt they'd have climbed the ladder long ago, probably by landing a better gig at a competing outfit. Then there's the contrarian, while his or her voice of dissent may have been sharp and atonal at times, he or she likely made a few good points as well, which made someone look bad. Gone. And so on and so forth. If it were up to me, I'd get rid of the gas bags who inevitably drag meetings that should have lasted 15 minutes into the one hour plus territory. These are the people who will debate the merits of inane details, like whether to use a zero or a one as a placeholder in a database, until actual pressing matters, lunch for instance, ultimately close the meeting with the ridiculous debate still looming. These narcissistic vocalists are seldom laid off, because unlike the contrarian, they're always coming up with solutions. The problem, in my opinion, is that the solutions are usually inane and create more unnecessary work for support staff, serving mainly as a platform for their braying and bickering. These are the people who make you want to get laid off.

I should be quick to add, these are my experiences, not my wife's. She happens to work with a pretty incredible group of people at the moment, and as I understand it, their meetings are quite brief. And yet, given the slowdown, this is a stressful time and I'm sure it's been difficult to watch people cleaning out their desks. For me, I can't say that my freelance assignments have slowed yet, but I have noticed that ad pages are way down, and that's hardly a good sign. I'm not in a position to be let go per se, but the work certainly could dry up. I imagine, that as hiring is frozen at nearly every UAE publisher, the need for freelancers will remain relatively static as long as the titles remain active. I guess we'll see what happens.

Slumberjack

2009-02-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

Our landlord and neighbor, Nabil, has become something more than a friend to us, taking on a role that I can only describe as Crazy Adoptive Uncle from Arabia. He is a guide of sorts, offering the type of insider information that only locals hold, such as the fact that there's both a corner store and laundry service randomly situated within the interior of our little suburban beach community. Although these convenient outposts are only a few blocks from our door, I probably wouldn't have ever noticed them, as a combination of speed bumps and oddly disconnected streets might have kept me off that block indefinitely.

Nabil is also a conspiracy theorist of sorts, tilting his head down and looking at us appraisingly as he asks "you know the real story though, right?" What follows is often a mixture of healthy political skepticism, outright paranoia, and the occasional cultural roadblock that must be ignored. We are guests here after all, and I'm not about to start an argument. He has a lot to say that I agree with, for instance, we've both come to the conclusion that Hollywood's depiction of Islam is ham-handed and narrow. Naturally action films need bad guys, and so the world's small population of Jihadists have become the Commies of today's cinema.

Recently, Nabil announced that operating a chainsaw was his new hobby, and as his next door neighbor, I can attest that he's taken to this emerging sport with impressive zeal. Over the last several months the weather in Dubai has been nearly perfect, and in appreciation of this fact Nabil and family have moved operations into their large courtyard. We joined them there for Sangria, late one night a few months back, and I was impressed by the crackling fire and the large cache of wood stacked up along the side of the house. At some point, Vanessa asked him where he got the wood from, and he replied: "Oh you know, around the neighborhood." That night, Nabil's standard uniform, a white dishsadasha, bore the rosy smudges of an evening spent around a punchbowl full of wine and fruit. More recently, his clothes been marked by dust and bark .

We'd already heard the chainsaw several times by the afternoon when Nabil announced his new hobby, and he has very considerately offered to sheath his mighty saw if the noise ever becomes a nuisance: "One missed call from you and I will know; too much noise." And while the roar of a power tool, firing up around 11pm on a weeknight, might be annoying in another context, we can't help but turning to each other and laughing when we hear his late night lumberjack's song. Lying there in bed, it's easy to imagine him next door, his smile bright and menacing as he cuts into some tree trunk he's liberated from a construction site.

After repeatedly promising to let him know if the noise ever became a problem, an unexpected series of gifts began to appear in the front yard. Ever since we moved in we'd been talking about planting a tree to replace one that had died and been torn out. We even made it so far as to buy a tree at a nursery, only to return it and generate an, as of yet, unused credit at a store that will probably go out of business soon. So we were surprised to wake up one morning to find that a tree had been planted in the sandy spot where we'd burned our prayer sticks on New Years Eve.

It wasn't until the second, and then third new plant appeared in the yard that I began to suspect that the mighty chainsaw had been wielded in our favor. We had regularly shared in the noise of the saw, now we would share in its bounty. At the same time, the apartment next door is vacant, and I regularly hear Nabil conducting open houses, his sales pitch goes: "where else in Dubai can you have private garden with apartment? I will tell you; nowhere." So I also suspect that the garden value proposition is being ratcheted up as rents continue to decline all over the city. It may also be a conciliatory gesture to those of us locked in at the old, higher rates-- especially those of us with (hopefully one time) mold problems.

We learned a few months ago that the four identical houses being built across the street from as, as pictured above, aren't the polygamist compound we'd imagined, but four cookie cutter rental properties. Vanessa had set upon the polygamy theory because, while multiple wives are acceptable amongst the wealthy here, the Koran apparently indicates that each wife should have an equally plush Villa and Teutonic SUV. Our dream of having quasi Mormon neighbors was dashed when it was revealed by another neighbor that the property belongs to a group of disgruntled half brothers, themselves the product of polygamy, who have erected the four identical villas at the suggestion of the Chief of Police. The Chief, who lives nearby, apparently wanders the streets at night, mediating complicated family disputes. Nabil should be careful, lest the pedestrian lawman stumble across one of his late night poaching sprees, which by the way, must be pretty damn loud. And so, the progress of these houses has served as a visual marker of our time here, each one changing a little each day, as our understanding of Dubai continues to evolve.

Return to Oman

2009-02-01T23:30:00.001-08:00

This past weekend we drove over to Dibba, part of the Omani annex that lies, disconnected from contiguous Oman, at the northwestern tip of the UAE. Dibba is a sleepy fishing village with a few resorts, just over the border from Fujairah. We had followed our friends Jane and Andy from Dubai, trusting their many years of experience as Safari guides in the African bush would help lead us to our destination. In fact, this particular UAE/Oman border crossing is more relaxed than the main Oman border, and I was able to present Vanessa's passport while she slept heavily in the passenger seat. Still, the ever watchful UAE border police did wonder aloud about her prone position, and I assured them that she was only napping.

We set up camp at the end of a long beach, as far as possible from the moronic escapades of several full size SUVs, one monster truck, and two quad bikes-- one of which appeared to be hobbled by some mechanical ailment that perhaps inspired the removal of the muffler from the second, otherwise working, vehicle. The overcompensating quad's throaty roar seemed to shake the canyon behind us as the rider dumped the clutch, thrusting his front wheels into the air and tearing across the beach. The bike's flatulence reminded me of one morning last year, when I started up my small Toyota pickup to find that thieves had stolen my catalytic converter in the night, disabling the exhaust system in the bargain and earning me a lot of unwanted attention as I drove through a throng of critical mass riders later that morning.

Eventually, the automotive revelers were replaced by a paramilitary dance group, whose chanting, drumming and inexplicable psychedelic organ playing continued into the wee hours. We did our best to ignore them, cooking over an open flame, and enjoying the fresh air and multiplying stars from our graffitied corner of the beach.

The next day we drove back accross the border and breakfasted at Le Meridien, also home to the dive center that would take us Snorkeling/Diving that afternoon. As it turns out, a red tide had suffocated the reef months earlier, cutting off its sunlight for weeks at a time, and the resultant destruction had severely impacted the ecosystem. There were a few sharks, clown fish, and eels on hand, but the amount of sea life was hugely decreased since Vanessa's visit there six months ago. Still, it felt wonderful to be out on the water, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

On the return trip we stopped at a road side market to buy two clay pots for our front porch, and met a few local characters in the bargain. We met a man in yellow sweater emblazoned with the number 23, who explained that he had been a sailor and truck driver all over the world. Upon hearing that we were from California, he listed off the numerous port cities that he'd visited before coming to the UAE and buying his own long haul rig. I tried to give my new good buddy a big ten four, but he shook his head, walking away in quiet disgust. We negotiated with the merchants, shaving a dirham or two off the price here and there, sampling fruits we'd never seen or heard of, and ultimately declining to try the salted sardines, which sat heaped in the late afternoon sun, flies festering from every nook and cranny. It was the perfect end to our brief escape from what has become a festering nook in its own right, as the unexpectedly wet winter has brought an outbreak of mold to our poorly ventilated apartment-- not to worry though, Sheriff Bleach has recently arrived on the scene, and all is well in Arabia.

One for the road

2009-01-20T02:04:00.000-08:00

While the car remains one of my favorite places to listen to music, I've found myself gravitating more and more towards audio books as a means to enliven long drives. When we're at home in Oakland, we have the good fortune to live on the same block as a public library. As it's a small branch, I also used to make frequent trips to the downtown branch, where the selection is superior. Late one night as I was packing for a trip to Ventura, I realized I'd forgotten to visit the library, and wouldn't have a book to pass the time, so I did a quick google search and struck literary gold with librivox.org.

Now, Robin Cook fans will be disappointed to read that librivox deals only in works that are in the public domain, so fans of histrionic medical dramas will be forced to look elsewhere. Still, there's plenty of Twain, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hawthorne, so you can at least avoid UK spelling, which just sounds weird on mp3. Another advantage that librivox has over the library, which admittedly does offer a tantalizing supply of potboilers to pass the miles, is that you can copy the files right onto your ipod, which beats swapping discs every hour and a half, or ripping ten CD's the night before.

The audio quality and performance vary somewhat, and some novels feature a revolving cast of readers, which always seems to make the least capable orators all the more obvious. I've been considering volunteering, as I have all I need to make a professional recording here in Dubai, and would love to contribute to this excellent resource.

Lastly, because many folks just don't enjoy downloading legal content, here's a blog offering over twenty unreleased white album demos. I had planned on describing the sound of the generator we encountered at TBR by linking to the album version of "Back In The USSR", with it's opening woosh of jet noise, but I became distracted when I found these recordings-- score one for the legal team at Apple Corp, sort of.

Oman! You Devil.

2009-01-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

It is almost impossible for me to talk about Oman without comparing it to Dubai, which is the only region of the Middle East that I know well, or at all. The essence of my feelings on these two neighboring countries can be distilled into two anecdotes, the first of which occurred while we were staying at the Turtle Beach Resort (TBR) in Ras Al Jinz, Oman.

TBR is made up of ten or twelve humble straw roofed huts, which are comfortable enough, and have a slightly rugged charm, allowing the occupant to muse: "See? I'm not as soft as you think I am." All from the comfort of a queen size bed that is probably decked out with feather pillows brought from home. The first evening at TBR passed in tranquil fashion, as Vanessa and I seemed to have the place nearly to ourselves. In the morning, the resort's smattering of middle aged guests emerged well before us, and were already sunning themselves on the beach while we policed our breakfast plates against a squadron of Omani flies.

We were still recovering from 36 hours of (mostly) driving and sleeping, and allowed ourselves a day of lazing around the beach and shack which, at its most active, included a dusty game of basketball with some gullible local children. "Isn't that Yusuf Islam?" I would exclaim, pointing and squinting into the distance as they turned to join me, knowing full well that Yusuf's latest album went triple frankincense in Oman. Having effectively diverted the ten year olds, I quickly passed the ball to Nessa down court where she proceeded to finger roll another two points for Team USA.

Needless to say, we were greatly enjoying our time at TBR, and continued to do so despite the arrival of a gang of cell phone encrusted Dubai residents, who had mistakenly booked TBR believing that it was some sort of luxury hotel with a night club and custom tortoise shell dance floor.

Later, as I lay my head on the pillow, reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest for the first time, our new neighbors proceeded to power up the AC in their shack, igniting a tortured sounding generator that turned out to be located six feet from my head, just outside our poorly insulated hut. I don't expect huts to be well insulated per se, but I also don't expect them to have air conditioning. I suppose the reason I most resented the resulting 14 hour mechanical serenade, was that the temperature was quite reasonable, on the cool side if anything. It's possible that the noise might have been meant to obscure the couple's amorous plans for the evening, but it proved no match for their braying affections, which suggested a film acting pedigree quite unexpected in an islamic state.

When I awoke the next morning to find the AC/generator still whirring like a broken refrigerator perched inside my ear canal, I exacted my revenge by pounding on the walls of our hut, shouting over and over, "goddamn these plastic nails!" Still, I can't be sure that our slumbering neighbors heard me, as my antics probably blended in with the white noise of their personal comfort. I realize that I'm whining about minor irritations, but isn't a vacation hopefully a respite from such aggravation, especially when the nearest town is a sparsely populated fishing village? We relished our break from Dubai, so when Dubai came to us in Oman, it was quite unwelcome.

My second story about Oman, isn't so much a story, but the paraphrasing of an email I received from my friend and editor, Andy. Upon our return, I had sent him a new article, along with a note thanking him and his wife for recommending the Oman Dive Center (ODC) in Muscat, where we stayed for two nights towards the end of our trip. Returning from TBR at the start of the work week, we sailed smoothly down Oman's recently opened coastal highway, which afforded excellent views of the Gulf, and the pleasure of sailing through toll booths that weren't yet operational. The ODC is a somewhat more refined resort than TBR, in that the huts are a better furnished and more finished looking in general, including their own open air shower and bathroom. Nestled behind the hut and, protected by rock walls about five feet high, the shower was like some excellent backyard patio with an overhead sprinkler. Also, the coffee is pretty good at ODC, whereas TBR serves instant. Within minutes of receiving my email Andy wrote back the following reply, he'd just returned from almost a month in his native Australia:

"Yeah, having a little trouble adjusting myself-- wish I lived in Oman instead of Dubai."

Liam Getting Harried

2009-01-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Last night, "Rachel Getting Married" thoroughly trampled our spirits, mercifully offering a modest emotional uptick towards the end, along with some slightly whingy Robin Hitchcock tunes, and one enjoyable samba troupe. Unlike RGM's interminably glum and self involved cinematic doppleganger, "Margot at the Wedding," which I wish I hadn't bothered to finish (all squid and no whale), RGM features slightly more recognizable characters, even if the calmest among them often have the least lines, leaving the leads to carry the show with their raw, shrill emotions. All in all, it was one of the better movies we've seen here, but moviegoing in Dubai is a mixed bag.

First of all, people talk and text constantly, and while I've gotten much better at blocking it out, it's still irritating. At RGM we were seated next to a group of middle aged muslim men and women who clucked their tongues disparagingly at the onscreen samba dancer's PG rated dance-kini, and otherwise seemed engaged in a running dialogue about their favorite character, the fictional family's pet poodle. The clucking was actually pretty tame compared to the riotous laughter that broke out during the last scene of "Australia," which we saw earlier in the week, when the aboriginal character King George's bare rump is displayed as he heads off into the light bending heat of the outback. George's ass completely slew the Emiratis next to us, they were practically falling out of their seats, and it was actually fairly infectious, if slightly unnerving. Somehow, the shared viewing experience that can make moviegoing so different from DVD, is broken here by the intense parallelism of culture, i.e. we are concurrently watching different movies play out on the same screen.

The second discouraging fact of moviegoing in Dubai is that the selection is usually pretty grim, last night, for instance, our options included; Pride and Glory, Genghis Kahn, The REC, The Women, RGM, Donkey Xote, Strange Wilderness, Traitor, Anywhere But Home (I think this was called Four Christmases in the US), Bedtime Stories, Australia, Bolt, Transporter Three, and Madagascar 2, the best of which we'd already seen. I've watched and enjoyed more mediocre films here than at perhaps any other time in my life, due to the fact the I simply like going to the movies and mediocre is after all, a relative term. In fact, the surprising thing about the above list is that it contains an unusually low number of horror movies for Dubai, a genre I've never really loved. In the UAE, a country where movies are regularly censored for sexual images and language, the low budget independent slasher flick reigns supreme, splashing crimson across multiplex screens alongside the latest Pixar offering, and what ever dreck Cameron Diaz has lent her two expressions to.

After the movie we stopped by Malecon, Dubai's lone cuban bar, the interior of which is completely covered in an admirably thorough amount of bar sponsored graffiti, much of which must have required a ladder or human pyramid to engrave. I was reminded of the Washoe House, a roadhouse in my beloved Sonoma county that, at least when I was there some 20 years ago with my pops, has its entire ceiling covered in dollar bills, business cards, and drunken missives scrawled out on cocktail napkins. Perhaps that, and the familiar faux cuban interior, are what help Malecon to offer a somewhat transportive atmosphere. The bar offers a carefully crafted dive feel, and I've always found fancy bars are best left to fancy people. Walking towards the rear of the dining area where the men's room awaited, I was lulled into a state of passivity by the musical chatter of a slightly harassed looking table of spanish speaking diners. Pushing open the men's room door I was surprised to find a startled looking attendant bidding farewell to the previous occupant. While I'm happy to tip an attendant, especially at the nicer hotels where such a thing is expected, I'm never sure what the protocol is at the mall or the airport, where such a thing seems unnecessary, like having a caddy at a miniature golf game. And really, I'm perfectly happy to get my own paper towel.

I'm somewhat neurotic about appropriate tipping, but have had my usual adherence to the sort of mutual appreciation usually practiced by former service industry drones (like me) eroded by the vagaries of Dubai's bizarre social strata. For instance, many restaurants add a 10% service charge to the bill, but I find it unlikely that the server ends up seeing this money. Additionally, tipping isn't expected here the way it is at home, and Dubai's typically lousy service probably stems from that lack of incentive, coupled with an annoying brand of politesse that forbids bringing the bill unbidden or even dropping by to see if we might like to pay, having finished our meal the previous week. And so, darting into a private stall, not because I'm pee shy, or worried about some republican senator making overtures (different strokes), but because I need a moment to check my pockets for cash, which I typically lack. Happily, the attendant was absent when I opened the stall door, so I washed up and got the hell out of there without having to explain that I lacked even a one Dirham coin.

I wasn't so lucky when meeting my first Dubai panhandler at the grocery store last weekend, the economic significance of which I've been pondering ever since. Upon parking I was approached by a smiling pakistani fellow with unusually inflamed looking gums. Raising his hand to his mouth in pantomime he managed to eek out the word "hungry," and I did my best to convey that I would try and help but that I needed to unload my recycling first. Eventually it became clear that I had more than I could carry and he reluctantly gave me a hand, I suppose he was new to the guilt game. After which I repeated the word "hungry" with rising intonation and gesture toward the market. "Money?" He replied. Naturally, I didn't have any cash and, showing him my credit card to indicate my willingness to help, he shrugged and walked way. When I finally returned to the car with several bags of groceries he was nowhere to be seen until I started to back out of my spot and he suddenly appeared from the bushes making the same gesture he'd first hailed me with. So, stopping the car and rifling through the bags in the back, I finally bestowed him with a large bottle of water, a couple bananas and some excellent potato scones (probably not what you're thinking of, but are more like a cross between flat bread and potato pancakes) from the bakery, which he reluctantly accepted, turning away bag in hand without a word of thanks. That's alright though, he may not have known how.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T22:56:00.000-08:00

When my sister was a little girl she used to sing along to the Disney theme each weekend at the start of Disney's family hour on ABC. Our Grandmother Ann, a working actress in Los Angeles, loathed Disney and their three quarter scale fascism, yet such things are lost on children. This was in an age when the world hadn't yet learned to despise CEOs, and Michael Eiesner's puffy visage was a regular feature at the show's opening, offering bland moralism straight from the offices of what might be the most litigious company on earth. Anyway, we used to watch the show from time to time and Kate would sing along to the theme (wait for the hook, maybe 6 seconds in), except she had the lyrics wrong and would sing "everything your heart desires will be set on fire." My Dad thought this was especially terrific and used to sing it with her until it eventually became a standard tune around the house.

This new year's eve Vanessa presented two Hindu prayer sticks as our main form of entertainment, as we'd opted to spend the evening on our own, as is our tradition. Actually, anyone seeking a mob of like minded party people was no doubt disappointed to hear that Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and official mouthful had cancelled all of Dubai's NYE celebrations in a show of solidarity with Palestine. With our own plans unaffected by that sad, interminable conflict, we set about writing our wishes for the new year on the prayer sticks, which are sort of like slightly ornate, oversized bookmarks. The basic concept is that you write out a wish and then set it ablaze, which I've come to see as a form of letting go. It's interesting that we chose the new year to make resolutions, when the passing of each year actually marks the slight narrowing of possibility. Perhaps that is the point though, the march of time means selecting your commitments more carefully, and since they might include things like actually going to the gym, or rejecting bacon as a food group, your resolve could have the effect of widening the spectrum of possibility ever so slightly.

And so, at around 23:55 Dubai time, we took our wishes out into the yard and set them ablaze. There was an eery fog hanging over us that seemed to steal the breath from the flame, but with time and patience we were able to reduce our aspirational popsicle sticks to a satisfying ash. While my wish was singular, and related to our extended family, Vanessa chose a scattershot approach, including what I suspect were references to the Kyoto Protocol, and a nod to good shoes among many other important subjects.

And so, with 2009 seizing us in it's infantile grip, we find ourselves wondering what the year will hold. Dubai has seen it's share of economic slow down, with layoffs throughout its mitochondrial property development industry. Like anywhere else, Dubai is populated by a range of optimists and alarmists, with some developers and consultants proclaiming the end of green in Dubai, even though it's principles are currently being set into law. I hear this from the panic stricken mostly, one German architectural consultant that I met at a party was plotting layoffs and a potential move to Saudi Arabia based on one project cancellation, and generally preaching despair to anyone who would listen. These types always assume green will be the first casualty because the initial costs are higher. As our friend Ben (a self described "evil developer") pointed out a few months back, developers don't realize the benefits of sustainability because so few of them are owner operators, so any energy and subsequent cost savings will be realized by the buyers and therefore requires legislation, subsidy, or serious marketing clout in order to have real teeth.

Dubai, because it's ruled by one person, has the ability to make these sort of radical reforms into law overnight, but it's certainly true that we are heading into a period of greater economic conservatism, at least in the apolitical sense. Naturally, we can't help but wonder what our own fortune may be in Dubai over the coming year. Thus far, the signs are fairly positive for us personally, but having weathered nearly four years of continual corporate layoffs myself, I know first hand that you can simply never know for sure. In fact, seeing your co-workers let go is difficult for those who are spared, there's a sort of survivors guilt that comes with empty desks and overabundant sticky notes.

Breadsauce and Christmas Pudding

2008-12-28T00:51:00.001-08:00

Now that I've finally had Christmas pudding, I can see why the British despise Bill Cosby, whose saccharine Jello ads promote a product that is completely unrecognizable to our powdered wig sporting friends. Christmas pudding is like a cross between a good fruitcake (let's postulate for the moment that such a thing actually exists) and a really good bran muffin, served broken up in a bowl and still relatively moist from the oven. We also had something called breadsauce, which to my surprise was not a type of beer. Breadsauce looks a lot like oatmeal, but tastes like wheat bread in sauce form, making it's name rather practical. This is perhaps the opposite of welsh rarebit, which is cheese on toast according to one welshman present at our feast.

English Chistmas seems to be fairly similar to our own, except there's a good deal more drinking and you have to wear a waistcoat. While many American's seem to retain some microbial amount of puritan shame, Brits are happy to drink to excess alongside their parents, grandparents, and religious officials-- in fact it seems to be encouraged and makes Christmas more exciting. In this state of ecstatic truthfulness, not one of the poms expressed even a hint of animosity toward us colonials for going are own way, isn't that nice? Even better, David Beckham's name never came up at all, although I did find out that Bay Watch is an infinitely more potent cultural export than I had imagined, fairly trouncing any other book, movie or television show as an instantly recognizable charades topic. Phil merely puffed out his chest and jogged a few slow motion steps to elicit an almost instant chorus of correct answers. This was, sadly, quite the opposite of "On The Road," which was identified phonetically although no one seemed to know the book. I'm sure ol' Jack was too drunk to care, wherever he is.

Other festivity highlights include Vanessa's conception of, sole entry into, and victory in the ugly christmas sweater contest. Secretly, her sweater is actually a Christmas tree stand cozy, but she wore it as a sort of serape and scored a box of chocolates as her prize. We also had a Christmas quiz, courtesy of our hosts Mark and Caroline, and played an impromptu version of pictionary, that was really just charades on paper, and a lot of fun. We also exchanged gifts in secret santa fashion, with everyone taking a wobbly turn on our gregarious Seeth Ifrican Santa's lap. I somehow managed to draw my own gift, The Godfather, at random, which was fine with me since they were mostly gag gifts anyway. Vanessa did OK as well, drawing a bottle of champagne and managing to avoid the Mrs. Claus costume and steering wheel cozy that others were saddled with. Since we couldn't be at home, this was a very good place to spend the holiday and we lavished a fair amount of attention on our little pal Harvey, as we were missing our new niece Sonia. We did get to coo at her later that night via Skype, which was great. Some people are embarrassed by the way that babies reduce grown men and women to gurgling imbeciles, but for me it's just status quo.

Lay down on the mat and count to three

2008-12-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

Well it's been an interesting few days, if only for the fact that I've been busier than ever and not especially pleased about it. Now, before you beat me over the head with your trusty work ethic, puritan or otherwise, know that this problem isn't ultimately one of quantity but rather one of quality.

First of all, those who know me will recognize that I'm an unlikely candidate for producing matter of fact coverage on celebrity hair styles. I thought I had clearance to write up a slightly bemused examination of why one might be a committed barber shop or salon patron, but no dice. This angle was enjoyable because I got to make reference to The Godfather and an early Howard Hawk's gangster flick, as a matter of setting the scene. Eventually I was disabused of this approach by the editorial powers that be, and forced to write about David Beckham's faux hawk. It was, dear friends, a soul destroying defeat, and I've been scrubbing the single digit I use for typing obsessively ever since, futilely trying to get the dirty off.

I had hoped to ease into the holiday this week, but have had my deadline pushed forward fairly abruptly at Freehold Weekly (the UAE's premier wrestling journal) and now find myself straining to form the requisite number of sentences by close of business. You may be wondering why I'm posting here then, but in doing so you would be betraying your own managerial tendencies, which, really shouldn't be spoken of in public, or private. I subscribe to sufficiency instead, if I can meet my deadline then I've passed the test, everything other than actual typing (with my single aching finger) constitutes a lunch break. Soon, I'm hoping to take a week long lunch break-- I wonder what I'll eat?

These small setbacks aren't so small when you're living 8000 miles from home, although this is a good time to mention that our many ex-pat and local friends here in Dubai are a great comfort, and have made much effort to include us in their holiday plans. Still, I'm afraid I'm mostly lacking any holiday spirit and currently find Dubai a place to be endured more than enjoyed. I miss Oakland, and find it difficult to trust a city that favors cinderblock dormitories and slave wages over free range homeless people with their festive hats and carts full of liberated recyclables.

I suppose I'm making the point that both places have their share of problems, yet somehow one's own domestic troubles (in the municipal sense) seem much less menacing than those of a strange land that is overtaken every four hours or so by the eery atonal yodeling of call to prayer. I cannot, at this point, really ever imagine feeling completely at home here, and that's probably OK. Please don't think less of me, I have always been a Cancerian creature of comfort. Yet, whenever I travel I have the sense that life remains essentially unchanged almost everywhere you go, which isn't to say that different corners of the world don't experience an undue share of suffering, but that the fundamental rituals of being alive each day remain surprisingly similar. I suppose it's those relatively small differences that make us who we are, meaning that if you talk fancy and like your baked beans savory you then must be from the UK, while someone like me prefers sweetened baked beans and knows that soccer is visually inferior to basketball. So from my personal viewpoint, Beckham and his crap TV show, faux hawk, and pug nosed bride, can all go pound sand.

What I'm working on this week

2008-12-16T05:09:00.000-08:00

1. In search of a Men's hair care philosophy; Barber Shop versus Salon. 1000 words. I found a couple of really charming Pakistani barbers, but of the three chairs only one has a tenuous grasp on english. I asked him what advice he had for balding men and he said, "no problem, if less hair I charge less."

2. How t0 make a marinade, featuring Ricardo's Mom's Chicken Adobo by way of Nate Dalton. 250 tiny words. Nate has some advice of his own for balding men, which he offers in protest to the trendy Kojak look: "Be a man, just be bald."

Here's the first draft:

Ingredients:

Whole Chicken, cut into pieces
1 10 oz. Can Coconut Milk
1 Bay Leaf
1 clove Garlic, smashed not cut
1 cup 7-Up
2 cups Soy Sauce

Dutch Oven
Measuring Cup

Cut up one whole chicken making sure that the resulting pieces will all fit in a standard casserole dish without peeking over the lip of the container. Use a plastic cutting board, and make sure to wipe down any surfaces that the raw chicken comes into contact with.

Fill the casserole dish with 500 ml of soy sauce. Peel one large garlic bulb, and add the smashed (not cut) cloves to the dish. Also drop in one whole bay leaf. If you prefer a sweeter taste add 250 ml of 7-up.

Cover the dish and place it in the refrigerator over night.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and pat dry, preferably using a non-linting type of towel, you don't want to be picking lint out of your dinner. Fry the chicken on medium high heat in a Dutch Oven until browned. If you don't have a traditional ceramic dutch oven, any pot that has a cover and is suitable for baking will suffice.

Strain the solids from the remaining marinade and pour it into the dutch oven and place the whole thing in the non- dutch oven at 350 for 15 minutes or fully until cooked. Once the chicken is through, set it aside and add one can of coconut milk to the marinade, reducing until proper viscosity is achieved. Serve the chicken over rice, ladling on the final marinade as desired.

3. Must have gadget's. This one's pretty self explanatory, I will definitely be promoting the Nikon D-40 which is an amazing value. By the way, if you click on the pictures a high resolution version will open in a new window, then you can see what I mean. 650 words.

4. Sustainable Developments in the Gulf Region. In which the solar powered oil derrick final gets some good press. I think all PR people might be part of the same huge inbred gene pool, because they so often seem incapable of dredging up the very basic resources that their clients have tasked them with providing. Individual realtors are always better at getting back to me than developers, whose PR toadies are too busy setting up facebook pages. Maybe it's my common-man circa 1998 hotmail address that gives me that faint whiff of blow-off-ery. 1500 words.

Also, I somehow missed the towering Christmas Tree at MOE when I was there for my home stereo assignment. The tree is surrounded by a pink clad polar bear santa and his ice skating penguin chums, who whiz by excitingly on an electric rail.

I don't find any of this the least bit perplexing, in fact I've decided that the commercialism of the holiday is actually less worrisome in a Muslim country. The decorations surely arrived with the malls, and now they're here to stay. This is afterall, a country that has it's own shopping mascot, a distant Pac-man cousin by the name of Modesh.

Anyway, two trips to the mall in one week proved to be too much for me, and I was forced to hide out in MOE's movie theater, leaving Ness to shop for boots on her own, although I did assist in the final decision once I'd seen all the lovable Zoo escapees settled in Africa. Madgascar 2, which was the only film with an appropriate start time, is either a work of great cinematic charm, or I was just extremely relieved to escape the mall. I didn't even really mind the catered event taking place in the seat next to me, although short ribs seem like a strange choice for movie food, even if it is TGIThursday's signature dish.

Winter on the inside

2008-12-11T01:19:00.001-08:00

Apparently it takes an Islamic country to bring Christmas decorations to a less blaring volume, and while there are plenty of tree decorations and stockings in sight, we are at least spared some of the traditional grotesquery. Just yesterday I spent several hours tooling around Mall of the Emirates researching a 700 word primer on buying a stereo. The first editorial stricture was that all the products I wrote about had to be available at this particular mall, and the second was that the article should avoid sucking. Happily MOE offers a wide range of equipment, spanning a variety of incomparably nasal computer speakers to the stern looking but highly musical and esoteric McIntosh amplifier, a version of which once helped Jerry Garcia to kick out his loping electric jams.

MOE is also home to climate scoffing Ski Dubai, a nearly 10,000 square foot indoor ski park, now featuring a permanent Picabo Street exhibit, wherein the former Olympian and Mountain Dew shill entertains onlookers by trading ski tips for clean clothes and/or hot meals at MOE's St. Moritz cafe. I haven't yet had a chance to set ski-boot inside what is essentially the world's largest walk-in freezer, but each time I visit the mall I'm drawn to it's glowing facade. Ski Dubai is like some huge and frigid human terrarium, it's inhabitants forced into unwitting visual harmony by their rental togs. Because the best views are reserved for the many dining establishments that skirt the park, and I'm currently adhering to the kind of fiscal diet that encourages eating at home, my pictures offer only the most cursory views of Ski Dubai. Someday, when the economy thaws out I'll take some shots from the inside.

Upon exiting the mall I encountered a puzzling art-show/corporate ad campaign that refers to itself as The Art of Can. All submissions contained some vestige of, or reference to, a Red Bull can, a guideline that made the paintings excruciatingly bad in particular. While anyone seeking thoughtful consideration of contemporary art would be better served visiting Rob's excellent blog, I can tell you that my reaction to the show varied from amusement over it's brazenly compromised premise, to genuine admiration of the craftsmanship evident in certain submissions. While the included submission is perhaps genuinely inspired by Rodin, I choose to think of it as a pun on the word "can", one that might be titled "The Art of going to the Can" or, maybe just "Rodin on the Can."

Indoor S'more

2008-12-09T03:02:00.000-08:00

This winter has brought the return of dessert into our household, as I suppose most winter's tend to do. The main problem I have with keeping sweets in the house, is that if they're not around I have no problem shutting them out of my mind, unless they've been on the menu recently, in which case their absence becomes problematic. We've been treating ourselves to tea and dark chocolate in the evenings, but wound up short on supplies during a recent scrabble battle. Actually, we really hadn't had chocolate regularly, or in such large amounts, until after the Empty Quarter trip. Ness had bought fallout shelter like quantities of S'more ingredients in anticipation of colonizing our non-American friends with this sticky treat. Had we somehow found ourselves separated from the group, we might have of survived for weeks on end eating nothing but chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers.

So, when we returned from the desert with a surplus of S'more fixings, the chocolate, once recovered from the sun by a stint in the freezer, was the first to go. As I said, I have excellent self control when it comes to things that require effort to procure. But, load the refrigerator with pumpkin pie, and I'll help you unload it in short order. This tendency left a disconcerting horde of marshmallows and graham crackers on hand, and my initial inclination to polish off the grahams with my lunchtime bowl of soup has been vetoed by the powers that be. Yet when it came to light that we were in dire need of dessert, we improvised a somewhat satisfying brand of chocolate-less S'mores over candlelight.

While wooden popsicle sticks do make excellent skewers for this purpose, it's worth noting that they are a good deal more flammable than their more densely compacted cousin, the wooden bbq skewer. Also, attaining the subtly roasted shades of marshmallow that I remember from my family's many excellent cabin trips, has proven impossible over both coals and candle, and may in fact require a proper open flame. Still, there's something pretty satisfying about roasting a dessert food on your kitchen counter, and you don't have to own a chef's torch or a gas range to make it happen. If you can manage it, I'd recommend that you save some chocolate for this purpose, as the marshmallow and graham cracker version feels a little desperate going down.

Dance Fever Brunch

2008-12-07T02:08:00.000-08:00

In the frenzy to build Dubai up from its sandy origins, the ex-patriot community here maintained a six day work week for many long years. Mercifully, things have normalized somewhat, although the current five day work week does seem to include quite a few twelve hour (or more) days and, adding to my confusion, runs Sunday through Thursday. Work to live I say, not the reverse.

Dubai's penchant for workaholicism, has propped up another popular "holicism" with the advent of the fancy brunch. Born of the intense need to counteract the cubicle blues, Dubai's toiling Poms, Kiwis, Aussies, and Seeth Ifricans of yore began a tradition of bacchanalian friday feasts. Let us pause to examine this ratio; six long days of transacting business in the Islamic world, and one day of riotous western excess within the enabling confines, and devil may care pricing, of a large hotel.

Hotels play a central part in ex-pat night life because they are cultural embassies of a sort. They represent mostly neutral ground with regards to Islamic Law, and have the market cornered on public drinking establishments. Hotels are the only places serving lunch during Ramadan, and are the unofficially sanctioned locus of prostitution. Let me add here that freelance writing is going just fine thank you, and that I'm not referring to my own career prospects here.

You can drink in your own home in Dubai, provided that you're not Muslim, and that you complete an application for a liquor license, which includes a letter of consent from your employer and a cap on booze spending based on a percentage of your income. This also seems like a good time to mention that grocery stores feature a walk of shame section where pork products are sold and where, inevitably, a sign announces that "this section is not for Muslims." According to my pal Tom, the liquor stores will reward reaching your sauce quota with a couple bonus bottles of whisky, ostensibly to get you through the impending rough patch. Alcohol is bought at what Pennsylvanians might call a "state store," and like PA, whoever's connected enough to get one of these state sanctioned liquor contracts is making a killing. Although plenty of folks drive to Sharjah to get their supplies from a place called Barracuda, thus circumventing the license laws, much like Philadelphians buying in Jersey.

This past Friday, we attended our good pal Jane's hippie themed 30th birthday party at Yalumba, a supposedly Australian restaurant, that serves Indian, Japanese, and Arabic food alongside grilled surf and turf and the requisite chocolate fountain. Either by coincidence or design, Yalumba was 'asses to elbows' with birthday revelers, hosting at minimum, six independent celebratory groups. We arrived a tad late, unsurprisingly, but the last brunch we'd been to hadn't really started until an hour and a half after the appointed time, so I guess we thought that was normal. Dubai is not a punctual place in general, as the crippling traffic and habitual detours have rendered the pace fairly languid. Who really knows when anyone will arrive?

As is my habit, I elected myself designated driver, a choice informed by Dubai's zero tolerance DUI laws, and my own genetically enhanced tendency to smell like I've just bathed in Maker's Mark after downing a single beer. I don't know why this is, perhaps I'm some sort of human distillery with untapped potential. So I left the champagne to the others, and loaded my plate in diplomatic style, representing several corners of the globe in an ad hoc food U.N. Turns out proper Ice Cream recipes appeared around the same time in both 18th century England and America, but early American ice cream was easier on the teeth, as anecdotal evidence no doubt supports.

After brunch the tables and chairs were cleared away to reveal the dance floor, and a hidden DJ began cranking out every cliched wedding dance floor hit in Wizard of Oz fashion. At first I suspected that it was actually just an iPod spewing funk pheromones from it's tiny plastic hide, but when a middle aged lady (possibly my hilarious pal Ricardo's long lost aunt) began hiking up her skirt suggestively to Tom Jone's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" the mystery DJ revealed his or her professionalism, immediately toning things down thereafter with Sinatra. Who, by the way, strikes me as more of a fighter than a lover.

After six or so hours at Yalumba, which I should emphasize was really fun, even if the British clearly don't "get" my dancing, there was no way I could hang in there for the after party at Fibber McGee's.

Fibber's, as it's often referred too, is like a Disney World version of an english pub, that somehow miraculously happens to be full of English people due to some strange coincidence of tourism. Perhaps it's Manchester United Supporters' day in Orlando, and Virgin Atlantic is offering a two for one from Old Blighty to New Shiny.

Whenever I think of Orlando I think of Shaq, who apparently plays for Miami now and is planning to enter law enforcement upon retirement. Who knew? Still, being virtually a Disney character himself, I imagine the big guy spends a lot of time in the magic kingdom, maybe he'll even seek assignment there when he becomes a cop-- how'd you like to get tasered by that guy? Fun stuff.

So Fibber's is always full of UK ex-pats, who, from the relative clarity of my designated driver's position, seem to be having a depressingly good time. These people are, quite possibly, even better drinkers than lapsed Mormons-- it's that impressive. The reason I find Fibber's challenging, is certainly not because I resent the fun they're having, you should see our pal Phil (the fellow dancing with Ness above) at these events, singing along as the cover band belts out the Proclaimer's solitary hit. His glee is infectious. The thing is that Fibber's just reminds me that I'm living in a vacuum, a place that's neither Western or especially Eastern, but in fact many places all on top of another, and that the only authentic American counterfeits in Dubai are horrible places like Chili's and T.G.I. Friday's. Which, by the way, should really be called T.G.I. Thursday's here given the work week. I'm morbidly curious to poke my head into one of these places and see if it might be full of rowdy bolo tie wearing Texans, except, the only thing I can ever think to say when I happen across a fellow countryman, is "hey, you talk funny."

And finally, a post script: Despite appearances, Jane is not attacking Vanessa on the dance floor, I think she was just grooving REALLY hard. [EDIT: image removed at Jane's request]

Also, we ran across these similarly dressed Kuwaiti nationals (in the last picture) at a gas station, and were trying to find out if they're in a boy band. "Are you a dancer?" Vanessa asked, "Sometimes." The guy with the Nelly band-aid replied.

I love a parade (at 100 kph)

2008-12-03T01:43:00.000-08:00

We recently had time off in honor of UAE National Day, which marked the 37th year of the Union. Long before we saw evidence of the celebration, we could hear its frenzy from nearby Jumeirah Beach Road. While there was apparently a pedestrian parade moving slowly through Jumeirah One, our own Jumeirah Three played host to a full throttle display in which red, white, green, and black festooned SUVs gunned their engines up and down the block, horns ablaze. Many of the drivers had decked out their rides with images of the Sheikhs in various stages of statesmanship and leisure, and one ambitiously decorated Range Rover even sported a matching overstuffed teddy bear. In my experience, parades drip by at a humble pace, but here the participants, who seemed only loosely affiliated, tore down the beach road at somewhere around 100 kph. Apparently this show of power means more than a good look at the carefully crafted decorations ever could.

The weather has cooled since the rain, which revisited us overnight, and as such we've kept our windows open lately to enjoy the cool breeze and spare the air-conditioning. UAE National day, already a petro-celebration in it's own right, has temporarily corked our once airy home. The sound of the automotive revelry continued late into the night and might have interrupted our scrabble game if we hadn't closed up the house. As such, it remained a low and constant murmur as we groped around our vocabularies for that perfect seven letter word.

I'm not deterred by the sounds of aggressive motoring, it's just not what I want to hear when I lay my head on my pillow. In fact, I'm actually related to the Ventura Raceway legend known as Brian "Dirty Bernie" Nelson. Bernie is, blood relations aside, an absolute dynamo behind the wheel. My Dad spends a lot of time at the races too, I think he's on the decorating committee or something.

Just kidding Pops.

I'm learning that the automobile is a central fixture of life in Dubai. People are enormously proud of their cars, and prefer them to be in showroom condition. Many car owners here opt to wrap their seats up like Laura Palmer in order to keep them pristine. It's a strange sight to see a wealthy family in a Porsche Cayenne, trolling down the beach road with their plastic wrapped car interior-- it's an entirely different expression of enjoyment than you'd expect at home. In fact, plastic wrapped furniture is something I associate with a sort of uneasy ascent out of poverty, an impulse someone might have upon owning their first nice couch, dreading that first stain, perhaps heightened by the feeling that one's ability to purchase such things could be fleeting. What I find puzzling, is that for me, the plastic itself is far more objectionable than a stain or tear. My own tendency is towards a miserly love of craigslist bargains, which happily, my wife is adept at finding. I'd rather own something with a modest number of inherited flaws, than deal with the eventuality of marring something myself. This is because I know I'm going to eventually choke on some graham cracker dust and shoot searing hot Earl Gray out my nostrils and onto whatever item of furniture is currently propping me up, I am reconciled to living this way as it's just part of who I am.

On the beach 2

2008-12-01T01:53:00.000-08:00

I make it a habbit to drive by Sunset Beach on occasion to see if anyone's surfing, but have only seen activity there three times now. This past weekend was the best I've encountered, but I didn't have the camera with me and when I came back after an hour and half it had gone completely flat. I'm finding the conditions here much more mercurial than I'm used to, almost as if you'd need to sit at the beach all day waiting for that short window when it's good, but only on those rare days when its ridable.

So, rather than head home immediately, I thought I'd take a few pictures of the sand excavation project at the end of the beach, on the opposite side from the famed Burj Al Arab. While this self proclaimed seven star hotel is architecturally interesting on the outside, and we were recently excited to see a helicopter landing on the tennis court/helipad/giant hors d'oeuvre tray, the interior is extremely gawdy. It makes Donald trump's affinity for gilt-everything seem understated.

I'm not sure what the impressively large pile of sand is meant for, Vanessa thinks they're excavating in order to build another hotel, I like to think it has something to do with the city's artificially enhanced coastline.

At the moment, Vanessa is waiting outside the house for round two with the police. This time we were smart and had her call. The one privilege afforded to women in Dubai is that they are often given more expedient access to services, especially governmental services, via the ladies queue. Shorter lines, longer hems, better scents (sense.) We've been waiting for about four and a half hours now, but they just called to confirm our address. So, that's pretty good by West Oakland standards, where one is encouraged to "see a gun" in order to illicit a quick response. Still, I miss my scrappy neighborhood. I'd been parking for weeks in what I assumed was a public lot, when a particularly abrasive man in a Misubishi micro-SUV rolled up demanding, "WHY YOU PARK MY HOUSE?!"

OK, so again, I'm the one with the limited language skills, I realize that. If Dubai had it's own verision of Geno's, they wouldn't serve me. And yet, there's no need to yell little man. I don't need one of your eight, usually empty, parking spots. I just didn't know it was private since it's located where the sidewalk would be, and features perpendicular parking, something I associate with municipal parking lots across the globe.

So I don't park there anymore, and I'm resisting the urge to menace my new mustachioed nemesis in a scene for scene recreation of Cape Fear or, alternatively, What about Bob?

Vanessa just walked triumphantly back into the house, holding a green accident report in her hand which will, we think, exonerate us from financial responsibility for the mystery scrape. She charmed it out of the police, telling them that their prowler was nicer than what a cop in the U.S. would have, which it is. The police cars here range from large Toyota SUV's to 3 series Bummers. Sadly, the motorcycle police in Dubai look like they should be directing runway traffic with a light baton, not at all tough, like the officer who impounded my pickup in San Francisco-- that guy was all leather (including his face) and cigar, which he lit up as he sat back to await the tow truck. I didn't do anything heinous by the way, I was too slow in registering my car when I moved back to California, and ironically, too quick in changing my insurance, which gave me away.

I'm convinced that there's some nefarious scheme, or at least a policy change in effect because three other rental cars in our circle of friends have been rejected for undocumented blemishes, and none of the drivers are aware of hitting anything. At least we're free of the bureaucracy for a while. We'll have to get national ID cards eventually, for which the wait time has been reported at around seven hours, and that's if you make an appointment. But they've reportedly moved the deadline back, although it's unclear what limits might be placed on non-card holders in the interim. Why I need a national ID in addition to a Dubai Driver's License, a US passport, and a residency visa with my photo on it, remains to be seen. I suppose it's to keep us safe, very very safe.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T01:21:00.000-08:00

My visit to the police department was less than fruitful. I spent hours standing in line as countless post-accident odd couples struggled to get their story straight. These budding Oscar and Felixes would jabber loudly at the police officer until eventually the cop would throw his arms up in disgust and dispatch the arguing couple to negotiate amongst themselves. One of the things that makes police work so hard, is that an incredibly high percentage of the people that they interact with on any given day will be lying to them. Up is down, red is green, and so on. This is the very same thing that makes it painful to interact with the police (I absolutely hate being pulled over, although I'm basically a law abiding person) because dealing with a human lie detector, much like the mechanical variety, simply makes you feel guilty. I had the same reaction years ago when an employer sent me to a dismal, rundown clinic for a pre-employment drug screen. I had absolutely no cause for concern, and yet just taking the drug test made me feel both guilty and slightly degraded.

When, after a long wait, it came time for me to approach the counter, the sergeant and I struggled to understand each other, finally agreeing that I should bring the car into the police lot for inspection. When I returned from moving the car he was busy writing up an accident report for another pair of misfits, and so I sat down and waited for him to finish. About half an hour later their paperwork was completed and the sergeant promptly stood up and left for his break. I tried to get one of the other officers to help me, but they insisted that I should wait for the sergeant, who, when he did finally return some forty minutes later, seemed to have no recollection of our earlier interaction:

"Two car accident?" "No just one car." Where?" "It was parked in Jumeirah Three, is that what you mean?" "No. Where car now?" "It's in the visitor lot." "OK, bring car here now."

Now, this guy is probably from Yemen, and he probably speaks four or more languages, so I really don't mean to criticize his english, which would have my non-existent Arabic pinned and howling in pain almost immediately if we could somehow pit our language skills against each other in an ultimate fighting cage match. But, explaining the fact that I had no clear idea how the scratch came to be, and that furthermore, I had nothing to gain by lying as the rental is fully insured, proved nearly impossible. He kept asking where we scratched the car, and, probably because he's in the business of listening to lies all day, he was offended by my perceived obstinacy, throwing his hands up in the air in the international hand signal for "you're full of shit, and I give up," and walking away. I think he had some idea that there was a communication problem, because he sent out a more fluent Emarati officer, who wore a festive police tunic, in what must be a nod to traditional dress. This new officer informed me that I should come back in the morning as they were "only dealing with emergency reports" for the remainder of the evening.

So, in order to reclaim Thanksgiving from the law enforcement blues, I drove to the store and grabbed whatever Thanksgiving staples I could find, which wound up being a giant halal turkey breast, a box of cran-raspberry juice, and some pear slices that came soaked in cranberry juice. Which, combined with mashed yams and asparagus, made a nice finish to a crazy day. After dinner we played scrabble, our ice skating plans long abandoned due to my lengthy stay at police HQ.

When The Rain Comes

2008-11-27T02:36:00.000-08:00

By morning the flood had all but disappeared, unveiling a trail of flotsam that led right to our door like some unwelcome guest. Because there is so little annual rainfall in the UAE, there's almost no drainage. So when it does rain, it floods. In fact the curb in front of our place floods when Makhboub hoses down the boat, which is every other day. Last night's rain came on suddenly. I was hunched over the computer straining to produce 1500 words on Argentine real estate when I heard the familiar tapping of cloudburst. I miss the dampening fall weather of Northern California but was slow to recognize the rain, as its sound was not only unexpected, but partially masked by the white noise of the air-conditioner. When it dawned on me that one of Dubai's extremely rare rainfalls was upon us, I ran outside to collect our camping gear, which had been airing out on the porch. Then I put on dirty clothes from the laundry hamper (why soak the clean stuff, especially when you're running low) and ran to shut the windows on the rental car.

I'd left the windows cracked open to allow some air flow. I don't know why but the Yaris smells really bad. We should have exchanged it ages ago for a fresher unit, preferably one with two working speakers. When you listen to certain Taj Mahal songs in this car, sometimes all you get is banjo, as Taj's honeyed voice is hard panned to the dead speaker. Despite being an occasional contributor to Wheels, I'm really not a huge car guy-- that's my Dad's job. Yet I will say that the stereo in our new car really makes a difference after driving the rental for several months, that and the keyless entry, I'm a big baby about manual locks.

Today I need to take the Yaris down to the police station to get a "no fault" write up for an accident that never happened, at least not to us. The law in Dubai prohibits any auto body work from being performed without a police report. So when Vanessa initially tried to return the rental yesterday, the agency inspector found a longish scratch running along the driver's side rocker panel. The thing is, we have no idea how it got there or if they just missed it in a previous inspection, it definitely doesn't appear to be a fresh scratch.

I'm going down to the police station to get the report, so that I can get permission from the rental agency to return a car that I no longer need and never wanted. After that we're supposed to go ice skating in honor of one (or two) of Vanessa's departing co-workers. I fully expect to repeatedly fall on my cold cold ass. Should be a fun day.

Goat's Head Souk

2008-11-24T06:26:00.000-08:00

With the desert still in our thoughts, our dusty crew drove into Al Ain around 4PM on Saturday afternoon. Al Ain, sometimes referred to as the UAE's Garden City, quietly hosts somewhere around 615,000 souls. It is the closest thing to my own hometown that I've found in the Middle East. Unlike Dubai, Al Ain has a downtown you might actually want to walk around in. I don't mean to be hard on Dubai, it's a nice city and I hate to see it's collagen filled lips in a pout.

We checked into the Al Ain Hilton and found it pretty much as you'd expect. The Hotel was clean and welcoming and even had a waterslide, on which I was definitely the oldest person not escorting a child. We had a relaxing, if unremarkable stay at the Hilton, and our camera stayed put in it's bag as I'm pretty sure everyone knows what a resort looks like. That night we were treated to huge buffet that featured at least one discrete food item per attendee. My own plate was piled with grilled lobster tails, grilled Iranian style chicken, grilled rice pilaf, grilled salad, grilled tea, and so on. The food was excellent, so delicious that it more than compensated for the instant coffee.

The next day we managed to descend to the lobby just in time to join the group on a tour of the city's very active outdoor souks, or markets. Departing from Tim's Villa (he commutes home on the weekends) we made our way along a cobblestone footpath through a remarkably dense congregation of palms. Peering down form the elevated path we could see an aqueduct channeling Al Ain's natural spring water through the area. Shortly, we came to the goat souk, where we met some of the friendliest people we've come across here in the UAE. They were eager to have their pictures taken, even demanding that we return the following weekend with prints. These rural goat ranchers, many of whom are from Egypt, Yemen and Oman, are quite different from the Lamborghini driving Emarati in their 2003 flashback Von Dutch caps. Two of the men proudly produced their own cameras, which in each instance was a wether beaten camera-phone. Perhaps this is where the glut of discarded cell phones should go each year, they can become the polaroids of the third world.

Our crew of excited new friends plucked an unbelievably docile goat down from their truck bed, depositing it in Vanessa's welcoming arms. The goat was significantly tamer than our two extremely spoiled cats, and made no attempt to wriggle free. We spent so long with the goats that we completely lost track of the group and wound up wandering around Al Ain on our own for the rest of the afternoon. I did have one of the team's walky talkies (when you write that term down it seems impossibly silly), but couldn't elicit a single 10-4 from our good buddy Francis.

Downtown offered a ponderous number of Camel supply stores, many of which featured the image of a red crescent (think red cross) surrounding a camel's silhouette. These dromedary depots were packed to the humps with all variety of powder, pellets, and solutions dedicated to camel welfare, all laid out in a casual manner that brought to mind Toby's Feed Barn. The shopkeepers seemed completely baffled by our desire to photograph their storefronts, but chances are none of them read this blog anyway.

Nearly all of the UAE's small eateries, shawarma shops you might call them, offer a wide variety of fresh blended juices. So, to wrap up our exploration of downtown we bought ourselves a pair of smoothies and hailed a cab back to the Hilton, opting to spend the balance of our trip in or near the pool-- which is almost always fine by me.

The Empty Quarter

2008-11-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

I find myself absentmindedly thumbing through my passport from time to time, and recently noticed that my profession is listed as Muhrem on my UAE visa. I wondered what that meant so I ran it by our friends in Mountain View. Muhrem, describes a man's legal connection to a woman, either familial or marital, (sometimes both where tribal bloodlines are dwindling) as permitted by the Koran. While Vanessa isn't required to cover her head in public here, the concept of Muhrem traditionally indicates that I'm one of the few men she can let her hair down around. As far as the government is concerned, my job is to be Vanessa's husband, and, should the police decide to come knocking on our door late at night, I have proof that my presence in our home is legitimate. While there are many unmarried couples living together in Dubai, and people seem largely unconcerned about shacking up, there is some jeopardy that non-marital cohabitation might become a problem if you run afoul of the law in some other area.

It was in my capacity as Muhrem that I accompanied my wifemployer on her work retreat this past weekend. Thursday morning we sleepily loaded our bags and borrowed camping gear into the back of our friend Ed's SUV and made for Ibn Battuta, a single story sprawl mall boasting global themed buildings of varying stye. Reportedly, "It's a Mall World Afterall" was rejected during the naming process. Aside from all the sand, it's these thematic real estate projects that invite comparisons between Dubai and Las Vegas.

From Ibn Battuta we joined a convoy of V's Environmental Group co-workers and began a longish drive towards the 650,000 square kilometer swath of desert known as Rub' al Khali, or simply, The Empty Quarter. Here the desert has a burnt orange overtone, an illusion created by a scattering of almost paprika like sand grains. I imagine this is the scorched skin of the desert, baked to a darker hue by the relentless sun. Whatever it is, you feel like you're afloat in the high seas, surrounded by sandy swells that never arrive.

After two hours or so, we left the main road and continued down a sandy path until all but one of the two wheel drive cars became hopelessly stuck. Getting stuck in the sand is apparently the desert past time, and very few of the 4x4's in our party would remain exempt. We came to a stop just across from a camel farm that breeds a very friendly, dark brown variety of Arabian camels. Myra, a Pakistani coworker of V's, noted that these gentle animals were very different from the two-humped bactrian type that she's used to seeing at home. These gregarious creatures seemed to enjoy their celebrity, and needed almost no coaxing to interact. So while most of us were off petting the livestock, a few industrious SUV owners managed to push and pull the small cars free, and we were off. We left the compact cars on the hard packed ground near the camel farm and ferried the marooned passengers up to the campsite.

Our location had been picked via google maps, and was more or less just a random set of GPS coordinates that happened to lie downwind from a decaying camel corpse. Occasionally, its alarming stench would punctuate the desert's sweeping beauty, reminding us of its potent lethality. As we unloaded our gear from the 4x4s someone made the suggestion that we lump all our belongings together and pass them down into the valley of the surrounding dunes in a coordinated bucket brigade style hand off. This plan relocated our belongings to the campsite with far fewer trips up and down the steep slope, but because we had borrowed a tent and sleeping bags (ours were custom made for Billy Barty) we had no idea what our equipment actually looked like. After pondering a cold sleepless night under the stars, of which I've never seen so many, even on the clearest night in the Sierras, I did eventually find everything and for once we managed to get our tent up before nightfall. The temperature had dropped by several degrees as the sun began to wane, and we still wound up fairly cold throughout the night even with our borrowed gear. Near dawn I got up and put the rain fly on, which improved our insulation favorably until the sun eventually chased us out of a now sweltering tent.

As this was a corporate retreat, meal responsibilities had been assigned weeks earlier via email, our appointed chefs grilling burgers and skewers of chicken until everyone was full. We contributed to dessert, toting a corpulent bag of marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars, and coaching various Poms, Scotts, Kiwis, Aussies, Seeth Ifricans, and a lone Spaniard towards constructing their first s'more. I don't think I'd had one in over twenty years myself.

After dinner I got my guitar out and somehow found myself providing the musical backdrop for a compulsory round of silly dancing. Seated around the campfire, each person was compelled to stand up and shake what their mama gave them, one after the other, no exceptions. I actually took up an instrument based on the concept that musicians don't dance, but I guess my skills were found wanting because I too cut a sandy rug. Revelers were heard late into night, with at least one co-worker adopting a new vodka fueled persona, about which he refused to comment the next day.

In the morning, I walked out into the desert until I was out of sight and ear shot of the group. The silence there is intense, and several of our fellow campers complained that the solitude exposed a low ringing in their ears that is presumably drowned out by Dubai's incessant drone. Looking around, with dunes on all sides of me, I could see the movements of birds, beetles and small animals written in the sand, tiny weaving tracks that traced inexplicable routes and patterns.

Our own presence in the Empty Quarter must have altered the landscape in ways that will be legible for some time to come, despite our best efforts to pack our trash and leave things much as we'd found them. It is a strange thing to see an essentially hostile environment like Empty Quarter temporarily populous. It's a place where the borders of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman and the UAE dissolve into anarchic confusion, a place that belongs to know one in particular. If not for our four wheel drive cars, portable shelter, and gallon upon gallon of drinking water, this quiet country would surely have swallowed us whole.

The Notyssey

2008-11-19T08:59:00.000-08:00

Dubai is like a fertile weed that has grown well beyond the confines of its formerly vacant lot, spilling suicidally into the desert and sea. It is a place constructed entirely of diamond encrusted Quakgrass, tangled in its own winding limbs, choking entire colonies of itself off, only to replace them with newer, shinier encampments. You can imagine what a visit to the local licensing agency (DMV) might be like. As our friend Phil puts it, "Dubai is efficiently inefficient," meaning that in its frenzy of growth, the municipality has churned out rule after rule to stem whatever crisis might appear, erecting layer upon layer of decree. And so, allow me to tell you about our eight magical visits to the licensing agency. A number which assumes that my final visit will be successful, which is a bold, perhaps brazen assumption. Let me see if I can recreate the series of events for you, it went something like this:

Saturday afternoon we finalized our agreement to purchase a second hand car, and, with our new pal Domenico riding shotgun, the three of us managed to exit the freeway successfully and drive right to HSBC's car loan branch by our third attempt. Dubai is growing at such a breakneck pace that by the time you visit a location a second time, the surrounding maze of rerouted roadways and exits will have changed so thoroughly since your previous visit, that successfully arriving at your destination will potentially prove more difficult the second time around. I think this is because the foreknowledge that would normally make it easier to return to a given location, actually just makes it more confusing and frustrating the second time around. As Domenico had originated the loan at this same office, this most certainly proved to be the case as we ticked off several laps around the Sheikh Road. Upon arrival, roughly ten minutes before closing, we were informed that the loan application could not be initiated without providing a Dubai Driver's License number and expiration date, something the HSBC call center had failed to mention, and which neither of us, in our capacity as borrowers, were able to offer. At that time, I considered this to be a crushing defeat. I have since revised my standards.

Sunday morning, which marks the start of the work week, we set out for the Bur Dubai Licensing office, confusingly located in Al Barsha. Eventually, we found parking in large tract of mud that brought back childhood memories of my families second pair of hogs, Ron and Nancy, so named as to dampen our sympathy. We made our way into the lobby of the agency and were immediately intercepted by a traditionally dressed, almost contemporarily mustachioed man who said merely, "License. This Way." Thus taking us each by the arm, our stately new friend reversed our course, piloting us (he wore aviator shades) towards a small office off to the side of the foyer. The sign over the office entry way announced that it was a private outfit dedicated to the business of typing. A similar practice dominates the immigration office where, in order to extend one's visa you must first visit the typing office and sit at the mercy of its severely inconvenienced typists, who take occasional breaks from their, no doubt hilarious, office banter to peck a few choice characters into whatever form you need filled out that day. I have chosen to believe that these hard working men and women, normally paragons of productivity (unlike myself), are hampered either by 1970s computer technology, or perhaps a bad case of spyware set off by those riotous farting baby clips that made the rounds a while back.

And yet, there at the licensing agency, I did not allow these previous frustrations to concern me as I settled into the institution grade seating and watched Vanessa's application trickle through the works. After a time we were informed of a logistical problem that we'd in fact been expecting, as Vanessa's California license had expired in the months since her arrival in Dubai. This had come out the night before when it finally occurred to us to check. Luckily, a solution was at hand, we just needed to visit the Deira Licensing branch, where a certain Mr. Hamdam would dispatch this particular bureaucratic road block. In the meantime, I was sent to the adjacent, and similarly independent eye exam concession, located just outside the licensing building. Clearly, some sort of vendor pecking order was in effect because the eye exam shack, which one would hope might possess at least the slightest glimmer of medical proficiency, was really just a couple guys with some eye charts and a swamp cooler. I know this, having poked my head in to inquire after the fee, knowing full well that any self respecting semi-official paper pushers would only accept cash. So I trekked back to the lobby, where the softly glowing ATM machine declined our card, despite the presence of cash (no, really) in our bank account. I think the receipt said something like, "listen, you seem like a nice guy, but I don't know this HSBC character that's supposedly holding your cheddar, so uh, maybe try the gas station, I can't help you." And I did, but the gas station ATM offered a less eloquent dismissal, "go pound sand" it said firmly.

As an aside, I should mention that this was a brand new ATM card, recently delivered via messenger after extensive phone negotiation with the bank. We had used the card exactly once previously, thus ending a nearly three month period in which the only way we could get cash was for Vanessa (who has almost no free time during banking hours) to show up at the branch. My own presence at the bank was near meaningless as, pending my recently completed residency visa, I was not eligible for UAE banking privileges. In fact, we've actually transfered money to our US account to cover bills, and then found ourselves forced to withdraw some portion of that cash from said account just to cover a rash of unexpected typing charges. This deadly ouroboros of bank fees still plagues my waking thoughts. The ATM saga began when a run of ATM card fraud prompted us to change our pin online, which although offered as a service, doesn't actually work. And thus our first ATM card was seized by yet another tough guy ATM.

Day two of licensing hijinks continued basically along the same path. At the Deira branch we found Mr. Hamdam was on vacation, but his understudy filled in nicely, only to reveal that their eye exam hut had been hamstrung (and this seems like a good time to mention Pat and Dick, my families first pair of hogs circa 1979) by a malfunctioning printer. A short walk revealed that the neighboring optometrist had closed early. Mr Hamdam's understudy did happen to mention that, not only was there a suitable optometrist in the hypermarket near our apartment, but there was also a small licensing office up on the second floor of the store. So, we made our way to our third licensing office of the day, successfully obtained our eye tests, (and I quote: "do you wear glasses for distance," "yes, I do," "that will be fifty Dirham.") and proceeded up the escalator to the licensing office, which we found nestled in a deep corner of the hypermarket near ladies hosiery. Here we were told that Vanessa's application could not be processed without a letter from her employer indicating that they had no objection to her obtaining a driver's license. After considering my application for a moment, the gentleman behind the counter informed me that I should go see Mr. Hamdam at the Deira branch. We had, seemingly weeks earlier, been informed by Aviator Mustache that my then visa status, approved pending a health test, was acceptable for obtaining a license. Turns out, he was wrong.

I have subsequently navigated the health test maze, itself an exciting round robin involving four hospital visits, and emerged victorious, or at least HIV and Hepatitis negative with no worrisome blots on my chest x-ray. None of which is a joking matter, although I do find the testing policy disingenuous at best when one considers the constant, tidal flow of pervy business travelers in and out of the region, combined with their reciprocal mass of "night laborers," who are surely here at the mercy of questionable visa sponsorship by the Al Swearengens of the arab underworld. And while I myself am not quite a kept man, my presence here, as sponsored by my lovely wife, is completely at her discretion, and includes the letter she signed permitting me to obtain a driver's license. As Aviator Mustache and his sidekick apparently joked to Vanessa while I was out arguing with cash machines, I'd better keep in line.

The next three visits to various licensing agencies were fouled twice by broken printers, "COME BACK SIX PM!" barked a startlingly wall-eyed and furious bureaucrat. Clearly he'd spent the entire day explaining the same problem repeatedly, until he could no longer bare to be civil about it. I was also deflected by a scheduling mishap-- turns out the Bur Dubai at Al Barsha Licensing office closes at 2:30, I got there 2:37. Vanessa did successfully obtain her license on Tuesday morning, and the car loan has since been approved, which puts us right on schedule to regroup with Dominico next Monday when he returns for Rome for a scant, anxiety inducing twenty four hours. I'm sure the loan finalization and title transfer will go fine.

Saltymoon

2008-11-18T01:46:00.000-08:00

Each day, late in the afternoon, I depart on what I have termed my lone lunar ramble, a tour of our corner of Jumeirah that deposits me on the shores of the Arabian Gulf with just enough sunlight left for a short run. This walk/run only revealed itself as a solo venture because my hard working wife seldom makes it home from the green salt mine in time to join me. Please don't assign any bitterness to that term, the salt mine is Miller family shorthand for the workplace, an expression that resonates with this anti-carreerist soul. I could not be more proud of her hard work and accomplishments, having waited so long for the building world to catch up with her hard won knowledge.

The lunar nature of my jaunt derives, in part, from the initially coarse quality of the sand. When I cross the midpoint of this extremely wide beach, the sand takes on the smooth tropical grain of Costa Rica or Hawaii. This is because of Dubai's immense off shore dredging project, an undertaking which pulls the soft floor of the seabed up into the light of day so that it can be reconstituted into man made islands and redistributed by the truckload along the city's shore. Each twilight the long shadows of winter nudge the senses into a state of confusion amidst November's unexpected fever.

Add to that the fact that I am an alien here, and revel in the feeling of detachment that comes with this, as I have the luxury to observe from amidst the relative invisibility afforded me by my hobo resort wear. I'm like Twain's displaced yankee, albeit from the west and lacking a machine gun. In this way, being here is not unlike my personal experience of junior high school, this time without the oversexed aggressivity of classmates. That sort of hormonal/adrenal frenzy is reserved for the UAE's roadways, which aren't so very different from the hallways of PJHS.

A few days ago, the big toe on my right foot was attacked by a camouflaged rock. I was strolling down the beach in my usual state of post-run disarray when this dense congregation of atoms reached up and bit me. My response was to howl in a manner that even my eleven day old niece would find offensive. Sonia has already established a quiet dignity that I can never hope to emulate. As such, I've been absent from the beach for a few days, but I should be making my re-entry soon. I did make one limping circuit recently, carrying the camera with me to document my route. Immediately outside our gate I ran into Makhboub, our villa's resident handyman. Vanessa and I were recently rewarded with a fish of our own from one of Makhboub and Nabil's weekly trips, I've also been invited to come along sometime, which is exciting. We successfully gutted and scaled our prize, a local hamour white fish, opting to bake it nestled in a riot of cilantro and lemon, all wrapped up in tinfoil like an insane birthday present.

Currently, our beach is home to a perimeter of red flags which are intended to keep visitors out of the water, although there is no signage indicating why, and in some places the flags are at least 50 yards back from the shore. At the sailing club, a beach near our tiny apartment, a sign perched atop an improvised fence announces that the sea is "Closed for Renovations". I have never seen the ocean fenced and corralled the way it is here in Dubai, where private beaches are often closed in by 12 foot tall fences that run some 30 yards out into the water. There's not much that can be done about the current biohazard, aside from waiting, as this poorly documented health risk is the result of untold tanker loads of raw sewage that were covertly dumped here. Eventually, a whistle blower phoned in the strange behavior of a driver seen pulling back a manhole cover that had been outfitted with an improvised handle, lowering his truck's hose down the opening, and opening the release valve. These sewage transfer drivers have apparently acted out of frustration as Dubai's grossly impacted sewage treatment plant regularly has lines of trucks waiting for hours on end to empty their bowels.

While the not-so-free local press is typically allergic to controversy, they did wisely chose to cover the sewage scandal, although one wonders what percentage of Dubai's vast army of impoverished day laborers are actually literate. In any event, the typical cast of scatophobia averse bathers, as seen in the water on any given afternoon, seems to represent a broad socioeconomic cross-section of Dubai's inhabitants, so perhaps these brave souls are just avowed antibiotic users. As for me, I'll be staying dry for a while yet.

Cowrite commitment

2008-11-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

So, I suspect two things-- the first is that photographing your own writing and posting it on the internet is both redundant (I could just paste in the text) and a little like singing your college application essay and dropping a CD-R off at the admissions office because mp3 just doesn't sound as good. My other suspicion, is that this will get annoying if I keep doing it. Still, there are two points which I'd like to make, the first is that I do have employment of some sort, and second that Vanessa is an awesome researcher and writing partner. We're teaming up on screen play based on this blog, actually, it's just a slideshow of this blog adapted for IMAX.

Army Green

2008-11-03T23:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we drove down (and over) to Abu Dhabi for a green building conference held at the Abu Dhabi Military Officers Club. The club is a sprawling hotel/convention center/Bond villain secret base that confuses the senses with indoor gardens, mausoleum grade marble, and multiple vintage weapons display cases. There was also a particular oil painting that depicted (presumably) American GI's at war in the desert. They were hurling grenades at an indistinct target and seemed at once tight knit and relatively safe from harm. I imagine this type of thing is on hand to honor and inspire (among others) the several US service men and women that we saw in the lobby of the hotel section, their camouflage working opposite its intention in plush tuck and roll leather seats, their faces unreadable or perhaps exhausted. I gather that the UAE is one place that US troops spend their R&R, I believe that the severely wounded are also brought here for treatment. For a moment, I felt I was slightly less removed from the war, which though physically closer here, has little news presence in my day to day life. Personally, I hope the new boss isn't the same as the old boss.

The conference was OK, too many of the talks were by vendors/firms pitching their products/projects, but Vanessa intimated that the USGBC conference (and others) used to be the same way in the early days. Of particular interest, was the presentation of Dr. Lana Chaar, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute, who spoke about the challenges of solar power. Strange bedfellows perhaps, I imagine at some point that the solar experts working for the oil industry were something akin to Big Tobacco's cavalcade of sympathetic doctors, i.e. exhibiting a predictable bias. But Dr. Chaar was convincingly engaged in addressing the challenges presented by solar technology, notably that the current generation of photovoltaic cells aren't especially efficient; they're expensive, rely on Silicon which is expensive due to demand, they're challenged by dust and rain (surely there's an engineering solution for this--compressed air?) and that DEWA, Dubai's utility company is only now allowing solar enthusiasts access to their grid, and in very small numbers. Still, she said two things that I think are great; that the sun emits far more electromagnetic radiation than we need to power the globe, and that solar would benefit tremendously from government subsidy, which the UAE can surely afford. One of the traditional dilemmas facing solar is the fact that weather will inevitably cause supply interruptions, and while I used to relish blackouts when I worked in an office (Later jerks! I would announce as I donned my coat), I can understand that this is a problem. In my complete engineering naivete, I wonder if the world's municipal power grids could become internationalized? Surely it's always sunny somewhere, right?

Upon return from Abu Dhabi we stopped at the lone Subaru dealership in Dubai. I have seldom seen such brainlessly aggressive driving anywhere, even in S. Jersey. Our rental car is a tiny Yaris, and the monthly rental fee is more than our car payment would be, so we want to buy something safer. Our main concern is short term resale value, it'd be nice not to wind up upside down on the loan. Subaru is relatively under represented here, and I'm trying to gauge how that will effect resale. Opinions amongst car salesmen vary wildly, afterall, they're not unlike those tobacco loving doctors of old. If you're wondering, the only hybrid currently commercially imported into the UAE is the Chevy Tahoe. So, if you slightly prefer bad gas mileage over horrendous gas mileage, the UAE has a ride for you. I realize that buying an AWD car isn't the greenest choice either, but the safety rating of the Subaru is quite good, and we'd be able to drive it out to some of the more remote camping sites we have in mind. Camping is the one thing you can do in the UAE without spending a lot of money, that is, unless you lose your pants on the car you purchase with camping in mind.

PS, that's a nearby Mosque above, not the club itself. It's actually the same Mosque pictured here.

Hats off to Hatta

2008-10-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

One Thursday a few weeks back, and keep in mind that Thursday marks the end of the work week here, we set out for Hatta, rocky jewell of the Sharjah Emirate. OK, no one calls it that, but we enjoyed a night under the stars and spent the next day exploring the Hatta pools. The pools are quite interesting, although there's definitely a problem with graffiti and trash in parts. Dear aspiring UAE graffiti artists, please keep your day jobs. You make West Oakland scribblers look like Rembrandt, and they don't need the encouragement.

They'll let anyone write here.

2008-10-29T03:10:00.000-07:00

Here's my article in Freehold Weekly, which I would never have been able to pull off without my excellent sources. Many thanks to Eric, Barton, and Hans if they're reading. Note that the pictures are slightly off, I didn't select them ultimately, and I believe that's actually Stinson Beach on the second spread, probably circa 1982. If pressed, I will admit to an inordinate amount of alumni pride in Stinson Beach Montessori, and it's beloved squash team, the Fighting Manatees. In contrast, MA and UCSC can go pound sand for all I care. Just kidding Mom, Dad, Grandpa, and anybody else who helped pai fur mai ejucashon.

Rolls Royce Blues

2008-10-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

I was the most casually dressed person at a recent Rolls Royce press conference, although I did have the foresight to wear close toed shoes. The event heralded my first trip to Abu Dhabi, and like my one subsequent trip, it was spent entirely at a hotel, and related to cars. Rolls Royce not only had better food, but we were allowed to wander about and that made the day a lot more interesting. You can see the car above, it's their sportier model. The executives on hand from the manufacturer were all German, which made for a very global experience, i.e. British automotive heritage, German ownership, UAE bling. I had an enjoyable conversation with their Marketing guy (different fellow pictured in the car), we had both independently arrived at the conclusion that the Middle East should build huge solar farms all over the desert, and replace the oil pipelines with undersea electrical lines instead. I'll be sure to mention it at my next meeting with the Shaikh. You can't actually test drive one of these cars, they sell out so fast here that every car at the event was already sold, and further, was expected by the new owner with zero miles on the odometer. As such, they drive the cars around on trucks, allowing journalists to ogle them at staged venues. On the bus ride home, which featured a hulking charter bus with a mere three passengers, we flew past jobsite after jobsite where blue jump-suited laborers toiled in the blazing heat. Upon arriving in Dubai I cabbed back to our place, nodding and smiling empathetically as my driver, Pakistani like so many of the workers I'd seen from the bus's elevated vantage point, raged over the death of innocent Pakistanis killed by US forces in the war on terror, all this because he'd asked me where I was from. He was, on a positive note, pleased to hear that I'd be voting for Obama.

Fake Dream with Real Mental Pictures

2008-10-10T03:00:00.001-07:00

I dreamt I was a model maker from the subcontinent, shaping tiny heads and torsos with my nimble fingers while some junior developer's assistant incessantly checked his watch from the doorway of my workroom. I looked down into the assembly of cardboard, clay, and glue on my desk and in so doing became one of the figures in the model. Walking across the black granite tiles of some corporate cafeteria, the thin population of figures pay no attention as I glide by in slow motion. I reach the reception desk, and when confronted with the strange scene in front of me I can't remember what I came for, "can you direct me to the elevator?" I hear myself ask. Instead, I find I'm seated at a time share presentation, the host keeps reminding me that I must sit still in order to receive my complimentary lobster. I don't like the sound of this so I head back through the lobby where a man with his back to me converses with another man whose face I can't see. Finally, I think I've found the elevator, but when my eyes finally start to focus properly I'm just standing in the corner of a hallway that doesn't lead anywhere. Later on, I will meet my wife for drinks on our poolside terrace.

All Terrain Celebration

2008-10-10T01:58:00.000-07:00

The other day we rose before dawn and piled into our friend Francis's car with the goal of greeting a certain persons birthday morning from atop one of the UAE's several crumbling mountain tops. After a bit of road diversion craziness, endemic to the world's largest construction site, we settled for renting ATVs instead. This impromptu switch from a quiet pre-dawn hike to the bone rattling chain saw buzz of a quad bike (UK term) is a decent metaphor for life in Dubai. I wish I had pictures from our ride, but I managed to drain the camera battery trying to get a G rated shot of the rental site's priapic monkey. This was the first time we'd ever been completely surrounded by dunes, amid a landscape free of roads and buildings, it was spectacular but I'm afraid you'll have to visit if you want to see it.

Presently, I'm writing an article for Freehold Weekly, the UAE's premier wrestling journal. Actually it's a Real Estate magazine, if you have any astute observations about the bay area market, send me a quote before the 12th.