DC for $583???

My favorite airline - Etihad - is starting a non-stop service for DC.  Since it is a new route they are offering some great deals.  I might fly out on Monday or Tuesday...

Airline	Stops	Departs	Arrives	Duration		Price
American Airlines	AUH → IAD (0)	10:00	17:00	16h		AED 2,142	+ details
	IAD → AUH (0)	22:15	19:45 (13 Apr)	12h 30m
GOING THERE: Tuesday, 2 April, 2013 fare breakup   American Airlines AA 5991 Operated by:Etihad Airways Dep: 10:00 Terminal 3, Abu Dhabi International Airport, Abu Dhabi (AUH) 16h Economy Arr: 17:00 Washington Dulles, Washington Dc (IAD) COMING BACK: Friday, 12 April, 2013   American Airlines AA 5978 Operated by:Etihad Airways Dep: 22:15 Washington Dulles, Washington Dc (IAD) 12h 30m Economy Arr: 19:45 Terminal 3, Abu Dhabi International Airport, Abu Dhabi (AUH) ARRIVES NEXT DAY

Don't you dare think of bringing melatonin into this country!

Travis is a good friend who I am sure will not be offended by making fun of him.

He is getting on the plane in a few hours to come here and he just told me he has decided not to bring any melatonin or unisom because he has read that could be a problem when he enters the country.

Umm, no.  I assured him that nobody - and I mean NOBODY - will give a damn in customs.

But I know his feeling.  I read all the warnings before I came here and I thought of many ways I could "get in trouble."  So while I am laughing at him I also understand his fear.

Also, his mother read that somebody in Saudi Arabia has SARS.

A friend of Ann & Mike's almost didn't come after his mother looked up lots of horrible things.

I totally get it - it was me in the summer of 2008 - but it's just laughable once you get here.

Student suggestions

I told my classes that I will be having my first visitor from the US.  I showed my suggestions of things to do and asked for their input.

Student 1:  "Take him to Rashed Ali"

Rashed Ali is a place where the food is cheap - something close to a burrito for $.75 - but the meat highly suspect.

Student 2:  "Then you can take him to Tawam Hospital.  It will be a two-for-one!"

Things to do in the UAE

I will be updating this list over the next couple of days...

Al Ain

• Stone grill (cook a steak on a hot stone)
• Al Noor restaurant (best moutabal)
• A walk through the oasis
• A trip up Jebel Hafeet (our one tiny nearby mountain provides an overlook of the city)
• A desert trip - the sand here is more like powder than sand
• Camel races (at this time of year they only race very early on Saturday mornings... is it worth getting up at 6?  I'll leave that up to Travis)
• Camel market 
• Downtown souk
• Cross over into Oman (just to say you've done it)
• Duning
• Fort and museum at Jahili park. 

Dubai

• Dubai Mall - World's biggest mall and has an interesting indoor aquarium
• Emirates Mall - the indoor ski slope has to be seen to be believed
• Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building... I've been waiting for a visitor to have an excuse to go up
• Sheikh Zayed Road - I don't know if it is the world's only 14 lane road but it is hard to imagine a larger freeway
• Burj Al Arab - it calls itself the world's only seven star hotel.  I'd like to go in but I've heard it's over $100 just to have coffee...

Abu Dhabi

• Sheikh Zayed mosque - 
• Qasr al Hosn - the oldest building in the country
• Emirates Palace Hotel (the place with the gold ATM)
• Yas waterpark
• Ferrari World
• A walk along the corniche (sidewalk along the Gulf)
• Kayaking through mangroves 

Opportunity cost and visiting the Emirates

My newly unemployed friend Travis (see post below) is already hard at work finding a new job.  Fortunately he decided that he could take ten days off to come visit the Emirates.  It's already warmer than I'd like for doing anything outside but since Trav has lived in Texas and Arizona for the past 15 years I think he can handle it.

My first visitor!  Yippee!

Economics presents the idea of opportunity cost:  What is the value of the next best option?  If the next best option is better, we will change what we do.  It's hard to convince someone who gets two weeks of vacation to eat up all of that vacation traveling to the other side of the planet. There are always better uses of their time and money.  (I have to accept that seeing me is just not enough of a draw.)  So it makes me sad that I haven't had a visitor in my five years but it does make sense.

Unfortunately, the opportunity cost argument didn't work with my friend Matt while he was studying for the bar... I tried and tried...

A bad week for friends

A friend studied and studied for the GMAT - the test to get into an MBA program.  When he took the exam he scored way below where he should have scored... so far below it is ridiculous.  It reminded me of a college friend who would have been a great lawyer but also scored ridiculously low on the LSAT.  It's too bad these standardized tests carry so much weight.

Another friend was fired after 11 years of faithful service to his company.  Having been there I know what he's going through.  As if the act of being fired is not bad enough, having to explain it over and over again to friends is just plain awful.  In my case I would meet people a year later and they would ask for an explanation.  I gave it and received the response, "That's what I had heard but I assumed there had to be more to it."  No, not really, people get fired for ridiculous things while the mildly incompetent can muddle through for years and years.

Another friend learned that a loved-one's terminal illness is nearing the end.  

If bad news comes in the three's I had my three last week.

Mitt Romney explains himself

Here's a visceral quote from the would-be President.

“What I said is not what I believe." 

- Mitt Romney, in an interview with Fox News, on his infamous 47% comment, leading First Read to conclude "that one sentence sums up Romney's two failed presidential bids."

Presidential candidates often change positions to get the nomination or to get elected.  As a political geek, I can't recall any candidate changing as many positions as Romney.  My beef with the Obama campaign is that they strategically chose to paint Romney as a rich, out-of-touch guy who takes pride at giving lay-off notices and banking in the Cayman islands.  I wanted them to go after him as being a guy with no core values who goes with the direction of the wind. My Romney attack is that he will say anything you want to hear.

What I learned from the campaign books I read while in Nepal?  The Obama campaign tested both attacks and found that independents actually like the flip-flopping Mitt so the Obama campaign went with the Thurston Howell approach.  I disagree but that's why I teach management classes and Axelrod/Plouffe run campaigns.

Is it a good thing?

I had one Emirati friend before coming to the Emirates.  Yousef was a freshman at Coe and in the fraternity I advised when I met him in 2004. We kept in touch after he transferred to the warmer weather of Houston.  

He's completed his degrees and has been looking for work for about a year in the US and the Emirates.  He landed a job in Dubai and will start in May.  I have incredibly mixed feelings for him.  He'll live a much better life here than he could in the US - well paid, have a maid, people to take care of everything.

So what on earth is the downside?  In Houston he led a fabulous life that I don't think will be possible for him here.  In the US we use the term "settle down and get married."  That's just not the life I pictured for my friend but here I don't know that he'll have much choice.

Another day in the life of Steve

On Thursday we had a department meeting.  Fortunately, we only have 2-3 per year so compared to 2-3 per week at Hamilton.  Speaking of, "Writing of" sounds too weird... Anyhow, today is five year anniversary of getting fired.  I worked there a little over 5 years.  Soon, I will have worked here as long.  I've been doing my happy dance all day.

But last Thursday I was far from doing a happy dance.  Long story short, I'm kinda getting screwed by being forced to recreate a class from scratch when there is just no reason to do it.  I have no problem developing classes but fixing a class that isn't broken is just a huge waste of time.  I became quite flustered at the meeting and afterwards headed to meet with my boss. Nothing positive came from the meeting but at least I was able to speak my peace.

Later that night I decided to get some work done and I realized I didn't have my laptop.  "When did I have it last? I took it to the department meeting... and from there..."  I realized I left my laptop in my Hawkeye laptop bag in the conference room.  Being it was the beginning of the weekend there was not much I could do.  On Friday (the first day of the weekend) I dutifully checked the conference room and found nothing.  I contacted the cleaning crew and learned they had picked up nothing.

Did I mention that I knew I had 2-500 dirham bills in the bag?  (That's $270.)

I remained relatively calm for the rest of Friday and Saturday.  On Sunday I arrived at 8AM and looked in lost and found.  Nada.  I found the... well, um, his title is office boy but it's just a phrase I can't use, so lets go with "departmental assistant."  He saw the bag in the room on Thursday and locked it up for me.

I opened the bag and discovered that not only was everything intact, but I had 3-500 dirham bills in there instead of two.  So I could have lost my work computer, my Hawkeye laptop bag, tons of data I haven't backed up in over a year and $400.

March 3 is certainly my lucky day.