We have been quite lucky with the weather, so far. It’s been a balmy 90-something since we got here. And that isn’t sarcasm. Anything in the 90s, in October? We’re ahead of the game. Abu Dhabi may not have the most miserable climate on Earth, but it’s in the running. At the torrid end of […]

[Read more →]

What was it that Tolstoy wrote? “Happy cab companies are all alike; every unhappy cab company is unhappy in its own way.” Or was he talking about families there? At any rate, Abu Dhabi has an unhappy cab system. Unhappy in its own way. Paris cabs are expensive. New York cabs feature drivers who may […]

[Read more →]

It was hard to follow American sports, in Hong Kong. In Abu Dhabi, it is nearly impossible. Via television, anyway. And that apparently isn’t a bad thing, when it comes to the baseball playoffs.

[Read more →]

Abu Dhabi is more than a little like Hong Kong, where I was a year ago today. It’s 1) all about business and the business of making money and 2) shopping seems to be a major social activity. Hong Kong shopping is fairly pervasive and spread out. Abu Dhabi seems to focus its shopping on a […]

[Read more →]

Making a big move is always easier when you know somebody — anybody — at the other end. Luckily, for us, we already know two people in Abu Dhabi, and they made our first night in town easy, fun. Entertaining.

[Read more →]

We are on the ground. And it took only 30 hours. OK, yes, that is nothing, compared to centuries past, when a continental passage was made by ship and took weeks or months. But for us softies of the 21st century, 30 consecutive hours in transit is a big number.  Particularly when two long plane rides are involved.

[Read more →]

We are spending the day today … and Friday … traveling to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates for, yes, jobs. Journalism jobs. Print journalism jobs. We hardly believe it, either, but after the events of the past 10 weeks, this all seems  like one irresistible tide of fate. Just when we were unhappily […]

[Read more →]

Normally, more would be expected from the United States national soccer team, playing at home against Costa Rica. A tie? Not enough. The U.S. has not lost a World Cup qualifier, at home, to Costa Rica since 1985. (I remember that match because I was there … a game at El Camino College in Torrance, […]

[Read more →]

Why are the most important games in baseball also the most tedious? Isn’t the idea to attract new fans to the playoffs? And what do fans like? My belief is that fans like crisp games, modest running times, contests that end before 11 p.m. … and minimum images of players spitting or fans mugging for […]

[Read more →]

The thumbnail analysis of the Los Angeles market and the National Football League is this: Those poor saps! No team to call their own. That was not the situation 15 years ago, when the L.A. market had not one but two franchises. Since 1994, then, it’s been one long, painful void for NFL fans here. […]

[Read more →]