Happy New Year

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.

Cowrite commitment

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

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.