Today, May 23, is World Turtle Day. But I suppose most of you already knew that. Turtles rank high on the list of most-huggable animals. Though you really wouldn’t want to, and the turtles will give you a pass, as well. The little ones that the senior citizens among us remember buying to live (albeit […]

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Two television shows, one quite successful, the other a week from being cancelled, have tried to make headway with a similar ongoing question: How much of our lives is fate? That is, random happenstance out of our control. How much of our lives is about choices, decisions, that we make? And I came back to […]

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Summer has arrived in Abu Dhabi. As I have mentioned, this is a region of the world where autumn is about one month (November), winter is about two (December and January) and spring is about two more (February and March). The rest? Summer. Just varieties of summer. The unpleasant bits, the really unpleasant bits and […]

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Groceries here are not markedly cheaper than they are in the United States or Europe. Cheaper, but not off-the-charts cheaper. Perhaps because nearly everything here has to be imported. We live in a desert, after all, and eating dates all the time is not really a nutritional strategy. Can ruin your teeth, too. But there […]

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Did I mention this the other day? We have reached the time of year when we don’t really look at the weather report anymore. It’s just going to be degrees of “really hot.” Don’t need some national weather service for that. Hey, the high today, 104. Down from 106. That changes how I will approach […]

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We had heard of this phenomenon even before we got here. It sounded a bit apocryphal. The sort of story that gets passed around by people trying to emphasize Just How Hot It Is here. But now we have lived it.

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It’s Friday. Metrics of this blog indicate that readership on Friday tails off and stays down for the weekend, then comes back on Monday. What? Are you cheeky monkeys reading this while on company time? How can you live with yourself? Just fine? Hmm. OK. So, today I’m going to ramble a bit on two […]

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Landon Donovan is clever enough to have done this on purpose. He might not be devious enough, though. Anyway, whatever went through his head … pretty much count on it getting into England’s. Landon today was quoted by yahoo.com as saying that 1) England superstar forward Wayne Rooney seems tired and that 2) all the […]

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I’ve seen a lot of big-league baseball games in person. Maybe 500? No, that sounds low, at my age. Maybe 700. I was never a traveling ball writer, but I covered the Angels for a few years when I went to nearly all their home games, and between drop-in games during my time as a […]

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To recap … The United Arab Emirates, a collection of seven tribal-based entities on the northeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula … has two cities that matter. One is Dubai, the New York City of the UAE. The other is Abu Dhabi, the Washington D.C. of the UAE. Dubai has the arts scene, the restaurants, […]

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