Thanks Mark

Thanks Mark

Mark is an old friend who’s always giving me shit about something. Sometimes I deserve it and sometimes not. We don’t stay in close contact for various reasons, one being that I’m a bit of a slacker. Another being that he was working in Bangkok, then in China and now he and his wife and daughter are in Kuwait, a little closer to me. I wrote him an email about an upcoming trip to Abu Dhabi he and his family were planning and when he wrote back he dumped on me for not having posted on my blog for months and months and months. In a way I was flattered that he had bothered to check, but I also knew he was right. It was just one more thing that I’d let go and hadn’t kept up. So, here’s an attempt to start posting again. Thanks for that one Starry.

Now, here comes the part where I whine a bit and rationalize why I haven’t been blogging. A little over a year ago I was in a nice quiet little corner of the Institute where I was teaching specialized English for other training courses. While it could get busy, I see now that it was never really that busy. I wasn’t asked, I was told, that I was being moved to the English Language Section of the Institute to become the English Language Coordinator over the several different programs they have there. Life changed then. I had a job with bigger responsibilities. I’ve always tried to avoid those as much as possible. And I had a learning curve to climb. Suddenly I was giving bad news to people and saying “no” to people and managing things, mostly putting out fires. It’s taken me a while to get used to it. Luckily, the head of the Section is an Emariti Major who is one of the best people I’ve ever worked for. I still do the odd bit of teaching when there is a specialized course in my old Section, basically because I’m the only one who knows the technical material well enough to teach it. Other than that I’m in meetings, writing reports, planning courses, placating teachers, etc. It’s been a change.

What have I been up to since April? Work, mostly, is the best answer. On my summer vacation I stopped in Frankfurt, Germany for five days or so. It was miserable. The weather was just scorching and the hotel didn’t have a/c. The city itself seems like it could be fun, but the weather just made it unbearable. Back in West Virginia I helped Mom get a new car, a Honda Civic, and spent a lot of time with her and my sister Jennifer, brother-in-law Kent and niece Morgan. Also set up a retirement fund with Merrill Lynch. We did the usual dinner with Carol and her daughter Krista was visiting with her new husband and two children. Carol is a great cook. Jennifer, Morgan, Mom and I took a long weekend trip up to Amish country in Ohio. We had a really nice time. I booked us into a hotel that had stables so we did some horseback riding. We ate a lot of fattening food and shopped. The countryside there is gorgeous.

Then we had a family reunion with my Dad’s side of the family before I flew back to Abu Dhabi. I hadn’t visited them in several years. There was no real reason for that other than not making myself take the time to do it during the month I have home. We had the reunion in the backyard of my Great Aunt Sissy’s house. My Dad’s brother, Uncle Pat was there along with my cousins Norma Jean and Emma Lee. It was really great to catch up with them again. This year I think we’re going to do the same thing with Mom’s sister, Aunt Betty, and her kids and grandkids.

I missed the usual Christmas Eve with Phil and Enma and Christmas Day with Steve and Leah because I was down with the flu. There was a very bad strain of it going around and I caught it twice, the second time I actually missed a day of work, which I never do.

For New Years I flew to the UK with David and Lorin to spend a few days with David’s brother Peter in his little village of Cherlton Bishop near Exeter. It was a break I sorely needed. We stayed in small B & B just across the lane from Peter’s cottage (thatched roof). Jean and her husband Ron operate the B & B and they are really nice people and Jean is a great cook. They retired from farming and now operate the B & B. I recommend it highly. I fell in love with the village. It was nice and peaceful and relaxing and the countryside beautiful. New Year’s Day we trained back to London. David and Lorin flew out to Canada the next day. The next day I slept in late and didn’t do much of anything. The following night I had tickets booked for a play, “The Woman In Black”. It was basically a two-man play, a ghost story, and they had staged it brilliantly. It was a nice evening. After the play I had dinner near the theater and then took the Tube back to the hotel. On my last day I did a little sightseeing, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the London Museum. Then I met Phil’s brother, Stephen, for drinks and then dinner in Soho. Flew back to Dubai the next day. It was a nice break.

Since then I’ve been involved in getting onto the new contract system at work. It’s been a bit of a stress but I think I have it all sorted and should be moved onto the new system by end of this month. The Major has been a really big help. Other than that it’s just been work and a few evening out on weekends. Usually about one weekend a month I visit David and Lorin in Sharjah. We always end up drinking in Dubai. No surprise there, though.

Most of my earlier postings on my previous blog were related to politics, mostly American. Truthfully, I’ve lost most of my anger about that. The current government has gone beyond humiliating and incompetent and sleazy to the point where it is just a total and sickening disgrace. When will this Bush nightmare ever end?

Okay, that’s enough for this round. I’m going to make an attempt to at least make short postings on a regular basis. We’ll see how that goes. Wish me luck.