I concede it was a little lonely out there, at the start. On April 5, 2010, Opening Day, I wrote on this blog that I was Done Bleeding Dodger Blue and would no longer support the Dodgers — until the team was no longer controlled by the McCourts. Any of them. In subsequent weeks, I […]

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About six months ago, when it became clear I would be writing more than occasionally for The National, I finally asked the company to make me a batch of business cards. Business cards are big in the UAE. Especially when working to bridge the English-Arabic gap, which is real and significant when covering, say, the […]

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I don’t understand people who fight with blood relatives. Maybe if they do it for some sort of weird “fun” … but my family isn’t like that. I have always liked my siblings, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my nieces and nephews, and they have always been nothing but kind to me. When I […]

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This weekend we went past the 1.5-year mark of living and working here in the UAE. We have learned much, and some of it is profound and different. Some of it is very small and different. Here’s a curious/silly one:

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One of those whatever-could-go-wrong … did-go-wrong games. Anyone who has spent any time in sports journalism probably can anticipate several of the directions in which this is going. Big game, isolated stadium, late start, game-changing scoring in the last seconds, basic error of fact not caught, late newspaper. This one had it all.

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It’s a curious fact here: Local sports news dries up markedly once we hit April. The European golf tour has come and gone, twice. The men and women of world tennis have been through the UAE with back-to-back events in Dubai. A batch of Premier League clubs dropped by for a little bit of sun […]

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It’s good to see Barry Bonds convicted of  something. And it actually is more than a little bit of something. The jury today said Bonds is guilty of obstruction. That’s a federal felony, and he could do jail time, though he probably will not. I never really cared if Bonds did jail time. I didn’t […]

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The other day, while shouting insults at my burly friend, we decided to settle this like any red-blooded males would: In the squared circle. With a hapless referee and a handy supply of folding chairs. It would be a Mexican Death Match. But I was missing one key piece of equipment … The problem can […]

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I saw the other day that gas prices in California are over $4 a gallon. Wow. That’s crossed the pain threshold, hasn’t it? But maybe that’s good. Here in Abu Dhabi, gas is about $1.80 a gallon. It doesn’t rise or fall, unless the government decides it’s time to change. I’m sure it costs less […]

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As noted a day ago, this is a country in which the citizens are a small minority of the population. Expats often are encouraged to get to know an Emirati, but it’s not as easy as thinking, “OK, I’ll do that!” Not when most of the Emiratis you see are inside their SUVs, driving down […]

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