We have stipulated jet lag just kicks my butt. At least, it does going west to east and crossing 10 or more time zones. I have remarked upon this several times, since we have been based in Abu Dhabi. Going from here to SoCal? Not a huge problem. But going from California to the eastern […]

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Not many people know who Cheyenne Woods is. But she had a better time on the golf course last weekend than did her famous uncle, Tiger Woods. While Tiger was finishing last for the first time in his career, at his annual charity tournament, Cheyenne was securing her first LPGA Tour card at qualifying school […]

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Religions in collision here. Karma, a Hindu/Buddhist concept … as it applies in the home of Islam. Or doesn’t. More likely, we are talking about coincidence. Remember the spitting, head-butting soccer player who plays for Saudi club Al Hilal? Nasser Al Shamrani? He had a very interesting couple of days in Manila a little over […]

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It gets worse. Just when it seemed as if sailing the Volvo Ocean Race represented a level of misery unmatched in world sports … now we learn from our colleague at The National, Osman Samiuddin, their food is nearly unpalatable, as well. Sailors don’t eat, in the round-the-world race. They “refuel”. This, on top of […]

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One of my favorite readers alerted me to this one: A look at Landon Donovan’s last Men’s National Team game, the one against Ecuador. Wayne Drehs wrote the piece for ESPN The Magazine, and it was posted to the espn.com site today — but I would have missed it entirely, having spent most of the […]

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Actually, I prefer the never-ending day. The day when you take the long jet ride west, and it’s only a few hours later, in terms of clocks, when you arrive, than when you left — 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 miles ago. But the lost day has something to be said about it, too. It’s a sort […]

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The city of Long Beach comes in for a lot of criticism. Some of it from me. But it has some things going for it. Particularly down by the Pacific Ocean. We spent our last night in California in Long Beach, and were glad to do so. Some scenery, some dinner, some Christmas lights.

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This crime is by far the most sensational in Abu Dhabi since we set foot in the city in October of 2009: An American mother and kindergarten teacher stabbed to death in a restroom at a tower on Reem Island, which is recently developed part of Abu Dhabi. The killing occurred on Monday, and suspicion […]

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Aside from four months in Hong Kong, six years ago, I have never spent any stretch of time in a rainy environment. Abu Dhabi gets maybe two inches of rain a year. Often in the span of a few hours. But something less than two inches over the course of a year is not uncommon. […]

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For most of my time in Southern California, Irvine was a place you drove through on the way from Long Beach to San Diego. When I was young, we knew Irvine as a lake, not a city. Where the eighth-graders got to spend a day skylarking. To us, it was deep in the country, somewhere […]

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