Happiness

In two days I will take my first leave from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and it really feels good! The past couple of weeks were really good and things are falling into place nicely here at long last! As of Wednesday, I am the proud owner of a 1986 Suzuki Samurai that is in fabulous shape (but will become a bit of a project car - which I will be updating as I go):

The other big thing is that by October I should finally have my Hobie Cat which will be named Moxie:

All in all, things seem to be going pretty good ... other than trying to sort out some problems with my house with the Housing Department here at Aramco - they are more than a little on the obstinate/difficult side of things. Hopefully they will address the problems while I am away so I can avoid having to deal further with them when I get back ...

In other exciting news, there will be an HP Touchpad waiting for me in Houston (thanks to Aramis for that one) and there will be a lot of shopping to get done when I am there now that I know what I really need over here (including some Suzuki Samurai parts) ...

Oh! One last thing ... if any of my friends out there with extensive pipeline experience are interested, I can put you in touch with the decision maker for the group - he is actively looking!

A quick update

Last weekend was a lot of fun! I made it to Bahrain and has a nice bacon cheese burger and a couple of hard ciders for lunch at the Dilmun Club, which was a nice, quite break. After that, I made my back to Saudi Arabia since I finally received my membership card for the Half Moon Yacht Club (HMYC) and wanted to check it out and see the launching facilities. There, I met a couple of guys from France and one of them offered to take me out on his Hobie Cat! It was a blast going out there and having some fun seeing how fast we could get it going - we even flew the hull a couple of times! Unfortunately, our tacking was abyssmal so I know what I need to work on when my new boat arrives.

I also went to HMYC on Friday, which was really quiet for sailing and I guess I missed the caramaran fleet captain :-( The visit was worthwhile for me though - there was a dolphin cruising along the water there about 20m off the beach :-) Quite exciting!! I need to be sure to have a camera handy for next time one of the ocean creatures graces our bay!

Other than that, not a lot of excitement ... I may have found a second Hobie Cat that I can get immediately. This Thursday I will go to Jubail to check it out and see what it will cost to get it out of storage - they may be negotiable ... and I have a trailer lined up to move it if I can find someone with a truck to help me. That should not present a problem if the boat is good. If it is good, I hope to acquire on Thursday and bring to HMYC the same day and sail either Thursday or Friday (depending if it needs any new rigging).

The last little tidbit of news is that I agreed to buy a car today! Last night I checked it out and it ran well and the prices was right ... I will get the ownership transferred on Monday and have my own set of four wheels so no more rental car! It also means that I can sell my Honda Dio scooter, which served me so well until I got the rental car. So what did I get for a vehicle? Well it is a 1986 Suzuki Samurai:

My plan is to get a new vehicle, but probably not right away. The first step will be to find exactly what I want and order it. Right now I am considering the Toyota FJ Cruiser, but if I decide the Samurai is enough for me to go offroad then I may just buy a VW Golf GTI for the street and keep the Samurai for the desert :-)

What's new in Dhahran?

Being remiss in my blog has led to one very major oversight - something that is potentially life altering for me! Now what could be life altering for me (or more so than moving to a desert country located almost on the opposite side of the world from my origin) ... ?

Well, that comes in the form of something very near and dear to my heart: the sea. Dhahran is on the sea (the port itself is Dammam) and Aramco has a nice expanse on a place called Half Moon Bay. It is there my fondness for the sea can return in the form of something that will arrive here in late September or early October: my new Hobie Cat 16, which is a small catamaran!

This is the sail color pattern of my boat, which I intend to name after a creature I miss most dearly: Moxie. The boat is coming configured for racing, complete with a spinnaker for when I am in a truly adventurous mood!

The group at Half Moon Yacht Club (HMYC) is quite excited about a new boat coming it - it has been almost 15 years since a new Hobie made it to Dhahran from what I hear. There will be lots of opportunity to have fun out there - particularly with regular regattas. It sounds like a lot of the Hobie's out there are not getting enough use so I hope to rekindle interest in racing across the bay and see how fast a cat can really fly across the water ... In a couple of months I hope to blog about flying the hulls ...

So that is the quick update for now :-)

Qal'at al-Bahrain

It seems I have been more remiss than I thought with my blogging and have not yet added anything about my short excursion into Qal'at al-Bahrain, also known as Fort Bahrain. On July 14, 2011 I make the trip with a person I met on Couch Surfing. Our day started at Ric's (my favorite breakfast place in Bahrain) for some bacon an eggs. After that we made a trip to City Center Mall where I got a terrific GPS (Garmin nuvi 3780T with maps of the entire Middle East). We then decided to check out Bahrain Fort. So I will show a few pictures with some descriptions ...

Bahrain Fort is a remnant of the Dilmuns, early traders who preceded the Roman Empire and traded with many cultures. They had an interesting culture and a lot of trade with other empires; despite their small size, they were quite influential, although they also experienced a few catastrophic defeats.

A date palm above my rental car. Note the size of the dates!

This is the beach area in front of the fort area

A view of the fort from the sea area .. not terribly impressive

... until you see the scale of the walls

And the "moat" area

Arrow slits (there are also murder holes above some passages)

The right wall had openings to dump burning oil

This is the ONLY entrance

which takes you to a cool corridor

Some of the rooms were nice a cool 

My friend Eduardo for some size perspective

One of the cool rooms - a weapon storage

And the Bahrain flat and a view of Manama